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
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people to change and reform their lives as an effect of their sin. Many people would hide from their mistakes and shame and let others judge and make their own assumptions. However, in The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the main character, Hester Prynne does the exact opposite as she openly shows her acceptance of her sin through the scarlet “A”, and Pearl. Pearl symbolizes Hester’s wrong doing. She is a constant and permanent punishment for Hester’s sin. A quote that shows Pearl’s symbolization
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“Black Man” is used for the first time by Hester Prynne in chapter 4 while conversing with Roger Chillingworth. She says “art thou like the Black man that haunts the forest round about us? Hast thou enticed me into a bond that will prove the ruin of my soul?” .Hester Prynne doesn’t trusts Roger Chillingworth and believes he is trying to take his revenge. Roger Chillingworth has asked Hester to keep his identity a secret. Hester Prynne knows something will be wrong because
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The color red symbolizes passion, shame and ultimately love. In The Scarlet Letter, it begins with a detailed description of a rose bush which symbolizes Hester and her passion. Roses are obviously red so immediately, red is going to be a very important color. In the following quote, it describes the rose bush and how it represents Hester: “This rose bush by a strange chance, has been kept alive in history; but whether it had merely survived out of the stern old wilderness, so long after the fall
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Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, where the protagonist, Hester Prynne, was originally patronized for the creation of an illegitimate child named Pearl with an unknown man, learned to be minister Dimmesdale. However, scaffolding scenes reoccurs throughout the novel and represents turning points in the plot that change the motives and actions of varying characters. The first scaffold scene of the novel occurs when Hester Prynne is released from prison and while upon the scaffold, shows the
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Paperback The Scarlet Letter Summary Hester is being led to the scaffold, where she is to be publicly shamed for having committed adultery. Hester is forced to wear the letter A on her gown at all times. She has stitched a large scarlet A onto her dress with gold thread, giving the letter an air of elegance. Hester carries Pearl, her daughter, with her. On the scaffold she is asked to reveal the name of Pearl's father, but she refuses. In the crowd Hester recognizes her husband from Amsterdam,
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motivation deeper than his desire for revenge: his enduring love for Hester. As he says to Hester while visiting her in prison, “I drew thee into my heart, into its innermost chamber, and sought to warm thee by the warmth which thy presence made there” (68). The fact that Chillingworth cares enough to search relentlessly inside Dimmesdale—his antagonist’s—soul, to the point of his own ruin, proves that he still has feelings for Hester. His love, when threatened, becomes warped, twisting into a destructive
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Abigail in The Crucible and Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter both commit similar sins. Abigail is intimate with a married man and Hester is intimate with someone who isn’t her husband. “I look for John Proctor who took me from my sleep and put knowledge in my heart!” (Miller). “...heard of Mistress Prynne and her evil doings.” (Hawthorne). They were probably both lonely and decided to have affairs even though it was highly condemned in the Puritan society. I think Hester, at the beginning of the
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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
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she knew what it was considering, it was always there. No one else knew about it besides her and the reason why she didn’t wear low cut shirts anymore or cute tops that showed off her upper chest. One night she realized that she was just like Hester Prynne with an A stuck on her breast but, it stood for something completely different then like the book’s meaning. The Scarlett Letter was for adultery to teach her a lesson but for the girl it was a symbol of abuse and annihilation. It was literally
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