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The Meaning Of Adultery In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

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Several years ago it would hardly have been necessary to discuss the meaning of “adultery”. Virtually every educated person knew that “adultery” is a sexual relationship that somehow or another breaches a marriage relationship. In recent years, a new view of adultery has been espoused by a minority element within the church. It is the notion that “adultery” is merely the act of repudiating one’s marriage vows (whether or not the covenant breaker ever enters a new marital union). Task here is to analyze the word as such when it intrudes the scenario of great novels in the literary genre. The novel which is subjected to analysis is Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Anyways, to label Hester by such a crude word as “adulterous” would rather be insulting and so the paper tries to adhere to the term ‘passion’, which is the most gorgeous term in the dictionary. To make it clear, she had an unadulterated passion towards her “instincts”. So this paper claims her as the “grand feminine”, and her tragedy as the “Tragedy of Grand Passions”. …show more content…

His works reflect reality and romance, actuality and illusion, the real and fanciful, the natural and supernatural, the literal and the imagined. He was a natural moralist and a philosopher. Hawthorne usually treats Puritanism, not as central theme but as a dark background for the ideas and for experiences, which deeply concerns him. He is not a mystic. He cannot be considered as a transcendentalist, but he was attracted by its free inquiry, its radicalism and its contact with radical life. Some call him as a romancer of Puritanism. His biography makes it clear that he was an admirable man and in all ways

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Nathaniel Hawthorne was a transcendentalist. He judged his Puritan ancestors in their deeds, especially the witch persecutions. Transcendentalism, Puritanism and the idea of witchcraft were reflected in his novel The Scarlet Letter. Although The Scarlet Letter doesn‘t address witchcraft directly, witchcraft saturates the background of the novel. Many factors factors had their influence on the Puritan society, be it positive or negative.

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The definition of integrity in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is a firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values. A character with integrity is willing to sacrifice anything of sentimental or physical value, even their life or reputation, to defend the moral system they govern themselves by. It takes someone of strong character to possess integrity, because the temptation to give in is every so often immensely appealing. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne is a character of such integrity, because she upholds her promise with Chillingworth and refuses to flee from the punishment of the scarlet letter “A”.

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Guilt Obsession Within the novel The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathanial Hawthorne Reverend Dimmesdale drastically develops throughout the novel, from being a symbol of Puritan religion to displeasing the population of the Puritan expectations through his actions. His appearance as well as his privilege and prominence within the community alters radically. He begins the novel as the town reverend, and later, the shame of Hester accepting the entirety of the blame and the fact that he escaped with no punishment or shame from the town ultimately consumed him. Throughout the novel, it was revealed that he had a red mark on his chest in correlation to the “A” that was displayed on Hester’s chest.

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She is a beautiful, young woman who has sinned, but is forgiven. Hawthorne portrays Hester as "divine maternity" and she can do no wrong. Not only Hester, but also the physical scarlet letter, a sign of shame, is shown as a beautiful, gold and colorful piece which

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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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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).

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Nathaniel Hawthorne, a famous American author from the antebellum period, notices the emphasis on individual freedoms in the works by Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalists during his residency in the Brook Farm’s community. In response to these ideas, Hawthorne writes The Scarlet Letter, a historical novel about Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale’s lives as they go through ignominy, penance, and deprecation from their Puritan community to express their strong love for each other. Their love, even though it is true, is not considered as holy nor pure because of Hester past marriage to Roger Chillingworth, and thus Hester gained the Scarlet Letter for being an adulterer. Hawthorne utilizes biblical allusions, such as the stories of

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Even though the Puritans may have designated the letter as a representation of sin, Hester’s renewed sense of pride does not want society to define the A for her. Rather Hester wants to define it herself and by doing so she develops responsibility and power over her own actions. Because Hester has the power to change who she is, she also has the power to change what the Scarlet Letter represents. By letting the letter be “embroidered with gold thread” readers are able to see how for Hester sin is not something to be fearful of; furthermore, it allows one to see how Hester has developed into an independent individual who accepts who she is and the situation she is presented with. Hester’s lover unfortunately

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Effect of Sin and the Chance of Redemption Sin is a powerful action that has an everlasting consequence of guilt. Once done, the person wants to forget about his felonious actions; however, hopefully a person’s conscience is a constant, nagging reminder. In order to be free of the constant pain, redemption is pursued for even the person who sinned in public or private. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne proves that the truth of sin eventually need to be confronted in order for a person to stop suffering.

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The Scarlet Letter, a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850, functions as an evaluation of Puritan ideas, customs, and culture during the 17th century. Through this evaluation, we can get a good idea of what core values and beliefs the Puritans possessed, as well as the actions they take in cases of adversity brought about by “sinners”. Some Puritan virtues created stark divisions between groups of people, some of which led to discrimination under certain circumstances. One of the most prominent of these is the treatment and standards of men and women, a concept that surfaced during some of the major points in The Scarlet Letter. The divisions that were created by Puritan standards of men and women played a great role in shaping the plot of The Scarlet Letter, determining the fate of many of the characters.

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Nathaniel Hawthorne did not always speak positively toward the Puritans, but he has respect for the group. The main symbol that stands out is the scarlet letter “A” that was stuck on Hester Prynne for her actions of adultery which is a theme for this book. Another symbol is the rose bush that grew right outside of the old, rusty, decaying prison

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The society’s intentions to portray themselves as pure individuals while condemning Hester for her sins even though they mask their own, highlights the hypocritical nature of the society. Ultimately, by the use of the supernatural character of Mistress Hibbins, Hawthorne is able to provide a metaphorical representation of the hypocrisy in the society while conforming to the conventions of the gothic genre. Moreover, through the presence of negative emotions that catalyze actions, Hawthorne effectively illustrates the consequences for not confessing sin while conforming to

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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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Adultery, Able, Angel. The Scarlet Letter is about a woman who can take a symbol that means one thing and changes it to mean the complete opposite. In this novel a woman named Hester Prynne had committed a sin of adultery and is forced to wear the letter “A” on her chest in remembrance of her sin. The story takes place in the mid 17th century in a Puritan town of Boston. The rest of the story is based upon trying to find out who the father of Hester 's baby is.

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