What Is Halthorne's Judgement In The Scarlet Letter

In our society, judgment is seen every day, everywhere, and by everybody. People judge others by the color of their skin, their affectations, and by the clothes on their backs. Nathaniel Hawthorne in the mid-19th century revealed how the severity of our judgments can be a reflection of our moral values and our upbringings. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne creates characters, who, through their decisions, illustrate the effects of societal judgment, which becomes a catalyst for self-destruction.

Although this novel was written almost a decade prior to the United States Civil War, its conflict is set in a mid-17th century Puritan society that was formed as a result of religious persecution in Europe. The reason for colonization in this New World

His great-great grandfather, John Halthorne, was a presiding judge in the Salem Witch Trials of the 1690s. In addition, with an absent sailor-father, who died when Hawthorne was a toddler, the family, which included his mother and sisters, lived with the wealthy, well-known Halthorne family in Salem, Massachusetts. As he matured, Hawthorne developed an internal conflict because he started to realize and feel guilt for what his ancestors and his family valued and how the judgments made by his ancestors affected others’ lives. Hawthorne internalizes his family’s judgments against others and seems to seek atonement for his ancestor’s behaviors. Towards the start of his career, Hawthorne’s guilt lead him to distance himself from the rest of his family and that concluded with him changing his surname to Hawthorne. He did not want to be further associated with anything and anybody from the Halthorne bloodline due to their austere values. This need to reconcile the actions of his ancestors towards the end of the 17th century is noted in his novel. In the introduction, “The Custom House”, Hawthorne writes of the time when he came about the story of despair that is Hester Prynne’s tragedy. He utilizes imagery to illustrate himself picking up the embroidered scarlet letter, putting it on his chest, and then letting it fall to the ground because “as if the letter were not of red cloth, but red-hot iron”(Hawthorne

At the beginning of the novel, Hester Prynne stands in the marketplace on the scaffold as the reverend, Dimmesdale, speaks to her, demanding to know the name of the father of the baby in her arms. Afraid to reveal the identity of the infamous father, she states, “my child must seek a heavenly Father, she shall never know an earthly one!” (Hawthorne 69). Soon after this interrogation in the market place, it is revealed that Dimmesdale is the partner in crime to Hester’s sin. But, throughout the book, Dimmesdale keeps his identity as the father of Hester’s illegitimate child, Pearl, a secret. Over the seven years that he was shamed into silence, Dimmesdale’s guilt accumulated as Hester was ostracized. In chapter 9, Hawthorne depicts the first evidence that illustrates that Dimmesdale feels remorse and sorrow for the sin that he contributed in. He is contaminated with an illness that Hawthorne uses to foreshadow what is to happen to the clergyman in the future, his demise. Hawthorne emphasizes Dimmesdale’s internal conflict and the relation to his illness by stating that Dimmesdale “on any slight alarm or other sudden accident, put his hand over his heart, with first a flush and then a paleness, indicative of pain” (Hawthorne 123, 124). Soon after, Hawthorne explains why Dimmesdale touched is palm to his heart as depicts Chillingworth sneaking