In The Scarlett Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne creates Hester Prynne, who is affected by the sin resulting in a psychological novel. Hester’s sin of adultery affects her. The Boston community abhors Hester, including the young children who throw mud and rocks towards her. In
The oxymoron of death and celebration often occurred in Puritan societies as Puritans viewed public punishment and executions as joyful entertainment. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne examines the concept of guilt and how it negatively affects the human soul. As he reveals a dark and gloomy Puritan society, Hawthorne introduces Hester Prynne, mother of young Pearl, who has recently committed adultery and is being publicly shamed for her punishment. Betwixt and hidden beneath this conflict, is Arthur Dimmesdale, Hester’s partner in crime, who struggles with the guilt of his sin. As the town begins to forgive Hester Prynne, Dimmesdale’s distraught soul causes his physical and mental health to decline.
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 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne reveals a lot about the human condition. A theme that is consistently expressed throughout this novel is the drastic effect of committing a sin, or something that is considered immoral in society. Specifically the book focuses on how secrets can weigh on a person’s mental state and lead to a heavy toll on their daily livelihoods. Hester Prynne, and Arthur Dimmesdale both have to pay a hefty price for the toll that keeping secrets has caused and that is what the novel reveals about the human condition.
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.
Scarlet Letter They said to him, “Teacher this woman has been in the act of adultery. Now in the law of Moses they commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne 's “Scarlet Letter” three characters embodie the morbidity of spirit. The Characters this essay will be speaking of are Dimmsdale and Hester Prynne. I will show you how they show their morbidity and how they reacted to their sin. Hester Prynne in the beginning of the book was young and beautiful. As she grew older and lived under her punishment her features grew harsher .
During the early 1600’s, Puritan groups migrated from Europe to the Massachusetts Bay Colony to establish a settlement based around very strict religious beliefs. The Scarlet Letter is set in this time period and settlement where it was considered a horrendous sin to commit adultery. Hester Prynne engaged in sexual relations with the minister, Dimmesdale, which resulted in a child named Pearl. This novel highlights Hester’s struggle to raise her child and protect herself from the societal attacks thrown at her, while overcoming the label bestowed upon her by society. In, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses specific diction, repetition, and denotative diction in order to convey the purpose of overcoming labels and protecting one’s image.
There are a limited amount of things on this earth that are inevitable obstacles and one of those is sin. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote an interesting story called “A Chapter from an Abortive Romance,” that sin plays a significant role in. In this story, the main character, Ethan Brand, was a lime burner that recently returned to his home city from a quest to find the unpardonable sin. (The word “unpardonable” suggests that one commits a sin that is so despicable that this sin is unforgivable by God.)
Dimmsdale betrays Hester and does not confess to his own sin; he is afraid to take responsibility for his role in the affair. The alleged virtuous women of the town publicly stigmatize and shame Hester. The town council leaves Hester no other choice than to live secluded from society and deprived of social interaction. The public, at first, refuses to grant a job to such a dishonorable woman. However, the townspeople’s actions go further than simply punishing Hester for her sin.
Sin was a substantial problem in the 1700s that had to be confessed, no matter the circumstance. The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a novel about adultery during the Puritan times. Public Confession and The Scarlet Letter, written by Ernest W. Baughman, is a scholarly article that looks at the history of theses specific Puritan times. Nowadays, crime and felonies are actions that happen daily all over the world. In the 18th century, sin was completely unacceptable.
The path to fulfilment remains a vigorous and difficult road for one to travel upon. In his 19th century novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the tale of Hester Prynne to warn readers of the dangers which revenge beings upon oneself. Hawthorne warns of the dangers guilt upon one’s conscience too, bring into one’s life. Hawthorne encourages one to revel openly and proudly of one's mistakes; for only through acceptance of all aspects of oneself and one achieve a truly fulfilling life. Guilt can cause one to behave erratically and unnaturally, and oftentimes cause a great deal of pain within oneself.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is heavily centered on showing diverse ways the Puritan people could face guilt and sin. As the plot develops, the four main characters: Hester Prynne, Pearl, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingsworth, all reach individual climaxes by dealing with the effects of guilt and sin differently. Hester confronts the guilt of adultery head on by flagrantly wearing a scarlet letter on her chest, Pearl deals with guilt and sin by being a living symbol of Hester’s egregious offense, Arthur Dimmesdale confronts the guilt of sin privately which leads to mental instability, and Roger Chillingsworth faces guilt and sin by being consumed by the darkness it causes. There are several climaxes in The Scarlet Letter due to the main characters facing the central conflict, the effects of guilt and sin, in various ways.
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)
From Heroine To Sinner In D.H. Lawrence’s essay, “On The Scarlet Letter”, he rips apart the character from the novel The Scarlet Letter. The motive of his essay is to show how Hester Prynne should not be praised for the sin she commits in the story. D.H. Lawrence expresses his dislike towards Hester by using concise syntax, biblical allusions, and a mocking tone throughout his essay. Lawrence’s brief syntax displays the disgust he has towards Hester and allows him to employ other effective literary devices.
