Analysis Of Hawthorne 's ' The Scarlet Letter '

During the 17th century, a Puritan commonwealth presided over Boston and was known for its strict adherence to religious, moral and social codes. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes rhetorical strategies in order to denounce the Puritan system of beliefs and bring to light the hypocrisy of the Puritan community as he tells the agonizing story of a young woman who was condemned by society.

Hester brings up this idea because she has had time away from the town and had no one to guide her on this path that she took. She does not think about how townspeople are going to perceive her and Dimmesdale leaving simultaneously. Hester very much resembles the forest because the forest cannot be tamed. The forest grows how it wants and only stops when others force it to. Hester will only gain guidance when the town forces her to listen to them. The forest also knows to show who Hester and Dimmesdale are inside: “Such was the sympathy of Nature-that wild, heathen Nature of the forest, never subjugated by human law, nor illuminated by higher truth- with the bliss of these two spirits!” (139). The forest shows the truth about the townspeople. The forest was always dark around Hester when she had her letter on because of her sin. Hester removes her letter once she and Dimmesdale confirm that they are going to go to Europe. Once Hester removes her scarlet letter, the whole forest lights up. Hester has removed the symbol of her wrongdoing because it no longer is a part of her. Seven years has past and no one in the town remembers what the A stands for anymore. They believe that it means able because Hester has dedicated her life to making clothes for the townspeople. She never commits her transgression again and works to make her life good. The forest reflects who the townspeople are and shows their true self once they realise

Pearl, Hester’s child out of wedlock, then emphasizes on the idea of darkness following Hester when she declares to Hester, “the sunshine does not love you. It turns away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom” (Hawthorne 167). The letter on Hester’s bosom not only repel the townspeople, it drives off the sunshine and light that used to follow her wherever she went. She is considered as a social outcast among her peers and even the children of the community. However, still in the forest, when Hester rips the Scarlet Letter from her chest and throws it into the nearby brook, “all at once, as with a sudden smile of heaven, forth burst the sunshine, pouring a very flood into the obscure forest, gladdening each green leaf, transmuting the yellow fallen ones to gold, and gleaming adown the gray trunks of the solemn trees” (Hawthorne 186). Once the letter is no longer attached to Hester, she is set free from her guilt and grief that she has endured for so many years. She is no longer controlled by the “iron-framework” (Hawthorne 111) of the puritan society and is able to be with Dimmesdale, her true lover, without the guilt that was brought upon her by the Scarlet Letter.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a brilliant writer of the 19th century. Hawthorne created a novel that reflected the time period of the Puritans in New England. The Scarlet Letter contains a representation of the people during that time period but can also be related to the reader’s time period. Originally, God created the world with complete perfection until man fell, and sin entered the world. In the eyes of God, a sin is a sin. There is no worse sin that one can commit. Man is the one that decided that one sin could be more harshly judged than another. Hawthorne uses the theme of sin to show the importance of one’s faith and conviction and how those principles relate to fallen sinners.

The characters in the Scarlet Letter are judged greatly through how and who they are able and unable to forgive. Such as the main female lead, Hester Prynne, and her struggle for the town to forgive her, finding the will to forgive herself and having God forgive her. Although, this was hard because every day she had to live with the scarlet letter upon her chest as a reminder of her sin. Another character that had one of the roughest times in the novel was Arthur Dimmesdale. This man kept a sin hidden for most of the novel and let it eat him away. The person that Dimmesdale needed to forgivehim the most was Pearl. He spent most of the novel trying to earn her beloved trust. Pearl would ask him favors to go into town with her but it

In a novel that revolves almost solely around sin, the consequences of said sin, and redemption, there is no greater sin than that of revenge. No character in The Scarlet Letter is free of sin, but all gain some sort of redemption, save one Roger Chillingworth, who is arguably the greatest sinner of them all. Hester Prynne may have committed adultery, and Arthur Dimmesdale may have also committed adultery with Hester (as a priest, no less), but sins of passion are not the same as sins of vengeance and anger. These sins of revenge and madness are what Chillingworth is guilty of, ultimately making him the worst sinner in the entire book.

While in the town, villagers persecute and criticize her endlessly for the sin of adultery. She is faced with name calling such as “the naughty baggage” and forced to wear the scarlet “A” to display her sin (49). Hester has a hard life in the strict Puritan village, but the forest is a mysterious place “never subjugated by human law, nor illumined by higher truth” (183). Although the forest is mysterious to others, Hester experiences it as an escape from the constant condemnation in the village which represents the punishment for her sin. In the forest, she does not have to be afraid of her feelings. It is the place where “she undid the clasp that fastened the scarlet letter, and, taking it from her bosom, threw it to a distance among the withered leaves” (182). Hester escapes to not feel like a failure and even plans to run away with her love, Dimmesdale. Hester’s punishment and penance are publicized in the village, but she is able to find a haven in the

Conflict can take on many forms in one’s life, such as conflict with self, with society, with religion and with others. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, develops the theme of conflict through the moral sin of Hester Prynne. Conflict is observed through Hester’s difficulties with the townspeople, challenges with the Puritan way of life, struggles with herself and tensions with Roger Chillingworth. Committing sin in the Puritan society leads to a great deal of conflicts.

Though never forced to don a branding like the letter “A” in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, people in modern society are always remembered along with their act of wrongdoing. However, the subjects of the public judgement may not see their choices as immoral. People shame for a difference in beliefs and morals. For instance, Kim Kardashian, a popular reality TV star attained her own personal fame by making a sex tape with rapper Ray J, and, consequently, was shamed in the headlines. Despite the bashing, Kim did not see why her act was deemed shameful. Kim acts as a modern day Hester Prynne because she underwent the same humiliation from her society.

The forest in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, represents an array of personas. Both rumors and scandal surround the forest, causing a biased view of this secluded location within the Puritan community. Yet, Hawthorne designates the forest as a place of truth, independence, and joy to those with secrets.

Hawthorne suggests that the forest is the only place in the novel where characters can be individual and thus, true to themselves because of the isolation it provides from society. This romantic idea criticizes the rigid Puritan values that limit the individuality of a person. In society, characters Dimmsdale, Hester and Roger all are very superficial and only act the way society permits them to act because of the fear of being punished for having different ideas than the accepted Puritan values of the community. In the forest, Hester's hair becomes a symbol of her free spirit and individualism as she takes "off the formal cap that confined her hair"(191) revealing her youth and beauty. Her cap stands as a symbol of society's impressment, because it "confines" her from being the person she truly is. But the forest allows her to escape the judgment of society, thus allowing her to freely express herself and be true to herself. In the Puritan settlement, Dimmsdale must take up his role as the "pious minister", in which he is forced to be the a person that society wants him to be. However, in the forest he is able to stop his superficial act and truly reveal his true emotions and feelings when he admits, that "but, now it is all fakehood- all

The forest is where many important events occurred in the book and in some ways can be viewed as a separate society altogether from that of the Puritan community. The forest for Hester was freedom from the “A” that society damned upon her. In the forest she had the ability to take off the “A” and be herself. Chapter 18 declares, “She undid her clasp that fastened the scarlet letter and taking it from

Human struggle is inevitable, and one may choose to fall victim to it, or to grow from it. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne reflects upon human conflict and how one must root deep within themselves and their surroundings in order to better their being. When faced with foreign experiences, one must undergo life-altering occurrences in order to grow and benefit. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne’s biggest conflict is the internal remorse she feels for the sin she has committed, as evidenced by the punishment she receives from the natural environment around her, commenting on the power of struggle to make humans stronger. Hester wages war between her Puritan self and her identity which longs for true love, as well as the natural

Society has not changed as far as labeling people and probably never will. In the Puritan society they branded, tortured, and defined human beings the way they saw them even though they did not know how the person they were humiliating truly was. Hester Prynne is a good example of this in the novel The Scarlet Letter written by the author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne is using the character Hester in this novel to show how society can truly label people. People can be defined by the biggest thing in their life and in this case the letter “A” has brought a whole new meaning to Hester’s life and has defined her apart from others in the community in a way she never thought.

In his lengthy prologue to The Scarlet Letter entitled "The Custom House", Nathaniel Hawthorne warned the reader to beware of the noxious effects of "Uncle Sam's gold". Although the terms for monetary compensation may have changed at the outset of the 21st century, the central concept that Hawthorne discussed during his 19th century manuscript is certainly valid. Commercial success and an influx of money have a negative effect on popular music that once resonated with people and contributed to larger social movements. The three primary deleterious effects of commercial success and money on popular music are that they detract from the overriding social movements such music represents, they shift the focus from artistry to monetary results, and they foster a degree of complacency in life that only an abundance of money can produce.