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Scarlet Letter Response Essay

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The Scarlet Letter While the book, The Scarlet Letter, was set in the 15th century, it still contained many lessons that can be put to use in today’s society. In the Puritan community, individualism is discouraged and even punished. If one doesn’t live to the high moral standards, they will become outcasts of the community. Hester Prynne committed the sin of adultery and her life suffered greatly because of it. Sadly, in the modern world, adultery is considered the norm and isn’t scrutinized like it used to be. While Hester lived in a completely different world than I did, we still share basic similarities and both believe that we shouldn’t be treated differently because of our flaws and imperfections.
Throughout The Scarlet Letter, Hester …show more content…

I don’t know why I was anxious because in reality, my letter was self-explanatory and decorated to match with the adjective. Also, the letter C couldn’t stand for anything else except for creative because most people knew I wasn’t “cool” or any other adjective like that. I wasn’t treated differently because everyone guessed the meaning of my letter correctly. I felt different throughout the day because I didn’t like when the younger kids would look at me weirdly and wonder why I had a letter hanging from my neck. Wearing the letter was significant because it made me think how Hester would’ve felt wearing her letter all day. However, instead of wearing it for one day, Hester had to wear hers for the rest of her life and bore a negative trait instead of a positive one. From this assignment, I gained a new perspective on how others thought of me compared to how I thought of myself. For example, others assume that I’m quiet because I don’t talk that much in school. Outside of school, I love to talk to my friends and family members. This assignment also reminded me of the theme of The Scarlet Letter, “Be true!” Like Hester was true to herself by wearing her sin on her chest, I should be true to myself and wear my true personality with pride. I shouldn’t hide the real me from others just because I’m afraid of how others would judge

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If someone were to know why I was wearing the letter, they may have reacted differently. If it were my full word, would they have reacted differently? Wearing the letter “P” was not difficult at all for me. This did not stoop up to what Hester had to deal with. Peers only commented on my letter because they knew what it was for.

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Megan Parzych 4 Ms. Krygier Honors English 10 26 November 2017 Views on the Scarlet Letter In history, the Puritans were very strict and liked punishment. They looked upon people who have sinned in a very negative way. This is evident in The Scarlet Letter. The townspeople looked at Hester Prynne and her sin in a very strict way and wanted her to be punished greatly.

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The Scarlet Letter opens with Hester Prynne, a young woman who has committed adultery and is being punished. She is shown to be a proud, confident woman but is quickly forced to mature under the burden of public humiliation. Hester becomes an unhappy and bitter woman, her mind and body hardened by the stress of her punishment and her inability to forgive herself and move on. Throughout the story, she struggles to come to terms with what she has done and only when she finally does, can she return to her former happy, unburdened self and regain her former beauty. At the start of the novel, Hester has just received her sentencing for her crime of adultery.

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We are all sinners, no matter how hard we try to hide our faults, they always seem to come back, one way or another. Written in the 19th century, Nathaniel Hawthorne shows us Hester Prynne and how one sin can change her life completely. Hester Prynne changes a great deal throughout The Scarlet Letter. Through the view of the Puritans, Hester is an intense sinner; she has gone against the Puritan way of life committing the highest act of sin, adultery. For committing such a sinful act, Hester must wear the scarlet letter while also having to bear stares from those that gossip about her.

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In The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the story of Hester Prynne, a puritan woman living in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the year 1642. She lived in a community where religion and law were almost inseparable. She is known for committing an adulterous crime that is punishable by both religion and law. After moving to Boston from England without her husband, Hester engaged in an affair and had a child named Pearl. After refusing to reveal the father of her child, Reverend Dimmesdale, she is sentenced to wear a mark of her crime on her clothing for the rest of her life.

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Punishment of Puritans for their sins occurred harshly and frequently, and these punishments ranged from fines, branding, and severe whippings to hanging and death. Many of these penalties involved public humiliation of some kind, which made it extremely difficult for townspeople to accept by their peers after they had sinned. Because the Puritans believed religion was immensely important, the community was often reluctant to allow citizens that exhibited sinful behavior to achieve redemption (Cox). However, in the case of Hester Prynne, an adulterer in Nathaniel Hawthorne 's The Scarlet Letter, the townspeople eagerly made amends with her. This novel narrates the life of Hester Prynne, who committed adultery and courageously accepted the repercussions

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The Scarlet Letter begins in 1642 Boston, Massachusetts with the Puritan society punishing Hester Prynne for her sins against God. The puritans believe that any crime is a crime or a sin against God and the Puritan leaders take this very seriously. Hester committed adultery with an unknown man. She was living out her punishment peacefully with her child Pearl until Roger Chillingworth appears back in town. No one knows that Chillingworth is Hester 's husband except for Hester.

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Adultery- In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne Commits adultery. Once she has committed she gets shamed for life. Adultery is also a very important point throughout the story. It shows how it can wreak havoc on anyone’s life.

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The scarlet letter begins its role as a symbol in the novel by bearing a penal meaning, as a punishment for an adulterer. The scarlet letter initially manifested itself as the embodiment of sin. If the sacred command, “Thou shalt not commit adultery” did not exist the rest of Hester’s existence would completely change and the sin would disappear. But alas, for Hester the strict puritan community forces her to wear the scarlet letter. Consequently, she must bear with her the association between the ornate fabric has: “The magistrates are God-fearing gentlemen, but merciful overmuch,—that is a truth," added a third autumnal matron.

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The book “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a complex novel that has underlying themes of sin and the responsibility for sin. The novel takes place in a Puritanical society, but two people, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, fornicate with each other, even though Hester is married to someone else. Only Hester is punished, so Dimmesdale keeps his guilt inside, not revealing it to anyone. Hester’s husband, Chillingworth, then proceeds to ruin Hester’s partner in crime, corrupting his soul and being the ultimate cause for his death. Hester, on the other hand, leads a relatively happy life after she had repented for her sin.

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When Hester finally takes off the scarlet letter “A” and her cape in the wilderness, it not only represents the beauty she held despite the emotional punishment she underwent, but it also represents her removing the Puritan and patriarch society holding her back. Hester’s feminist conscious is intricately portrayed throughout the

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(Hall, 127). This idea of a fair and just society was the centerpiece of Puritan society, and it subsequently led to the virtue of community over the individual which was previously discussed. When it comes to The Scarlet Letter, the ideology that Puritan morality is fundamental to everything is truly front and center. Hester’s struggle due to her past sin is a perfect example of this; The ministry attempted to purify and protect the community by excluding Hester from societal affairs, even going as far as attempting to strip Hester of her custody of Pearl. Overall, Hester’s forced

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In the “Scarlet Letter,” Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays hypocrisy of the Puritan society, where the protagonist Hester Prynne face many consequences of her actions and the how she tries to redeem herself to the society. During the seventeenth puritans believe that it is their mission to punish the ones who do not follow God’s word and it is their job to stop those from sinning. Therefore, the hypercritical puritan society punishes Hester harshly for committing adultery, but in Hester’s mind, she believes that what she did was not a sin but acts of love for her man. Eventually, she redeems herself by turning her crime into an advantage to help those in need, yet the Puritan society still view her as a “naughty bagger.” (Hawthorne 78)

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