...Period 1 Strength In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne endures a drastic life changing experience. Hester is convicted, in a Puritan New England town, of committing adultery and is scolded constantly by this town. Even though Hester is in an incredibly difficult circumstance that most of the people could not endure, Hester remains proud and unregretful while her lover hides in the shadows of the sinful act. Throughout Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne portrays his belief in the significance of personal strength through the contrasting personalities of Hester Prynne, who portrays strength as she faces the sin with dignity, and her lover Arthur Dimmesdale, who portrays weakness as he continues to hide from the sin. Hester Prynne’s personal strength is important, as well as necessary, for her redemption in life. At the beginning of the novel, Hester is condemned for her sin and forced to stand on the scaffold, she remains strong and dignified despite constant disapprovals from the town. The townspeople are shocked as “Hester Prynne appeared more ladylike… than as she issued from the prison,” and when Hester’s beauty “shone out and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy” despite her dreadful sin (49). Although at times Hester feels weak and alone, in public she continuously displays immense personal strength. Instead of running away, Hester faces her punishment and wears her scarlet letter with pride. When she is released from the prison...
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...that the consequences of sin is the theme of Nathaniel Hawthorne's, The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne explored this theme by four distinctive levels of sin. Although each level was equally displayed throughout the novel, the communal sin of man's inhumanity to man outranked all else. The primary characters are each guilty of one or more of the following levels of sin; the sin of vengeance, the sin of hypocrisy, and the sin of adultery. In the beginning of the novel, it is revealed that Hester Prynne is guilty of adultery. One of the consequences for her sin is a prison term. Secondly, she had a child, a baby who was conceived from lust rather than love. Hester named this child Pearl, meaning of great value. Thirdly, Hester was condemned to wear the scarlet letter, upon her bosom, for all to recognize her as one who has met with the black man in the forest. Fourth, she was made to stand in public ignominy as the townsmen mocked her.(Bercovitch, S, 1991) Although the magistrates tried to make Hester Prynne reveal her accomplice, she kept his name unknown. As one may have guessed, from the hints given throughout the novel, Arthur Dimmesdale was also guilty of adultery. However, he did not confess his sin until it was too late. Dimmesdale continued his ministry in the church, as a hypocrite, concealing his sin. Nevertheless, his guilty conscience drove him to a manic-depressive state of mind. Dimmesdale became very ill, because the scarlet letter upon Hester's bosom seemingly burned through...
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...The concept of feminism has always been around throughout the course of human history. Indeed, in Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter, the protagonist attempts to subvert the patriarchal society within which she resides. Hawthorne positions Hester Prynne as a proto-feminist, standing for women and their rights in a time where women were looked down upon. To begin, Hawthorne describes the prison and the scene around the scaffold in the center of town. Hester had been imprisoned for having adulterous relations with her Reverend, Arthur Dimmesdale, which led to the creation of a child, Hester's daughter Pearl. The town is waiting to see Hester and watch her as she stands on the scaffold for three hours while the town looks upon her, wearing a scarlet 'A' on her bosom as her punishment. The women of the town discuss the harsher punishments they would have given her, proclaiming that "this woman has brought shame upon us all" and declaring she "ought to die" (Hawthorne 49).When Hester exits the prison and a town beadle offers her help, "she repelled him, by an action marked with natural dignity and own free-will" (49). From the moment she steps out of the prison, Hester displays a free will and determination that will become a large part of her life. Despite the women's hostility towards Hester and the "heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes," (53) Hester stands tall and strong on the scaffold. Her eyes gaze over the town members, and towards the back she notices...
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...The Scarlet Letter “He had been driven hither by the impulse of that Remorse which dogged him everywhere, and whose own sister and closely linked companion was that Cowardice which invariably drew him back, with her tremulous gripe, just when the other impulse had hurried him to the verge of a disclosure” (Hawthorne 134). Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale constantly battles between these two emotions throughout Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. In the story, Dimmesdale struggles to manage the sin of adultery in his life, as the evil Roger Chillingworth, husband of Hester Prynne, impresses upon him. Hester must also deal with this sin, through the exhibition of a scarlet “A” on her bosom, as she struggles to raise Pearl, the child that she conceived through her sin with Dimmesdale. Both Dimmesdale and Hester struggle to be rid of the darkness that plagues their worlds, and their inmost beings. Hawthorne skillfully develops the theme of light versus dark in The Scarlet Letter. In each of the scaffold scenes, Hawthorne uses either light or darkness, not only to expose truth, but also to conceal it. In the first scaffold scene, which takes place in the daytime, “[Hester] took the baby on her arm, and, with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbours. On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the...
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...Hunter Lindblade Mrs. Byrne English 11 Honors 1 November 2013 Role of Secret Sin in The Scarlet Letter In many of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novels, secret sin plays a large role throughout the stories. Hawthorne’s novel “The Scarlet Letter”, contains the theme of secret sin which plays a very important role in the story of the novel. Secret sin in the novel “The Scarlet Letter” plays an important role because it both physically and emotionally damages the characters throughout the story. The character of Roger Chillingworth undergoes a very drastic emotional and physical change throughout the novel due to secret sin. In the beginning of the novel, Hester goes up to the scaffold since she is punished to public humiliation for committing the crime of adultery. Her husband, Roger Chillingworth, comes to the town to see that his wife has cheated on him with another man and now bears a child that is not his. The result of Hester’s partner’s secret sin on Chillingworth changes his inner and outer emotions immediately. Hawthorne writes “ A writing horror twisted itself across his features, like a snake gliding swiftly over them, and making one little pause, with all its wreathed intervolutions in open sight. His face darkened with some powerful emotion” (Hawthorne 45). By using very descriptive imagery and similes, Hawthorne showed that the secret sin was starting to change Roger’s inner and outer emotions. Before Roger saw Hester he was a normal person but once he saw her he started...
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...Throughout The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, readers are introduced to multiple characters in order to fully comprehend Hester Prynne’s peculiar situation. As Hester stands on the scaffold with her daughter in her arms, the public stares and judges her actions, considering her a sinner and transgressor. Through the use of rhetorical devices, readers are able to determine Hawthorne’s differing attitude towards each character and view Hester and Roger Chillingworth in a different light. Hester Prynne, a woman being punished for her adultery- a betrayal of the ten commandments- is forced to stand on a scaffold for three hours while the public stares. Bystanders comment as to whether the extent of Hester’s punishment is not harsh enough....
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...strict code of moral and ethical standards, characters in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, likewise, feel forced to keep many of their deeds and misdeeds from public knowledge to avoid criticism and maintain their good names. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale’s choice in timing to reveal his secret sin calls attention to the change in the society’s morals; in addition, the effect of Dimmesdale’s secret proves severity of sin and allows Hawthorne to expose the differences between Hester and Dimmesdale’s lives as influenced by their secrets. As the novel progresses, the opinions...
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...biblical Church Discipline 1 Mark Dever Mark Dever is pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. A graduate of Cambridge Universit y, Cambridge, England, he is the author of Nine Marks of a Healthy Church and a recent book on Richard Sibbes. He is a contributing editor to The Founders Journal. Emily Sullivan Oakey was born, educated, and then taught in Albany, New York. As with many other women of the mid-nineteenth century, she spent a good bit of time writing down her thoughts—sometimes as part of a journal, other times as part of articles, very often in poetry. She published many of her articles and poems in daily newspapers and in magazines. As a young woman of twenty-one, perhaps inspired by Jesus’ Parable of the Sower, she wrote a poem about sowing and harvesting. Some twenty-five years later, in 1875, the poem was set to music by Philip Bliss and appeared in print for the first time under the title “What Shall the Harvest Be?”2 The little group of Christians who formed what would become Capitol Hill Baptist Church selected that very song as the first song to be sung in their meetings together, in February of 1878: Sowing the seed by the daylight fair, Sowing the seed by the noonday glare, Sowing the seed by the fading light, Sowing the seed in the solemn night. O, what shall the harvest be? O, what shall the harvest be? Very appropriate words to ring off the bare walls and bare floorboards of the building they met...
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...Bloom’s Classic Critical Views W i l l ia m Sha k e Sp e a r e Bloom's Classic Critical Views alfred, lord Tennyson Benjamin Franklin The Brontës Charles Dickens edgar allan poe Geoffrey Chaucer George eliot George Gordon, lord Byron henry David Thoreau herman melville Jane austen John Donne and the metaphysical poets John milton Jonathan Swift mark Twain mary Shelley Nathaniel hawthorne Oscar Wilde percy Shelley ralph Waldo emerson robert Browning Samuel Taylor Coleridge Stephen Crane Walt Whitman William Blake William Shakespeare William Wordsworth Bloom’s Classic Critical Views W i l l ia m Sha k e Sp e a r e Edited and with an Introduction by Sterling professor of the humanities Yale University harold Bloom Bloom’s Classic Critical Views: William Shakespeare Copyright © 2010 Infobase Publishing Introduction © 2010 by Harold Bloom All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For more information contact: Bloom’s Literary Criticism An imprint of Infobase Publishing 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data William Shakespeare / edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom : Neil Heims, volume editor. p. cm. — (Bloom’s classic critical views) Includes bibliographical references...
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