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Symbolism in scarlet letter
Symbolism in the scarlet letter
How did nathaniel hawthorne use symbolism in the scarlet letter
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Sin in puritan times was not taken lightly. Ignominy was how sinners were punished, and in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the protagonist Hester Prynne was no exception. She was publicly shamed, and forced to wear the letter “A” on her chest. Everything that was meant to be ugly in Hester’s life, turned into something beautiful.
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.
Hester argues that she cannot be judged or labeled by the town, because God is the only one who can judge her. The letter adapted different meanings as Hester’s story continued. Once Hester received the letter, the letter
The Scarlet letter is set in 17th century Massachusetts in a puritan town. The novel focuses on the character Hester Prynne who is publicly shamed for having an affair and giving birth out of wedlock. As a result of her act she is forced to wear a scarlet letter “A” on her clothing at all times. Through a variety of events Hester Prynne goes through a journey of repentance to make her feelings of guilt into strength
dominating presence in Hester Prynne’s society as well. Faith was so dominant in Prynne’s society that they were going to move across the globe to escape and seek refuge from sin. In Puritanical society, sin was awful and stayed with you for your entire life. Faith dominated everything and dominated specifically over Hester and Reverend Dimmesdale. “It had been determined between them, that the Old World, with it’s crowds and cities, offered a more eligible shelter and concealment than the wilds of New England” (Scarlet Letter 137).
In The Scarlet letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hester Prynne is a winner because she overcomes a patriarchal society. Hester overcome this patriarchal society by having her own business that helps her provides for herself with no help of men. She also stands up to the men in her town to protect her daughter. Hester demonstrates being a winner because she changes the meaning of her badge to something more symbolic.
The letter was recognized as meaning “able.” The effect this letter has on the novel shows the theme of redemption. Hester came back from the negative things said about her and changed it. She proves how her good actions spoke louder then the letter on her dress. My letter stood for “high-strung,” and this means nervous and stressed.
During the Scarlet Letter experiment I did not get many reactions. Hester Prnyee got much more reaction then I thought I ever would. She had an “A” embroider to every piece clothing she owned. The “A” symbolized adultery, however, I had a P in my binder symbolizing polite. Hester got a lot of hate for her letter because everyone knew, on the other hand not everyone knew about mine so not many people gave me hate about it.
The novel The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850, focuses on the life of a young woman named Hester Prynne, who is tried and convicted of adultery. In the beginning of the book, Hester is seen on the scaffold, clutching a baby. Throughout the first three chapters, the baby is mentioned, but not given a very prominent role. However, her character truly adds an inside look into the chapters. The first time the baby appears is in chapter two, when Hester is walking up to the scaffold.
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
I felt very confident in my Scarlet Letter Project. Like Hester’s scarlet letter, I made my letter as ornate and beautiful as a piece of art. I assembled pieces of my letter from my online blog and internet pictures. Unlike Hester, I would not be ashamed for adding a “personal touch” to my letter. In the early chapters of the novel, the townspeople ridiculed Hester for having a letter of “gorgeous luxuriance” (Hawthorne 43).
Feminism is the philosophy advocating equal political, economic, and social rights for women. The idea of feminism was not at all prevalent during the 1850s when Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter was published. In spite of this, Hawthorne wrote one of the most influential feminist novels of his time: The Scarlet Letter. This novel was hailed as an important feminist novel because of the main character: Hester Prynne.
Hester Prynne faced many mockeries that were a direct result of the scarlet letter “A” that was placed upon her bosom. Although she was offered a way out of that same ridicule she faced from the letter, she refused to take it off. As the novel goes on, it became more sacred to her being: “It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself” (51). The scarlet letter came to represent Hester not only as a woman in seventeenth century society but also as a person who naturally encounters sin and deals with it in their own way. During the seventeenth century women were naturally assumed to be less inferior from men due to scientific discoveries and the recent religious
The Scarlet Letter is a significant reading that many people enjoy. In this novel Hester Prynne is accused of adultery then forced to wear the letter “A” as a public humiliation. The whole community knows about her acts and the reason why she is branded with this letter. If I were to be assigned a letter for my actions or personality it would be “I” for independent. This word emphasises on not depending on another’s authority which I strongly believe in.
Receiving the scarlet letter changed every aspect of Hester’s life. Especially at the start of the story, the letter symbolized the solitude and great suffering Hester faced just because of a letter placed on her bosom. The “A” also depicted how no one viewed Hester the same way as before her peccant actions. “…she saw that, owing to the peculiar effect of this convex mirror, the scarlet letter was represented in exaggerated and gigantic proportions, so as to be greatly the most prominent feature of her appearance” (Hawthorne 109). The pejorative community Hester lived in never saw Hester as the beautiful, young woman she was, but now, as a horrible fiend.
