In the novel the scarlet letter, the scarlet letter is shown through the use of imagery and figurative language to demonstrate that judgment through society as well as sin is bad while the scarlet is a symbol of sin wrapped in good and beauty. Hester is able to take something that was meant to be a punishment for a crime she committed and turn it into something absolutely stunning. Hawthorne portrayed Pearl
The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, focuses on the life of Hester Prynne—the unlucky soul who is caught committing adultery and forced to live a life of shame and ignominy. The scaffold is not only the start of her predicament, but it is also the end of the once seemingly perfect Reverend Dimmesdale’s own guilt. The scaffold is the setting of a scene three times throughout the novel: the beginning, middle, and end. For such a lifeless object, it is difficult to recognize its significance in the novel; however, the scaffold is used by Hawthorne to portray the changing relationship between the characters, specifically Hester, Dimmesdale, and Pearl.
Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter follows Hester Prynne, a young woman living in puritan Massachusetts in the mid-1600s, and how the label of being an “adulterer” considerably impacts her life for years after the crime. Arthur Dimmesdale, an unmarried man and the town’s respected minister, is secretly the father of Hester’s newly born daughter, and the guilt he experiences slowly kills him throughout the novel. The Scarlet Letter was never meant to be a love story; Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale would never have ended up together due to their positions in society and how their lives were affected following the scandal.
The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is one of the most famous and influential novels written in American literature. The story takes place in the seventeenth century in the Puritan settlement of Boston where a young woman named Hester Prynne is punished after having a daughter with a man who was not her husband. Though, instead of hanging Hester they spare her life because of her beauty. She is then shunned and forced to wear a scarlet “A” (for adultery) on her breast for the rest of her life, while, the “unknown” man who Hester had an affair with moves on with a guilt-filled life. The novel is a classic romance with it’s countless symbols tossed throughout the book.
The book The Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthorne has symbolism all throughout it. People and objects are symbolic of events and thoughts. Throughout the book, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses Hester, Pearl, and Arthur Dimmesdale to signify philosophies that are evident during this time period. Hester Prynne, through the eyes of the Puritans, is an extreme sinner; she has gone against their ways, committing adultery. For this sin, she must wear a symbol of shame for the rest of her life.
The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, describes the experiences of a woman, Hester Prynne, who is publicly shamed for adulterous actions, which resulted in a child. The book shows the progression of her life and her daughter’s in addition to the life of Arthur Dimmesdale, who is the father of Hester’s daughter, but never revealed it publicly in fear of being viewed differently by his peers. Dimmesdale and Hester, connected by the act of adultery, have both experienced stress and unforgiveness, resulting in negative changes to their mental states. Troubled by this stress and unforgiveness, both Dimmesdale and Hester reflect the negative changes through internal struggle, yet in slightly different manners. Suffering from stress
In the eighteenth through twenty fourth chapters of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, various elements and events are established that are crucial to the final moments taking place in the novel. These events and elements determine the destiny of the fictional family created by an act of adultery, between Hester Prynne and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. One distinct aspect that Hawthorne uses to describe Hester Prynne and Pearl, is nature. The recurring characteristic that is used to compare nature to Hester and Pearl is sunshine.
It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom” (Hawthorne 191). This something upon Hester’s bosom is the scarlet letter, which is already interpreted as the outward indication of her past sin. Hawthorne uses “sunshine” to symbolize happiness, purity, and truth. He then uses the symbolic imagery of the light hiding from Hester, to represent her constant denial to forgive herself of her sin and develop as an uncommon member of society. Hawthorne uses this symbolic imagery of darkness to represent concealment and evil, thus validating that one cannot prosper under society’s pressure, so they must dispose themselves from
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter explores the parallel between light and dark in many ways. In 17th century New England, Hester Prynne, the protagonist, is imprisoned for adultery, resulting in a child. Consequently, she’s forced to wear an embroidered red A on her chest for the rest of her life. Throughout the following years, Hester realizes that the scarlet letter isn’t as terrible a punishment as it seemed.
Throughout The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, there are many symbols that correlate with the main characters. Symbolism is a major part of this novel and is shown most prominently through the characters Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Pearl. The rosebush, the prison door, and the scarlet letter are the most important symbols that are dispersed throughout the novel and are within each of the three characters. The rosebush can be seen as the symbol that represents Hester Prynne, and her beauty and light within a dark Puritan society.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the Puritans of Boston persecute Hester Prynne for adultery. She continues to protect her lover, the minister Arthur Dimmesdale, though she is forced to wear the letter ‘A’ on her chest and suffer through hardships and solitude. In her cottage on the edge of both wilderness and civilization, Hester finds herself stuck between the confines of her strict religious community and the ‘sinful’ romance that she feels in her heart to be sacred. Utilizing images of nature, Hawthorne describes Hester’s development of individuality throughout her seclusion from Puritan society, and conveys his own support of Hester’s relationship with Dimmesdale.
Some secrets changed characters in many different ways throughout the story. A person reading this book could feel that from the beginning, it was going to be a dark, evil story in many aspects. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, he set out to write a story in the early settlements of Massachusetts, and all of the religious aspects that came with it. Light and dark imagery, alluding to the larger conflict between good and evil, is present throughout the novel in the characters of Hester Prynne, Pearl
Colors in life can represent many things feelings, happiness, good, and evil. Hyatt Howe Waggoner’s review of “The Scarlet Letter” in his scholarly journal says that Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the colors of pure, mixed, and drained in “The Scarlet Letter” to contribute as an additional character in “The Scarlet Letter”. Hyatt Howe Waggoner’s review of the colors being used as a character is very correct, the colors of pure symbolize the good during the puritan era, as well as mixed being the good conflicting with bad and drained as the evil during the puritan era. Together using the colors in “The Scarlet Letter” Nathaniel Hawthorne creates an additional character that contributes to the plot of the story greatly. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses pure
The Scarlet Letter, a novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a hopeless tale of one Hester Prynne, who committed adultery and now has to pay for her crime, and her relationship with the rest of the characters in the book; this reveals how a harsh society can ruin lives. The negative impact of committing sin and secret-keeping is seen throughout the entire story of The Scarlet Letter; it is portrayed through Hester’s fate, the intertwined lives of Chillingworth and Dimmesdale, and the ultimate end. The scarlet letter Hester Prynne now bears on her chest will unfairly rule the rest of her life. Her own sin led to the attainment of the scarlet letter.
In “The Scarlet Letter,” Hawthorne merges his family’s history with his imagination to perfectly depict his interpretation of sin and redemption. Nearly every character in the novel has a deep connection in the world of Hawthorne. Hester Prynne, for example, represents the people who were wrongly judged and criticized in the past. Prynne was punished to wear a scarlet ‘A’ until she dies because the law
