ipl-logo

What Is The Secrecy In The Scarlet Letter

725 Words3 Pages

The Scarlet Letter begins in 1642 Boston, Massachusetts with the Puritan society punishing Hester Prynne for her sins against God. The puritans believe that any crime is a crime or a sin against God and the Puritan leaders take this very seriously. Hester committed adultery with an unknown man.She was living out her punishment peacefully with her child Pearl until Roger Chillingworth appears back in town. No one knows that Chillingworth is Hester 's husband except for Hester. Everyone wants to know who the father of Pearl is but Hester is keeping his identity a secret. From the beginning Chillingworth is determined to figure out who the unknown man is. The secrecy in The Scarlet Letter affects them in both physical and mental ways. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne demonstrates how secrecy effects Hester Prynne, Roger chillingworth , and Arthur Dimmesdale. Hester is the sole person that knows the secrets that Dimmesdale and Chillingworth are hiding from the townspeople.Hester’s character is formed and shown as she goes through great ignominy from wearing the scarlet letter A to having her the reminder of her sin by her side. Hester has promised both of these men not to share their secrets with the world and throughout the novel she stays true. Since she keeps the identity of her …show more content…

Secrets play a big role in the plot of the story. Dimmesdale and Chillingworth both die as a result of secrecy. Dimmesdale finally comes clean and claims pearl as his daughter and then “holds his hand over his heart” and dies. Chillingworth dies shortly after because his only will to live was when he wanted to find out the father and then punish him but now Dimmesdale is dead therefore he has nothing to live for. He strangely leaves everything he has to Pearl. Pearl is the only one who came out of all of these secrets to live a happy and normal

Show More
Related

Dimmesdale And Chillingworth's Secrets In Scarlet Letter

361 Words | 2 Pages

Dimmesdale and Chillingworth both have secrets that make them look and act differently, their secrets affect their character and how they do their job. Dimmesdale is the father of Pearl but he doesn 't want to face the same humiliation as Hester did for his sins. Because of his secret he self punishes and fasts, he also preaches better than he did before although his health is failing. Chillingworth’s secret is that he was the husband of Hester while he was away, before she cheated on him. Chillingworth gets uglier and uglier driven by the need to get revenge on Pearl’s father.

Read More

Chillingworth's Identity Quotes

505 Words | 3 Pages

The Scarlet Letter In The Scarlet Letter by Daniel Hawthorne many villainous acts occur that contribute to the plot and direction of the text. One antagonist in the novel is Chillingworth, the “departed” husband of Hester Prynne. Chillingworth and his constant mission to gain his wife's love and to reveal the father with whom Hester's baby was conceived by leads him to take some villainous actions. Chillingworth took many actions to obtain his goals, examples of this are constantly exemplified throughout the novel, one example is Chillingworth’s unrelenting hatred towards Dimmesdale.

Read More

Hester Prynne's Deception In Scarlet Letter

937 Words | 4 Pages

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter takes place in the Massachusetts Bay colony during the 17th century. The story revolves around a young woman, named Hester Prynne, who is forced by her community to bestow a scarlet “A” on her chest for the rest of her life in order to remind her of the adulterous sin and crime she has committed. As her punishment, in the form of public humiliation, Hester is constrained to stand upon a scaffold in the town square while holding her illegitimate baby, Pearl. In the midst of the townspeople, she recognizes a familiar face; her long, lost husband who had been presumed dead at sea.

Read More

Who Is Dimmesdale's Mental Strength In The Scarlet Letter

872 Words | 4 Pages

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne opens in a Puritan settlement, where Hester Prynne is being publicly shunned for adultery, in which she has to stand in front of a crowd for overt punishment and wear a scarlet ‘A’ on her chest. She holds her child, Pearl, who symbolizes her inability to hide her own past and her sins from the judgment of her settlement. The novel progresses in a way that further defines her mental strength and ability to endure this judgment. However, Arthur Dimmesdale, the town’s pastor, demonstrates a differing method in which he deals with his own personal judgment and fear of alienation. As The Scarlet Letter advances, his mental strength corrupts with the help of Chillingworth’s methods of trickery and Dimmesdale’s

Read More

How Hester Prynne Changes In Scarlet Letter

941 Words | 4 Pages

While her punishment changes her physical appearance, it has a far more profound effect on her character. Hester seems much older and worn down with the scarlet letter on her bosom. To Hester, the scarlet letter is a

Read More

Essay About The Mistakes Hester Prynne Ever Made

599 Words | 3 Pages

In the beginning the scarlet letter represented adultery and shame, but then the A represented “able.” Hester Prynne showed people that greatness can come out of huge mistake. One bad chapter does not mean your story is over. Willingly, Hester wanted to pick herself up again and move on with her life and eventually people noticed that. They began to respect her and think of her as strong and commendable

Read More

Blindness In The Scarlet Letter

1270 Words | 6 Pages

She receives three punishments from the townspeople, who claim they will free her from her sin. The community orders Hester to go to jail, wear a scarlet letter on her chest, and stand on the town scaffold for hours. Hester wears her scarlet letter proudly on her chest, and endures much suffering because of her public ridicule. Hester is “kept by no restrictive clause of her condemnation within the limits of the Puritan settlement” after she was released from prison, but she chooses to stay (Hawthorne 71). Later, Hester’s child, Pearl, symbolizes the Puritan view of Hester.

Read More

Dimmesdale's Responsibility For Sin In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

878 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More

Rising Action In Scarlet Letter

1060 Words | 5 Pages

The text states, “The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers,—stern and wild ones,—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss” (Chapter 18). Hester knows that the letter “A” that she is forced to wear will teach her and others that everything has consequences.

Read More

Hester Prynne And The Puritan Community

1116 Words | 5 Pages

Through the course of the novel, this symbol is given contrasting meanings which demonstrate how Hester is able to be labeled as both a sinner and a saint. The scarlet letter “A” embroidered onto her chest starts off meaning adultery, which makes her a sinner, however, it then takes on the meaning able, which makes her a saint. Hester’s character undergoes dynamic change when she turns away from evil with the help of her daughter Pearl. Her daughter was born out of the sin that brands Hester’s chest, and even though she was an infant, Pearl served as a constant reminder as well as a teacher to Hester regarding sin and the lessons that it brings because she was “...the scarlet letter endowed with life!” (Hawthorne 98).

Read More

Secrets In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

640 Words | 3 Pages

If it was not for secrets, The Scarlet Letter would not be a story. Throughout Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book many characters are dealing with something they have to keep quiet. It may be a sin they have committed or something they know, but the way they deal with their secret determines how they feel about themselves. The two main secrets in The Scarlet Letter are who the father of Pearl is and who Hester Prynne’s husband was. As the secrets get revealed, many lives are changed drastically.

Read More

Sin In The Scarlett Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

972 Words | 4 Pages

"The Scarlet Letter" is a romantic historical fiction by Nathaniel Hawthorne, published by Ticknor, reeds, and Feilds in 1850 in Boston, Massachusetts. The book starts with Hester Prynne entering from the prison door to a scaffold to receive a public shaming from her puritan society. She appears on the scaffold holding her illegitimate child and refusing to reveal the father's identity. The child is the byproduct of her sin, Adultery. Her sin for all to see is represented on her bosom with the scarlet letter "A." The book follows her making a new life for herself and her child after being branded by her sin in the religious town, capturing Hester, her daughter, her disguised husband, and her secret lover dealing with secrets and sins that

Read More

Who Is A Strong Female Character In The Scarlet Letter

313 Words | 2 Pages

Hester has portrait strong female character in the novel. She was lived for Adultery in the country side and even though she stays calmed with her strength because she stands against the Puritans. She is very ladylike and she accepted two conditions and finally the people are going to like her, because she is doing everything that she can do for the people and people like her. Even finally the Scarlet Letter “A” changes its meaning at the end of the novel from Adultery to Angele.

Read More

Fanshawe In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlett Letter

1416 Words | 6 Pages

The novel focuses around Hester and Pearl as well as Reverend Dimmesdale who is later discovered to be Pearl’s father and Hester’s lover. It emphasizes the punishment that both Hester and Dimmesdale have to face for their crimes and the different ways they handle it. Hester’s punishment is widely public and she wears it on her clothes every day and is practically exiled from society because of her misdoings, whereas Dimmesdale’s punishment is internalized. He becomes very ill because of his guilt, which is only made worse by the appearance of Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s husband. The novel deals greatly with the ideas of sin, symbols, and society.

Read More

Theme Of Isolation In Scarlet Letter

893 Words | 4 Pages

She didn’t mind that she did not connect with humans. She knows a joy that other Puritan children did not. She was mischievous and unpredictable because she was isolated and she thought the laws didn’t apply to her. Isolation made Pearl different from

Read More

More about What Is The Secrecy In The Scarlet Letter

Related Topics

Open Document