Good And Evil In Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'The Scarlet Letter'

The setting of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet letter” is crucial to the understanding of the event that takes place in the story. The setting of the story is in Salem, Massachusetts during the Puritan era. During the Puritan era, adultery was taken as a very serious sin, and this is what Hester and Dimmesdale committ with each other. Because of the sin, their lives change, Hester has to walk around in public with a Scarlet Letter “A” which stands for adultery, and she is constantly being tortured and is thought of as less than a person. Dimmesdale walks around with his sin kept as secret, because he never admits his sin, his mental state is changing, and the sin degrades his well-being. Chillingworth

To begin with, Hester’s sin drove the story, but after the community established her as a sinner, she overcame her sins but she still struggled through other characters. Instead of depicting Hester’s inner turmoil directly to Hester, Hawthorne portrays her tumult through other characters in her life such as Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, and the community. Dimmesdale proclaimed to Hester, “If thou feelest it to be for thy soul’s peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and

#1. The sin of Hester was her commitment of adultery. This is the reason of the scarlet letter on her clothing. She takes all the punishment that is given to her for her crime and does not falter with what is right from wrong. Although all of the townspeople know of her crime, she refuses to tell with whom she committed the crime with and who she has hurt in the process. She does not talk about Chillingworth, her actual husband, or Dimmesdale, her true love. This affects not only her, but also her daughter, Pearl. Pearl does not understand the concept of the scarlet letter and she is very straightforward with her mother. Hester's sin affect how she lives her life for much of her life. She had to live being scrutinized by society. She didn’t

The Scarlet Letter showed that sin corrupts the human soul and motivates evil actions. This can be proven in the cases of Dimmesdale, Hester, and Chillingworth. Dimmesdale, Hester, and Chillingworth were all corrupted with sin, which determined all of their actions in The Scarlet Letter. Hester’s sin occurred before the story began. She sinned by letting herself love a man other than her husband, After the sin of loving another man she went further down the path of sin by having an affair with Dimmesdale.

The short story, "Young Goodman Brown" is a fascinating rendition of the battle between good and evil. The reader must delve into the depths of his/her own beliefs to understand what the symbolism is. Nathaniel Hawthorne writes an entire lesson in life as one big symbol using allegory. The various examples are fruitful and will be presented throughout this essay.

Passion is one of them, yet so is anger. After Hester commits adultery, she and the townspeople are angry at each other. Hester is angry and frustrated at everyone trying to find out who the father is, while the townspeople are angry for someone ruining their picture-perfect world of Puritanism. Eventually, Hester is able to wear the letter proudly on her chest. Just how the scarlet letter represents the mix of emotions Hester uses to succeed and to free herself from others’ judgement, so does the blend of black and white. While waiting in the woods with Pearl for Dimmesdale’s arrival,“there was Hester, clad in her gray robe.... so that these two fated ones, with earth’s heaviest burden on them, might sit down together and find a single hour’s rest and solace” (Hawthorne 210). Hester’s gray robe is symbolic of the good and evil she has inside of her. Though it may not be the same multitude as Dimmesdale, she too carries the burden of her sin. From the experience with everyone knowing of her sin, Hester wants a simple, true life. Before with Roger, she lived a life of lies.

The Puritan townspeople of Boston, Massachusetts, punish a woman for committing an ignominious act with an unexpected man. Hester stands alone on the scaffold as townspeople scowl and judge, wondering who her lover is. The innocent town seamstress is a sinner in the eyes of the pure citizens. As Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter continues, the residents notice Hester’s abilities when caring for her daughter. She also regains respect as the bearer of the scarlet letter, the emblem she wears that “takes her out of the ordinary relationships with humanity and encloses her in a sphere by herself” (Hawthorne 51). Mistress Hester Prynne is an example taught to others because of her hardships faced without her true love. Hester transforms

This ridicule has a trickle down effect on Hester as she too is banished from her own community for committing adultery. The comparison between Hester and Hawthorne defines the external struggle for the reader to fully understand the effect of opinions from society on them Although reluctant to allow Hester to leave prison, the members of the town suggest that her punishment be to wear a scarlet red letter A on her bosom, thereby allowing all to know of her crime. The scarlet letter “ was red-hot with infernal fire, ” (Hawthorne 81) and defined the state she was currently in, that being eternal hell. Though she was forced to marry an older man at a young age, her rebellion to have an affair is not seen as an internal struggle that she overcame; rather, it is merely seen as a woman who sinned, a woman who shall therefore endure the punishment for the sin, rather than a woman who was never given a say in what she wanted with her life. Time and again, Hester Prynne is seen defying society by allowing herself to stand out from societal norm just as the roses “with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner“ (Hawthorne) did. Instead, she returns to the community and is observed aiding those in need, all with seven year old Pearl by her side.

The story, “The Scarlet Letter” was a very unique but yet so similar story. Due the fact, that it was plenty of exemplification of evil in the novel and seemed to be replication of the story about Adam and Eve from the book of genesis. Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden for eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. As a result of Adam and Eve knowing about their humanness, which made them be separated from the divine and from other creatures. However, the experience of Hester and Dimmesdale recalls the story of Adam and Eve because in both cases, sin results in expulsion and suffering.

The three main characters in the novel are Hester Prynne, Roger Chillingworth, and Dimmesdale. Hester is an adulteress and has a baby named pearl and she is convicted and her punishment is to wear a scarlet letter “a” upon her chest and to wear it until her death where it will be marked upon her grave as well. Her husband who she cheated on was Roger Chillingworth, which was his alias in the new world. He discovers Hester’s ignominy and is set on finding her partner in the “crime” they committed against him. Dimmesdale is the man who Hester had an affair, although he is the minister and that is a huge scandal for the preacher who speaks against infidelity. Hawthorne makes the relationship acceptable by showing that Hester and Dimmesdale actually love each other opposed to Chillingworth and Hester’s fake love.Chillingworth convinced Hester into marrying him which she never wanted to do in the first place, he only wished to own someone not love them. Chillingworth can be associated to evil because of his wish for revenge and torture to Dimmesdale which are considered the worst kind of sins. Chillingworth is also referred to as a leech which is what

The Scarlet Letter displays a theme of sin throughout the novel through multiple major events. To start off, in chapter seven, “The Governor’s Hall”, Hester observes herself in a convex shaped mirror, and realizes that the scarlet letter was exaggerated in size. The second major event is the entrance of Roger Chillingworth. He was quickly accepted into the Puritan society as an excellent physician, but as time passed, a few puritans started to suspect Chillingworth of using the skill of black art from the Indians. Hester also starts to realize a change, which goes into another major event to display the theme of sin. As Hester and Chillingworth were talking, she started to recognize a change in him, similar to a demon that had possessed him. But Hester wasn’t the only one to notice, Chillingworth noticed himself. In chapter nine and ten, Chillingworth is given the opportunity to cure Mr. Dimmesdale and to discover all of Dimmesdale’s hidden secrets. The final major event to represent sin is in chapter fifteen, “Hester and Pearl”, when Hester rids herself of the scarlet letter and realizes the freedom from the weight of her sin and shame. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses appearance versus reality to illustrate sin.

By revealing this small, hidden regret, he exposes Hester’s tortured state of mind. Unable to reach salvation in the town she desired to live in, she regretfully decided to leave and abandon her sorrows. The burden society placed on her with the scarlet letter was too demanding for her to handle any longer. Similarly, Arthur Dimmesdale was distressed from his ignominy. Afraid of societal repercussions, Dimmesdale had been “overcome with a great horror of mind, as if the universe were gazing at a scarlet token on his naked breast” (102). Society’s extensive honor toward him exacerbated his pain, thus causing society to trap Dimmesdale; this prevented him from revealing his dark secret and reaching salvation. Additionally, he began to picture his surroundings as an obstacle designed to hinder his path to redemption. His shortcoming to reach salvation agonized Dimmesdale to the point where he was incapable of recalling “[any] text of Scripture, nor aught else, except a brief, pithy, and, as it then appeared to him, unanswerable argument against the immorality of

In "Young Goodman Brown." Nathaniel Hawthorne considers the question of good and evil, suggesting that true evil is judging and condemning others for sin without looking at one's own sinfulness. He examines the idea that sin is part of being human and there is no escape from it.

Thesis: The contrast between Dimmesdale and Hester shows a prominent theme of hiding versus confessing sins throughout the Scarlet Letter.

Puritan ethic that man's fate is set at his birth is also very much a part of the characters of the book. The Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, who committed adultery with Hester Prynne, uses the statement, "Were it God's will" when he asks for Roger Chillingsworth's advice on whether he should admit publicly to the adultery . Dimmesdale says " I could be well content that my labours, and my sorrows, and my sins, and my pains, should shortly end with me, and what is earthly of them be buried in my grave, and the spiritual go with me to my eternal state, rather than you should put your skill to the proof on my behalf" p. Hester Prynne and The Reverend Dimmesdale's affair becomes the focus of the 17th century community in New England. Hester is the "fallen" woman who is brought before the court of community opinion and justice. This Puritan community believes that all men have fallen and all men are sinners (Bloom, 1986). Hester is made to wear the scarlet letter, an A. This A represents adultery and it is Hester's badge of dishonor and sin and a symbol of her failure. The scarlet letter is meant to affect the person wearing it by showing that they have sinned an are, in the end, sorry for their sin. The letter has the opposite