What Is The Scarlet Letter Code Of Ethics

Repeatedly she stays silent to protect both those she loves and those she is indebted to. One instance of this is when she denies information about Dimmesdale, her lover, to her husband in order to protect him, saying “‘That thou shalt never know!’” (Hawthorne 69). This privilege of trust is not just exclusive to loved ones however, as she turns right around and offers the same deal to her husband, who asks her to “‘[b]reathe not, to any human soul, that thou didst ever call me husband!’” (Hawthorne 69-70). She complies, and no one ever finds out their prior relation. Hester is loyal to more than just the people around her, however. Hester is also loyal to her punishment and societal beliefs despite her lack of respect for the clergymen and their decisions. Hester has the option to escape her punishment, but chooses not to, rather displaying her embroidered ‘A’ to the public “... which was of a splendor in accordance the the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony” (Hawthorne 50). She views this mark of her sin as something to be proud of, decorating the letter like a trophy and taking a firm ownership of her sin. At the same time she also remains loyal to her ideals, refusing to believe she has done anything wrong. Hester “remains unwilling to separate herself from her sin by recognizing it as a sin,” and as a result maintains a strong “devotion to

In The Scarlet Letter Hypocrisy is evident everywhere. The characters of Hester, Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, and the very society that the characters lived in, were steeped in hypocrisy. Hawthorne was not subtle in his portrayal of the terrible sin of hypocrisy; he made sure it was easy to see the sin at work , at the same time however, parallels can be drawn between the characters of The Scarlet Letter and of today’s society.

Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale takes the easy way out and does not tell the community that he is the one that committed adultery with Hester Prynne, which led to more pain than he saved. Him and Hester Prynne committed adultery together and as a result of that, they have a

Hester Prynne was at war with her conscience about telling the community who her mister was. Being that Hester already committed the sin of adultery and the community found out about it she still wanted to keep who her mister was a secret. Arthur Dimmesdale, who happens to be Hester Prynne's mister was also at war with his conscience. Arthur Dimmesdale is said to be a “man of the church,” and keeps being the father of Pearl and Hester’s partner in adultery a secret and seemingly gets a heart problem. Both Hester and Arthur already have committed a sin and initially keep their affair a secret and its leads to Arthur developing a heart

Guilt and shame haunt all three of the main characters in The Scarlet Letter, but how they each handle their sin will change their lives forever. Hester Prynne’s guilt is publicly exploited. She has to live with her shame for the rest of her life by wearing a scarlet letter on the breast of her gown. Arthur Dimmesdale, on the other hand, is just as guilty of adultery as Hester, but he allows his guilt to remain a secret. Instead of telling the people of his vile sin, the Reverend allows it to eat away at his rotting soul. The shame of what he has done slowly kills him. The last sinner in this guilty trio is Rodger Chillingworth. This evil man not only hides his true identity as Hester’s husband, but also mentally torments

The author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, is the nephew of John Hathorne. During the Salem Witch Trials, the only judge that did not apologize for the remorseless and cruel acts that were put upon many men and women was in fact John Hathorne. Nathaniel changed his last name from Hathorne to Hawthorne in an attempt to disassociate himself from his uncle. John Hathorne is the reason why Nathaniel Hawthorne is obsessed with the puritan times. Hawthorne lived in the 1800s, but the setting of the novel is based before the Salem Witch Trials were held in the 1600s. In his novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the symbolism of the scarlet letter, Dimmesdale, and burrs to contribute to the overall theme of guilt.

In chapter thirteen of The Scarlet Letter the audience encounters a shift of attitude by the town’s people toward Hester as they are described more tolerable and compassionate towards her. Prynne’s good deeds extend toward her fellow villagers were acknowledged with appreciation and admiration. From feeding the poor to nursing the sick back to health, Prynne’s kindness for her community was revealed and did not go unnoticed. Due to the rigidity of the Puritan faith and despite her good works, Prynne still could not be absolved nor forgiven for her actions. For example, paragraph two of chapter thirteen reads, “In this matter of Hester Prynne there was neither irritation nor irksomeness” (Hawthorne 65). This sentence adequately describes how accepting Prynne appeared of her consequences and how compliant she was in comparison to other criminals in the village. Prynne saw her future with “nothing now to lose” (65). She accepted her fate and the shame coming from her neighbors and fellow townspeople. In addition, Hawthorne’s narrator states, “Hester’s nature showed itself warm and rich- a well spring of human tenderness, unfailing to every real demand, and inexhaustible by the largest” (66). These poignant words helped to

As the book opens, Hester is brought forth from the jail and walked to the scaffold. For the first time being seen in public named an adulterer, Hester shies from the public as they mock her. However, "She never battled with the public, but submitted uncomplainingly to its worst usage; she made no claim upon it, in requital for what she suffered; she did not weight upon its sympathies." (Hawthorne 140). Soon, it did not matter what other people thought of Hester because of her sin. She chose not to live with the humiliation, but she did have to live with herself.

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.

Hester’s initial sacrifice for love is highlighted during her decision to commit the affair with Arthur Dimmesdale. Although she was fully aware of the consequences that accompanied the affair, she considered love to be more valuable than her reputation among other individuals in the community. Yet again, Hester was met with another option to further sacrifice the reputation that had already been abandoned, when she exclaimed “that I might endure his agony, as well as mine” (Hawthorne 58). She held the identity of her affair a mystery to the outside world, which not only provided the man with protection, but it also defined Hester’s idolization of love and endearment. Due to Hester’s reputational sacrifice, Nathaniel Hawthorne used her forbidden relationship to characterize the rigid and punitive Puritan community of the colonial

   Throughout The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne repeatedly portrays the Puritanical views of sin and evil.  The Puritans are constantly displayed as believing that evil comes from an unyielding bond being formed between love and hate.  For such reasons they looked towards Hester's commitment of adultery as an action of pure, condemned evil.  However, through the use of light and dark imagery, Hawthorne displays who truly holds evil in their hearts.  The one who is the embodiment of evil creates hypocrisy of Puritanical views towards sin and evil.  Hawthorne displays that those who expose sin to the public and the daylight are the most pure and those who conceal their sin under a

Hawthorne’s classic The Scarlet Letter takes the readers on an adventure to clearly define what is “good” and what is “evil.” He examines the phenomenon of moral ambiguity, which means that there isn't a clear cut definition of what should be considered a "moral" act or an "immoral" act. It’s like asking, "How bad should the extent of the action to be to be considered immoral?” In The Scarlet Letter, what is "right" and what is "wrong" is not cut and dry as one might think. The Puritan society, in which Dimmesdale, Hester, and Pearl live in, is less than forgiving.

The Scarlet Letter invokes a lot of thought about morals even though the story itself was made up. Nathaniel Hawthorne used his knowledge of the real Puritans’ lifestyles of simplicity, strict punishment, and a strong focus on God to impact his characters in a way that hurt them rather than helped them. The Puritans described themselves as being zealous for God, but in reality, they used that as an excuse to inflict shame on others. What Hester and Mr. Dimmesdale did was wrong, but the Puritans caused much more pain to the “family” of Hester, Pearl, and Mr. Dimmesdale than was

Hester was forced to marry Roger Chillingworth, but she did not love him. She fell in love with Arthur Dimmesdale and slept with him behind Chillingworth’s back (Hawthorne 69). Hester Prynne was felt as if she was not loved by Chillingworth, so she decided to start seeing the priest Arthur Dimmesdale. Hester and Dimmesdale are not the types of shame and secrets (Howells). In Hester’s endurance of punishment there is publicity but not confession (Howells). The tragedy of the story is Hester Prynne’s personality (Howells). She dominates by virtue and is womanly and typical her (Howells). The A keeps Hester away but hardly equips her with

   "...pain is in itself an evil; and indeed, without exception, the only evil; or else the words good and evil have no meaning." (Chase 127) In the novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne presents a very clear view of his stand on morality, which he carefully cultivates through the course of the story. The moral, which is "Be true!" applies equally well to all of the characters in the novel. Though his view does seem to stand as true through the length of the story, it does not, unfortunately, transfer as smoothly to our lives today. In essence it is a hedonistic view to take, which requires a slight stretch as to his interpretation as to how evil, and important, an individual's pain is unto