...death. The Scarlet Letter, a romantic fiction novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, tells the story of two lovers, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, that faces temptations, but in the end, deal with immense suffering. The novel validates the theme of “Sin Leading to a Better Understanding of Humanity” clearly through the actions of the main characters. Hester throughout the story experiences judgment from the town of Boston, Massachusetts for committing the sin of adultery and is forced to wear...
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...Forgiveness in The Scarlet Letter Hawthorne had intentionally given the reader the choice to decide whether or not Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale were forgiven by God in The Scarlet Letter. From Evidence collected from instances in the book, God has unmistakably pardoned the pair. The act of adultery, one of the most vile crimes to possibly commit of this period, was carried out by both Prynne and Dimmesdale. Resulting in harassment and maltreatment towards Hester. Also bringing about her daughter Pearl, a witty young girl. Considered sinners, the two went on without contact for years Eventually, Hester and Dimmesdale have been scorned in many ways for their past sin. The leading cause of much of this suffering is Roger Chillingworth, previous husband of Prynne “Violated in cold blood, the sanctity of the human heart.” Chillingworth had played himself into their lives and had become consumed by hatred. In conclusion, Sin has strengthened and humanized Prynne and Dimmesdale, whilst converting Chillingworth into a...
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...had an extramarital relationship with Hester Prynne. Hiding his affair from his church caused Dimmesdale massive amounts of guilt and internal suffering. He was emotionally tortured and driven to the verge of insanity to preserve his place in society. When Hester Prynne was publicly shamed in chapters one and two the entire town found out about her sin. Dimmesdale was extremely guilty that Hester went through the humiliation alone. He wanted Boston to know his part in the affair but also did not want his parish to reject his teachings. Reverend Dimmesdale was...
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...off into a world of emptiness and sorrow. This precisely mirrors the case of Hester Prynne, an adulteress who had an affair with a highly regarded priest named Dimmesdale. Prynne, a woman previously gawked at due to her radiant beauty, grew into a woman who gave away vanity for the sake of helping others and embracing the path she chose. This outright sense of kindness gave Prynne a new identity among the Puritan community. While Dimmesdale suffered as his heart grew weaker, Hester found a new humbleness within herself. Others began to accept her, even...
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...humiliated, or feeling guilty for an action that you did, or completing a conquest for oneself? Well, the scaffold scenes are some of the most important scenes that occur in The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. These scenes provide insight as to how much of a significant factor the scaffold was in Puritan society. In puritan society, the scaffold was used as a symbol for one’s sin. In The Scarlet Letter, there are three different scenes that occur at the scaffold at different times during the book. All of the book's main characters are present in each of these scenes; Hester Prynne, Pearl, Arthur Dimmesdale, as well as Roger Chillingworth. Along with these characters being present, so is the novel's primary symbol, the scarlet letter. In The Scarlet Letter, even though the scarlet letter was the main symbol, the scaffold portrays...
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...Things are not always what they seem. Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter uses the central idea of duality to exemplify this. A key symbol of duality Hawthorne presents in The Scarlet Letter is Hester Prynne's embodiment of her sin: the beautifully embroidered scarlet letter. Forcibly placed upon Hester's bosom, the letter punishes her for committing adultery with the town reverend, Arthur Dimmesdale. The badge also intends to outcast her and her daughter, Pearl, from the Puritan society of Boston. Although the "A" originally acted as Hester's punishment, the interpretation of the scarlet letter varies for Dimmesdale and Pearl to juxtapose Hester's unwavering perspective. Besides Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale has the biggest personal...
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...Many people commit wrongdoings at some point in their life. Hester Prynne, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter are no exception. These wrongdoings contribute to an overall theme of the novel. This theme is sin. There are many symbols in the novel that draw attention to this theme, such as color and the scarlet letter. There is more symbols that are present in the novel and have high importance, however these two stand out significantly. Through instances involving Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth, color and the mark of the scarlet letter drive the theme of sin within the novel. Hester’s relationship with her scarlet letter is a distinct example of how the symbol of the...
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...centuries ago, have written entire plays based upon the respectable and illicit relationships between men and women. Infidelity alone is talked about in over one-hundred and sixty six verses in the Bible while marriage is mentioned one-hundred and seventy seven times. The fact of the matter is that the bonds between men and women are interesting, complex, and scandalous many times. It’s for this very reason we have entire magazines dedicated to following the social lives and relationships of famous people. Three works of literature in particular shed light upon the development and consequences of these illicit relationships. These three works are Fortunata and Jacinta by Benito Perez Galdós, Adolphe by Benjamin Constant, and The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Each of these books contains similar and distinct, relationship development, main characters, characterization of classes, environment depiction, and resolutions. Fortunata and Jacinta was written by Benito Galdós in 1887. Galdós, born on the Canary Islands and living in Madrid during the time he wrote this book, was a member of the middle class. The book was criticized by political and religious leaders for its critique of the middle class and revealing sexuality. It was, however, venerated by his peers for its realistic depiction of life among all classes during the time period. This story,...
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...The Scarlet Letter, is far more complex than some simple morality tale about Hester Prynne's public shaming at the hands of the Puritan community in 1640's Massachusetts Bay. One of the big topics in this book is guilt. In his novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the symbolism of the scarlet letter, the scaffold, and Dimmesdale. Hawthorne shows us that the scarlet 'A', (which Hester wears to single her out as an adulteress and sinner), is really just a token of her humanity. Because the truth is that we all have our secret sins. It is just that Hester's sin was caught, while most of the rest of us writhe beneath the guilt of secret shame. And it is this hidden guilt which eats Hester's lover, Reverend Dimmesdale, alive. Guilt and Redemption; Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale experience very different life trajectories after their affair. Hester's pregnancy with her much beloved daughter pearl is a direct coralarion with guilt for pearl was conceived with a man who wasn’t Hesters’ husband. Her husband has been missing and presumed dead for years. Poor Dimmesdale’ life started to “dim” at the very time and moment he saw pearl with Hester standing on the scaffold. It was his first time seeing her since pearl was concieved. But Hester's lover and Pearl's father,...
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...Marcelo Neto US History Hon Mr. Hershaw 11/15/2012 The Scarlet Letter By Nathanial Hawtorne Summary The Scarlet Letter opens with a long chapter explaining how the book came to be written. The narrator was the surveyor of the customhouse in Salem, Massachusetts, where the novel takes place. In the customhouse’s attic, he finds a number of documents, among them a manuscript that was bundled with a scarlet patch in the shape of an “A.” The manuscript detailed events that occurred some two hundred years before the narrator’s time. When the narrator lost his customs post, he decided to write a fictional account of the events recorded in the manuscript. The Scarlet Letter is the final product. The novel begins in the seventeenth-century Boston, when Hester is briefly released from prison so that she can be paraded through town, displaying her scarlet "A" embroided on her chest while standing on top of the town scaffold. She carries her baby daughter, Pearl, in her arms. After being Hester steadfastly refuses to reveal the name of Pearl’s father, so that he might be saved from punishment. Hester Prynne’s long lost husband arrives in the midst of this parade through town. He visits her in prison before her release and asks her not to tell anyone that he’s in town. His plan is to disguise himself so that he can ferret out...
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...In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, it is considered by many timeless and universal, which makes his novel a work of classic literature. Determining what makes a classic taken from his novel Why Read the Classics? Italo Calvino defines: “A classic is a book which each rereading offers as much of a sense of discovery as the first reading.” Hester Prynne is first introduced with her infant daughter, Pearl, and she is being displayed by the onlookers of Boston as sinful because she has committed adultery. Later, it is revealed that Hester and the young minister Arthur Dimmesdale had an affair. Although Dimmesdale did not know that he befriended Hester’s once lost husband Roger Chillingworth, Dimmesdale is also punished for his sin. Themes...
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...The Scarlet Letter Study Guide Published in 1850, The Scarlet Letter is considered Nathaniel Hawthorne's most famous novel--and the first quintessentially American novel in style, theme, and language. Set in seventeenth-century Puritan Massachusetts, the novel centers around the travails of Hester Prynne, who gives birth to a daughter Pearl after an adulterous affair. Hawthorne's novel is concerned with the effects of the affair rather than the affair itself, using Hester's public shaming as a springboard to explore the lingering taboos of Puritan New England in contemporary society. The Scarlet Letter was an immediate success for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the United States was still a relatively new society, less than one hundred years old at the time of the novel’s publication. Indeed, still tied to Britain in its cultural formation, Hawthorne's novel offered a uniquely American style, language, set of characters, and--most importantly--a uniquely American central dilemma. Besides entertainment, then, Hawthorne's novel had the possibility of goading change, since it addressed a topic that was still relatively controversial, even taboo. Certainly Puritan values had eased somewhat by 1850, but not enough to make the novel completely welcome. It was to some degree a career-threatening decision to center his novel around an adulterous affair (but compare the plot of Fielding's Tom Jones). But Hawthorne was not concerned with a prurient affair here, though the novel’s...
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...sin can vary, as hidden sin and exposed sin are expressed in different ways. In The Scarlet Letter, the two main characters Dimmesdale and Hester demonstrate their own dealings with sin. As the two had earlier committed adultery, only Hester confessed her sin, whereas Dimmesdale kept it a secret.. This hidden sin caused Dimmesdale internal punishment, as he resorted to fasting, and whipping himself. In Mr. Dimmesdale’s closet, “there was a bloody scourge. Oftentimes. . .[Dimmesdale] plied it on his own shoulders. . . [it was also] his custom. . . to fast. . . He thus typified the constant introspection wherewith he tortured, but could not purify, himself” (Hawthorne 99). As Dimmesdale's guilt accumulated overtime, he tried to purify himself with methods of...
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...The Scarlet Letter offers an extraordinary insight into the norms and behavior of the 17th century if American Puritan society. The basic conflicts and problems of its main characters, however, are familiar to readers in the present. The female protagonist, has borne a child out of wedlock and has been jailed for over three months and sentenced to wear a symbol of her adultery, a scarlet “A” on her dress at all times. It concerns about the moral, emotional and psychological effect of the sin on people in general. It’s not simply a love story or a story of sin. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the scarlet letters to symbolize the harshness of Puritan society, showing how they brand sinners for life. The story happened in Boston about 200 years ago. It narrates love affairs between three persons. The punished woman. Hester Prynne and his husband. Who called himself Roger Chillingworth . He...
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...of punishments for many things. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book, The Scarlet Letter, he sets the tone of his book in the old English Puritan days. Hawthorne describes one of the multiple puritan punishments that took place, he mainly focuses on the punishment for committing adultery. He ties it all together with the puritans’ beliefs, the effects it had on his life, modes of punishment, and crimes related to some in his book. Puritanism is a powerful political movement in the late 16th and 17th century that strived to “purify” the Church of England and thought they were pursuing God’s work (Gao 176). They believed that sinners could not...
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