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Isolation In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

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In the late sixteenth century reformers in England desired an austere religion. Those reformers began the cultivation of the puritan religion from the Church of England. Shortly, the church deemed them as anarchists and found killing puritans as the solution. Puritans then fled to North America and began to build extravagant cities, like the city on the hill. The puritan cities set strict rules which mirrored the puritan belief; and enforced the law with an ironclad. This is visible in Nathaniel Hawthorns historical novel, the Scarlet Letter. Despite the convection of account of adultery, parturition of her daughter, Pearl, and isolation from the public, Hester Prynne, the protagonist, was able to atone for her mistake. Whereas the men of her life, Roger her husband, and minister Dimmesdale, her child’s father became distraught by their actions. Minister Dimmesdale begin to grow weak and exhibited abnormal behavior, due to the lies and secrets that reside within him; whereas, Roger Chillingworth anger lead him to aggression and revenge, which cause self-inflected wounds.
Minister Dimmesdale, a clergyman of the puritan faith and “[…] fellow sinner and fellow sufferer” whose actions lead to the birth of Pearl (Hawthorne 43). Unlike Hester, …show more content…
In addition, unlike Dimmesdale, Roger knew he was messing with Dimmesdale’s sanity and Roger actually took pleasure from it, known as Schadenfreude (Ben-Zeev). This could be due to Roger wanting justice for Hester cheating on him and for Dimmesdale not getting in trouble for his sin, since only he and Hester knew. Despite his attemps to ruin the soul of Dimmesdale, Dimmesdale took control of his mental state. Ironically, when Dimmesdale died after feeling atoned with his sin, Chillingworth had nothing left to do in his lifetime and within a year Chillingworth

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