Character Analysis: The Scarlett Letter

727 Words3 Pages

Hunt, Azshanay
Mr. Corfman
English 11, Period 1
4 December 2015
Scarlett Letter Essay When reading the novel The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne I found that not everyone is righteous and almighty. When regarding religion it’s not a yellow brick road you can .just follow, you are eventually going to wonder off and stumble, but it’s up to you to repent. The point this novel brought to me was that we are the main cause of our pain. We place guilt upon ourselves and we end up going crazy over it, so it’s up to us to forgive ourselves. Regarding Chillingworth’s “revenge”, I find that the reason he chose to torture Hester and Dimmesdale rather than just letting everyone know that he was Hester’s husband was because he felt hurt and betrayed …show more content…

Both the Puritans and the author used symbols having to do with religion and spirituality. The “A” Hester was forced to wear by the Puritans represented adulatory and to both the author and the Puritans, Pearl was a symbol for sin. To the author Chillingworth was a symbol of the devil or a symbol for evil. Symbols can both foreshadow and comment on an event that already occurred however,in this novel they tend to comment on events that have already taken place. Hester’s symbol helper her become a giver and made her become more of an introvert. The symbols helped a reader understand the book by making connections, for example, in the end of the book when Dimmesdale has an “A” on his chest. That symbol alone can tell you that he is connected to …show more content…

He was there to increase the amount of guilt Hester and Dimmesdale had even though Dimmesdale didn 't know Chillingworth was Hester’s husband he still felt the guilt. I don 't necessarily believe that Chillingworth is as evil as he comes off to be in the story but I do believe that he is is doing far worse in his actions that Hester and Dimmesdale. I do feel sympathy for Chillingworth due to the fact the only woman he will ever love cheated and had another man’s child as well as the fact the love he feels for a child that isn’t really his in the end of the novel when he leaves his fortune to Pearl. I’ve come to believe that this act is him redeeming himself to Pearl and