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Puritanism in the scarlet letter essays
Analytical essay on symbolism and theme in the scarlet letter by nathaniel hawthorne
Puritanism in the scarlet letter essays
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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.
Chris Ocampo Period 4A October 18,2015 Character Analysis/symbolism/Theme Identification-Analysis Essay Nathaniel Hawthorne’s use of symbolic commentary and conventional themes in The Scarlet Letter, The Ministers Black Veil, and The Birthmark, characterizes sin and judgment as deformations within us all. Within each of Hawthorne’s’ works sin reflects internal and exposed sins, as well in people’s flaws. However, there deformations expand further than the objects that they wear. All of the major symbols and themes in Hawthorns selected works embody Alienation. Hester Prynne, Aylmer, and Mr. Hooper are linked to the ambiguity of Puritan morals.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is a novel that focuses on sin in the Puritan society. Hawthorne revolves the theme around the four main characters Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, Roger Chillingworth., and Pearl. Hester Prynne is forced to wear the scarlet letter ‘A’ after committing adultery against her husband Roger Chillingworth, with the minister Arthur Dimmesdale. As a result an odd child is born.
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.
Fault, Youth, and Symbolism in The Scarlet Letter The majority of society bases their perception of an individual on wealth, appearance, name, family--an infinite number of things. What if one was told that his or her own brother, sister, best friend, or even their mom or dad was a murderer? How would he or she react? What would they do?
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.
Although Hawthorne admits slavery is wrong, he also claims that God does not want people to interfere with the natural ways of society and believes that these interferences will cause too much violence. Hawthorne considers The Scarlet Letter as a “moral parable.” It depicted the hypocrisy of the Puritan society and was written as a moral lesson for history not to repeat itself. The Puritan paradox was that the Puritans claimed to be united by God, yet ostracized people who sinned. The American paradox 0-=during the time of Hawthorne was how America claimed to be free, yet slaves and women were subordinate to wealthy, white men.
Imagine living in a place where one small sin could define who you are for the rest of your life. That is what happened in The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850. The novel is set in a seventeenth-century Puritan community in Boston, Massachusetts. A young woman by the name of Hester Prynne commits a small act of adultery and is shamed for the rest of her life, by wearing a scarlet letter “A” on her breast. The book is centered around the theme of justice and judgement.
However, he also uses these allusions to create a new side to his narrative as evident when he describes Hester’s resilience, and to create a new element in the plot as evident in his description of Dimmesdale’s penance and need for redemption. Therefore, Hawthorne demonstrates an effective use of allusions to craft a religious and detailed narrative for The Scarlet Letter by reviewing on parallels between the Bible and the novel’s main characters. There’s more to The Scarlet Letter than these allusions though, and there are many questions to answer about this book. These questions may never be answered fully, but by reading the novel itself, we might find the right places to start searching for answers and formulate our own opinions on the matter. What’s important from this novel is the realistic warning about what might happens when an individual place themselves too highly among others, a message Hawthorne writes to warn against the fervor of transcendentalism of his time.
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
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.
In The Scarlet Letter, 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 the society and highlighting the consequences for not confessing
Hawthorne described three things in The Scarlet Letter. Sin, guilt, and redemption. Hawthorne uses people to symbolize them. Hester Prynne was one. Hawthorne allows the reader to get a better understanding by using biblical references.
Puritans felt redemption could not be achieved because the sins were so wrong and so evil. Hawthorne used redemption to help develop the characters and the ideas the reader had on them. The whole book happened because of a sin that occurred, and that sin was the cause of many actions of the characters. Throughout “The Scarlet Letter,” Hawthorne
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)