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The interpretation of “the scarlet letter”
Symbolism of the scarlet letter
The interpretation of “the scarlet letter”
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Puritan’s harsh beliefs represented the beginning of the Nineteenth Century in the newly colonized America. Their community ruled with an iron fist: unforgiving, pitiless, stern. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne expresses his disagreement with puritan priorities by revealing the hypocrisy widely practiced throughout their community. Hawthorne’s utilization of dim diction aids in the establishment of his scornful tone, while inclusion of symbols and intricate juxtaposition all serve to accentuate the Puritan’s duplicity. All these factors combine to develop a critical tone which rebukes puritan society.
During the course of this past week and a half, I have been wearing the letter I chose to represent me. My results I received were very weak and almost unresponsive. But didn’t I wear it all day for a week? Yes, people tend to mind their own business while walking in-between classes.
When you think of a Puritan society, what comes to your mind? Perfect, flawless, and a religion based on following God? Well, that is what it says on paper, but is it really that perfect? Throughout the Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne jabs at the Puritans in an attempt to portray just how flawed they really are. After reading the book, you want to think that Hawthorne is telling the story of sinning in a Puritan society.
"His mangled body sank out of sight, and blood and brains marked the water where he had stood." (Douglass, 67). Just one sentence can prove how brutal slave-owners, slaveholders, and overseers can be towards slaves. A use of violence to control slaves can be seen throughout the book, and Frederick is very against violence in all forms. He only uses it when it was necessary,like the fight with Mr. Covey.
The Scarlet Letter is an excellent example of how the power of a symbol can be enough for a person to change for better or for worse. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, one of the main characters, Hester, is punished by wearing a scarlet letter “A” as a symbol for the sin of adultery she committed. This novel documents how a small, red symbol can affect someone and how that person changes as a result of it. Throughout the book, Hester visibly changes as a result of the scarlet letter not only mentally, but also physically. In The Scarlet Letter, the scarlet letter changes Hester not only internally changes Hester’s thoughts and actions, but also physically changes Hester’s appearance into a dark, gloomy character.
Throughout chapters six and seven of The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the influence adults have on children is depicted. The Puritan community is seen as a Greek Chorus with one voice for the entirety of the community. It is noted that the Puritan elders’ “ugliest weeds from the garden [are] their children (Hawthorne 87). This can be supported when Hawthorne describes them as “the most intolerant brood that ever lived” who only have “vague idea[s] with ordinary fashions” (86). The children of the Puritan community, the little Puritans, are following their parents footsteps, mirroring exactly how they would act as adolescents.
The Scarlet Letter and The Puritan Age are very similar and have some connections; both have the same location, punishment, and a society. The Puritan age was a time when most of the settlers who came to America were Puritans from England. The Puritans were a group of English Protestants who wanted to “purify” the Church of England and use simpler ways of worshipping. The Scarlet Letter is a book about a woman named Hester that commits adultery and becomes pregnant. The town then dismissed her notably because she refuses to expose the identity of the baby’s father.
In 1692, Massachusetts was churning with accusations of witchcraft and sorcery under the pointing fingers of its puritan occupants. Among those unsettling personages was John Hathorne, great great grandfather of Nathaniel Hawthorne and impenitent prosecutor of sorceresses. Nathaniel was haunted by his ancestor’s presence on his tree and added a “w” to his surname to avoid any awkward associations to the passionately misguided puritan. His aversion to puritan sentiments is also reflected in the pool of his literary works-- notably The Scarlet Letter --by his equation of the ideal puritan woman to death (as in of the individual). He likewise condemns the puritan’s use of regret to mold a vulnerable human being into something drearily unnatural.
The Prison Door In this Chapter from The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne introduces the setting of the book in Boston. He uses a gloomy and depressed tone in the beginning of the chapter. He is able to convey this tone using imagery while describing the citizens, the prison, and the cemetery. However, as he continues to discuss the rose-bush, he uses parallelism to shift the tone to be brighter and joyful. To create a gloomy and depressed tone, Hawthorne uses imagery.
Conflict arises in seventeenth-century Boston when a young women, the wife of an unforgiving husband, has an affair with a faint-hearted man. Throughout Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book The Scarlet Letter light Vs. dark is demonstrated through a prison, the home of the
The Hidden Sin and The Revealed Sin As humans, we live in the that are brimming with sins and evil desire. As the creator of all the creatures, God, sent his only son to save the people from the control of devil. The only thing we have to do is to acknowledge our mistake. Bible teach us that we should tell the truth to God and your neighbors, and God will forgive you. But people are worse, they not only hide the sin and their evil behaviors but also try to deny it.
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.
The Scarlet Letter and Uses of the Puritan Past illustrate various aspects of the cultural values in Puritanism and their societal impacts. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne depicts Puritanism as a bleak, strict cultural instance in which people who do not conform to their rules are shunned and distanced from society. In Uses of the Puritan Past, Puritan culture is described as a social construct based on four primary virtues. These virtues were the main influence of Puritan activity in Uses of the Puritan Past, as they were responsible for the creation of social rules and essential morality resulting in increased power and influence of the Puritan over every day Puritan life in New England. Even though both The Scarlet Letter and Uses of the
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
Bhimani 1 Outline Prescribed Question: How does the text conform to, or deviate from, the conventions of a particular genre, and for what purpose? Text: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Thesis: In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne effectively conforms to the conventions of the gothic genre for the purpose of characterizing the Puritan society as oppressive, portraying the hypocrisy found within Puritan society and highlighting the consequences for not confessing sin.
