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Analysis of The Scarlet Letter
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Recommended: Analysis of The Scarlet Letter
“Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry./Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.” (Colossians 3:5-6). Throughout The Scarlet Letter the main characters are both sinners, but over time they vindicate the reputation that they had once made with helping others and coming clean for the cleanse of their souls. Hester, the reason for this book has on one of the most simple things, she has committed adultery. At times Hester, the reason for this book has on one of the most simple things, she has committed adultery.
The exception indicated the ever relentless vigour with which society frowned upon her sin.” (Hawthorn, pg 48.) Even years after she committed adultery, her reputation was still so foul that the townsfolk would not allow her to make things deemed “pure.” They thought it was inappropriate. Still later, seven years after Hester was forced to stand upon the scaffold, the minister Arthur Dimmesdale announced that he was the one Hester committed adultery with, and then fell down, dead.
In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, and in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, there exists a common theme of adultery, a sin according to the commandments of the Puritan church. The stories center around the adulterers- John Proctor in The Crucible, and Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter. Both are members of early Puritan communities that are known for their very devout faith. Each character shows different reactions and feelings towards the sin, and each must face different consequences. A common theme that brings the two characters together is that they are given a chance to escape their sin and move on with their lives.
Abigail Williams from the Crucible and Hester Prynne both have their reputation tarnished because everyone is aware of the sin they had
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.
The stories themselves closely relate to The Bible story entitled Jesus and the Samaritan Woman. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester commits adultery which causes her to be shunned from her community in Boston. Speak’s Melinda Sordino suffered the sexual sin of another character named Andy, which caused her to be shunned from the school she was enrolled. In the story of Jesus and the Samaritan Woman, Jesus told the woman, “for you have had five husbands, and the on you now have is not your husband” (English Standard Version John 4.18). Similar to the characters in the novels, the Samaritan woman had also undergone adultery, in which she chose to commit herself.
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
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.
What if two people commit the same sin and yet only one is judged? These are the deep rooted questions asked and explored in “The Scarlet Letter”. The novel takes place in a 17th century puritan community. Hester Prynne has been found guilty of being an adultress and must now wear a red scarlet “A” on her breast for the rest of her life, to show the world that she has transgressed. The adultery resulted in the birth of a child named Pearl.
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.
This is just another example of how women and their bodies are policed under this dichotomy. Yet men are free from the being either the Madonna or the whore because that separation is exclusive to women. Throughout the story, Hester’s torment is contrasted with the man whom Hester had an affair with, Arthur Dimmesdale. Despite Arthur revealing his part in their adultery, the townspeople do not condemn him. In the conclusion, the narrator reveals how the spectators refused to believe that Arthur’s “dying words, acknowledged, nor even remotely implied, any, the slightest connection on his part, with the guilt for which Hester Prynne had so lone worn the scarlet letter” (Hawthorne 566).
The townspeople “[began] to look upon the scarlet letter as a token, not of that one sin, for which she had borne so long and dreary a penance, but of her many good deeds since.” This quote exemplifies how sin is not a death sentence for Hester. Through hard work and charity it allowed the rigid Puritan society to see her as something different, and as someone who would not let society define who she was. Hester, thus, was not only able to change herself, but also the image in which society viewed her by working hard to benefit the public. Likewise, the scarlet letter which was supposed to represent sin was instead “fantastically embroidered with gold thread, upon her bosom.”
When Hester Prynne committed adultery she was punished greatly. She was made to stand in front of the town on a pedestal being shamed. Not to mention the scarlet letter A on her chest representing the crime that she had committed “That Scarlet Letter, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity” (Hawthrone pg.
“Dare to know!” Such words, written by Immanuel Kant, embodied a wave of thinking that challenged tradition with individualism and reason. This wave, the Enlightenment, occurred during the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe. Enlightenment thinkers often discussed the innate goodness of human nature, tolerance, equality, and freedom. Kant focused on freedom and the necessity of thinking for oneself.
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)
