...A woman stands in front of her community, judged for her sin and having an object to show it, her only child. Born from an extramarital affair with an unknown man, she is forced to face public scrutiny in a Puritan community. Somewhere in the crowd, the father of the child stands, guilty but not judged. Nathaniel Hawthorne tackles sin and shame in The Scarlet Letter, a story showing guilt and transgression in a society where “religion and law were almost identical” and “the mildest and the severest acts of public discipline were alike made venerable and awful” (Hawthorne 47-48). The heritage of Nathaniel Hawthorne, common beliefs held by the Puritans, as well as Hawthorne’s philosophies on secret sin and public shame affect the style of The...
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...Hawthorne’s Judgment of Sin and Punishment Based on the Puritan Belief As Seen in “Scarlet Letter” Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Puritan background and his hometown of Salem, Massachusetts strongly influenced his stories and writing style. Many of Hawthorne’s stories hold ties to the past and characterize the Puritan society, including Scarlet Letter. Puritans followed “their own rigorous moral and religious strictures…” , which led many Puritans to believe most people are inherently evil and deserve punishment (Hunt 26). Puritans believed sin’s “penalty thereof is death” (Hawthorne 59). In Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne characterized the Puritan view of sin, the punishment of sin, and how the punishment of sin revealed Hester’s courage, but led to Dimmesdale’s demise. Hester and Dimmesdale committed the same sin and “while Hester’s sin is noticeable to all, Dimmesdale’s sin is hidden”(Londhe 2). The sin itself does not alter Hester and Dimmesdale as much as it altered how the individual copes with sin and the punishment that follows the sin. The Puritan belief system influenced Hawthorne’s writing even though he “took Puritan doctrine and psychologized it”(Barna 3). Hawthorne felt the Puritan belief lacked a tolerance for sin, and “he dwelt on the cruelty of Puritans in his works” (Barna 2). Puritan’s believed everyone sinned and Hawthorne’s Puritan background led him to address sin in his writing. The common belief of the time states that “man is born into his world basically...
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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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...The Scarlet Letter Death…the common punishment in Puritan America. Puritans were people who lived in a time of fear; fear of sin and a fear of God. Hester Prynne, a Puritan woman of the sixteen hundreds, committed a sin that would leave her with a life of ridicule and guilt. Her life is narrated by a dweller of the eighteenth century, two hundred years after her lifetime. Hester Prynne’s life is told in the novel, The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathanial Hawthorne and is stationed in the Puritan town of Boston during the sixteenth century. Prynne, who was sent to America by her husband, was left alone by him for two years. Soon, she became attracted to another man, committed adultery, and bore a daughter whom she named Pearl. Due to this child, her fellow Puritans became aware of her deadly sin, and Prynne was sentenced to prison for a short time, public ridicule on a scaffold, and a life of recognition wearing the “Scarlet A,” which stood for her sin of adultery. In Nathanial Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne’s punishments were fair to her crime. For the crime of adultery that Hester Prynne committed, the punishment of staying in prison was fair. Prynne, living in Puritan Boston in the sixteenth century, was seen as someone as deadly as a murderer. During this time, adultery was known as a horrid sin which would send a person to Hell upon death. Therefore, the usual punishment for this crime during this time was death, which Prynne narrowly...
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... 29 November 2014 Power of Guilt In modern society, concealing guilt is often given a negative connotation, however, the implications that are associated with guilt and sins are human creations. Guilt, the result of shameful mistakes, is associated with infirmity, cowardice, and self-centeredness due to the fear of exposure. These three mesmerizing works, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Pie” by Gary Soto and, “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller, address the theme of guilt and the consequences of concealing one’s guilt. The Scarlet Letter considered one of the most famous of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, is set in the1850s in Boston, Massachusetts. The plot revolves around a Puritan community and a woman named Hester. “The Pie”, written in Fresno, California in 1991, is an autobiographical narrative that illustrates Soto’s sin when he steals a pie from the grocery store and experiences the feeling of guilt along with a few other consequences. “The Crucible” was written in 1953 and exposes the truths about the Salem Witchcraft trials, in Massachusetts. Ultimately, through their respective protagonists’ acts of aggression and violations of boundaries, authors Hawthorne, Soto, and Miller illustrate that the guilt derived from sin itself, especially if concealed from society, can cause emotional and mental torture, leading to everlasting internal punishment, and an increase in remorseful feelings. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne depicts the consequences of...
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...Symbols in the Scarlet Letter Colors can represent many things; for example it can represent the emotions someone is feeling or to describe something or to simply determine whether a food is going to be eaten. Another example would be a funeral; everyone knows that it’s appropriate to wear black because it’s a time to mourn and sorrow for a lost loved one, but if someone were to wear black to a wedding it would portray to be inappropriate because weddings are created to be a time full of joy and new beginnings. Colors are used in present day to represent things, yet they were just as useful hundreds of years ago, for instance; the 1600’s. In the 1600’s, the Puritan society represented a community that was gloomy and dark while also being full of strict rules and “perfect” people who did not sin. In The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, he uses the main character, Hester Prynne, as a representation of the Puritan society by using symbolism in two ways: the scarlet letter itself and the forest. To begin with, Hester Prynne was accused of adultery while her husband was gone from Massachusetts, her home town. Because of this accusation, she was forced to pin a bright red scarlet letter on her chest. This scarlet letter stood out in front of people’s eyes whenever she was around. Now as a Puritan, it was forbidden to sin. They believed that sinners were working with the devil to finish any undone business he had left. It was a rule with the Puritans to have an...
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...The Scarlet Letter A: Write an analytical essay (900 - 1200 words) on the excerpt from Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter (1850). Part of your essay must focus on the narrative technique and the theme of Puritanism and slut shaming. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel “The Scarlet Letter”, a dark tale of shame and condemnation, centres on a small Puritan society of Boston during the 17th century. Set in Puritan New England, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, a Puritan woman who has a baby out of wedlock. Although written many years ago, Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” covers themes and ideas related to modern readers. The themes of slut-shaming and breaking society’s expectations are ones to which many young people can relate to today. Seen in this context, the novel can be approached as the story of a young woman who let her heart rule her head and suffered the consequences. In a dedicated Puritan town, a young married woman named Hester Prynne conceives a child. There is a glitch, however; her husband, a doctor, has been missing for a long time. The society magistrates imprison her for this sin and commands that she must wear a scarlet “A” on her dress as a sign for adultery, shame and sins. Additionally, she must stand on a scaffold, exposed to public humiliation. The reason why is she had an affair with the local minister, Reverend Dimmesdale. The fact that he is a reverend makes the case much worse and also shows hypocrisy in the community, since the minister...
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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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...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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...had various forms 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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...Section #1: The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, starts off by introducing how the book was written. The anonymous narrator stumbled upon some manuscripts labeled with a red “A”, all of which happened some 200 years before his time. He decided to write a fictional story about the facts he found in the manuscripts and thus, The Scarlet Letter was born. The story begins in a Boston Puritan Settlement in the 17th century. Hester Prynne and her young daughter, Pearl, are being led from the town prison, bearing the infamous “scarlet letter”. A man in the crowd said she was being tried for adultery, after her husband left and was supposed to be “lost at sea”, and gave birth to a child. She will not, however, give the identity of her lover, and the red “A”, along with her public shame, is punishment for her sin and secrecy. The man in the crowd turns out to be Hester’s long lost husband, who is now practicing medicine and is going by the name Roger Chillingworth. Several years pass and, being banished by the town, Hester and Pearl live in a small cottage on the outskirts of Boston. The town repeatedly tries to take Pearl away from Hester, but with the help of the young minister, Arthur Dimmesdale, the two manage to stay together. Chillingworth has his suspicions about Dimmesdale’s health and the fact he may be hiding a secret, so he decided to move in with him to give him constant care. One afternoon, while the minister sleeps, Chillingworth discovers a mark on the man’s chest...
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...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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...Nathaniel Hawthorne's background influenced him to write the bold novel The Scarlet Letter. One important influence on the story is money. Hawthorne had never made much money as an author and the birth of his first daughter added to the financial burden ("Biographical Note" VII). He received a job at the Salem Custom House only to lose it three years later and be forced to write again to support his family (IX). Consequently, The Scarlet Letter was published a year later (IX). It was only intended to be a long short story, but the extra money a novel would bring in was needed ("Introduction" XVI). Hawthorne then wrote an introduction section titled "The Custom House" to extend the length of the book and The Scarlet Letter became a full novel (XVI). In addition to financial worries, another influence on the story is Hawthorne's rejection of his ancestors. His forefathers were strict Puritans, and John Hathorne, his great-great-grandfather, was a judge presiding during the Salem witch trials ("Biographical Note" VII). Hawthorne did not condone their acts and actually spent a great deal of his life renouncing the Puritans in general (VII). Similarly, The Scarlet Letter was a literal "soapbox" for Hawthorne to convey to the world that the majority of Puritans were strict and unfeeling. For example, before Hester emerges from the prison she is being scorned by a group of women who feel that she deserves a larger punishment than she actually receives. Instead of only being...
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...concluded 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...
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...The Scarlet Letter Essay In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne effectively conveys his message through his continual use of powerful symbolism throughout the novel. Hawthorne uses copious symbols throughout the book that represent a broader meaning, such as the scarlet letter and the meteor. For example, Pearl’s name is allegorical of her character and the price her mother paid. An actual pearl is not completely white. This demonstrates how Pearl is not entirely pure and has a tendency to be an “elfish” child. Pearl is also correlated to the rose bush near the prison. Hawthorne states, “The child finally announced that she had not been made at all, but had been plucked by her mother off the bush of wild roses” (Hawthorne 90). She relates to this because although Pearl is beautiful, she can have her “thorns.” In the novel, Hawthorne states, “But she named the infant “Pearl,” as being of great price,--purchased with all she had,--her mother’s only treasure” (Hawthorne 73). This...
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