Heroism Of A Puritan Society

Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays the ideology of Puritan society in the novel the Scarlet Letter; however reader also get to witness his characters being an illustration of hypocrisy and victims to their own guilt. In the Scarlet Letter, as in many of Hawthorne’s shorter works, he makes profuse use of the Puritan past: its odd exclusionary belief, its harsh code of ruling, its concern with sex and witchcraft. The Scarlet Letter is a story that is embellished but yet simple. Many readers may view this novel as a soap opera due to the way Hawthorne conveys this Puritan society’s sense of strictness and inability to express true emotion along with the secrecy and how deceiving the characters are being. As the story unfolds the main character Hester Prynne is bounded in marriage at an early age. She engages in an adulterous affair with an unknown member of their small village. Hester soon becomes pregnant and with her husband’s absence the chances of this child belonging to her husband are slim. The towns’ people know that she has committed a sin and imprisons her for her crime.

Dimmesdale believes that Hester has declared her sins through the scarlet A on her chest and it relieves her burden. Dimmesdales hidden thoughts, however, seem to be the source of his illness. Despite this, he doesn’t tell anyone and doesn’t believe in confessing to an “earthly physician” and believes he should only confess to Christ. Chillingworth gets impatient but after they fight, the two men make up. Later, Dimmesdale falls asleep and Chillingworth goes to his room and lifts his shirt to reveal something that excites him. To me, his secretive nature reveals his not-so-positive intentions and the townspeople rightly suspect him of acting darkly towards the

Nathaniel Hawthorne is the author of the classic novel the Scarlet Letter based on the Puritan Era in Massachusetts. D.H Lawrence a British writer critiques the novel and gives his opinions on the piece in a persuasive argumentative manner. He believes that the heroine of the novel is not the beloved, marvelous character we all believe she is.He uses confident literary techniques like powerful tone, abrupt syntax and classic biblical allusions to convince people that the beloved character Hester Prynne is truly a conniving adulteress who thrives off of stealing one's purity.

This means that the sin continues to influence Dimmesdale long after Hesters public shame has been forgotten, which controls his actions and thoughts. After Hester and Dimmesdale talk about their current state and past sins on page 203, Dimmesdale seemed to transform into a completely different being-sinister and energetic. He was anxious to do out-of-the-ordinary activities. This shows that after Dimmesdale is told that Chillingworth was her husband all of Dimmesdale’s actions became based on evil motives, proving that his actions are controlled by sin. After the years of torture that Dimmesdale has gone through he finally reveals the truth, telling the whole town that he was the one who committed adultery with Hester, dying soon after.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" is set in the early days of Puritan America. Hester Prynne, a seamstress, comes to the New World before her husband in order to prepare a place for them. During his absence, she develops a relationship with Arthur Dimmesdale, a rising minister in the newly founded Puritan community. Hester becomes pregnant. The novel is widely viewed to be a story about her trials and tribulations; however, critic Randall Steward argues that, "…Hester is not the protagonist, the chief actor, and the tragedy of the novel is not her tragedy but Arthur's. He is the persecuted one, the tempted one. He it was whom the sorrows of death encompassed…His public confession is one of

In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays a Puritan society plagued with guilt and corruption. Throughout the novel, characters are punished for their hypocrisy and Hawthorne shows the flaws in Puritan societies. Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale and Robert Chillingworth in The Scarlet Letter become so consumed in their ambitions that they are unable to discern the hypocrisy of their beliefs, and as a result, Hawthorne critics and punishes these members of the Puritan society.

Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth portray one central theme throughout Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, which is that one must accept responsibility for their actions or suffer the consequences.

In the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Aristotle’s seven components of tragedy are present. In order for a novel to be classified as a tragedy, it must have a protagonist, or tragic hero, who falls from a high place because of a flaw he has. The hero then must suffer until he recognizes his tragic flaw and fixes it. Once he has done this, the hero has completed his quest, and the tragedy is concluded. Arthur Dimmesdale is a perfect example of a tragic hero.

While wallowing in his own self grief and guilt in secrecy, Dimmesdale continuously weakens himself. The effect which hypocrisy of sin and guilt has on Dimmesdale is uncovered throughout thorough description of the self harm and mental abuse he puts himself through. Hawthorne describes the effect on Dimmesdale stating, “Poor, miserable man! what right had infirmity like his to burden itself with crime? Crime is for the iron-nerved...This feeble and most sensitive of spirits could do neither..” (129-130). In the Puritan society, sin is comparable to a crime which seems to tear Dimmesdale’s already weak soul to shreds. Hawthorne clearly reveals that Dimmesdale is not the type of man who can handle the intensity of crime/sin. He is so afraid of the community’s judgement and rejection, that he cannot even begin to process how difficult managing the sin in secrecy is going to be for him. Dimmesdale’s “feeble and most sensitive” spirit, is completely contrary to Hester’s spirit of great resiliency. While Hester stands upon the scaffold bearing the harsh shame of the Puritan society, she shows her true character and the lack of frailty in her soul. Hester stands proud and tall, holding her daughter Pearl tight to her bosom and remains accountable for her adultery while standing in front of

In the Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, he explored the distress of going against law and order in Puritan society. Hawthorne showed how the actions one does affects the rest of their life. This could be seen through one of the characters in this novel, Arthur Dimmesdale, a preacher, eaten away by his sin. Hawthorne shows how Dimmesdale is the one to go against Puritan ideals through the symbols in this novel, style and literary techniques.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter took place in the Puritan Boston, Massachusetts, in the 17th century or in other words, the 1600’s. At this time the majority of the country was Puritans. This book takes place in a small town of Boston. In this book there are two major characters, Hester Prynne, and Reverend Dimmesdale.

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne paints a picture of two equally guilty sinners, Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale, and shows how both characters deal with their different forms of punishment and feelings of remorse for what they have done. Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale are both guilty of adultery, but have altered ways of performing penance for their actions. While Hester must pay for her sins under the watchful eye of the world around her, Reverend Dimmesdale must endure the heavy weight of his guilt in secret. It may seem easier for Reverend Dimmesdale to live his daily life since he is not surrounded by people who shun

The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a timeless classic with many symbolic meanings. Such as the forest which symbolizes much more than one might imagine. In this mysterious dark landscape Hester and Dimmesdale met once again and this time they let their guard down profess their love to one another and committed adultery here. Nathaniel Hawthorne, created a literary masterpiece. He took a landscape and made it a place of morally astray, and a place for natural innocence.

However despite his public figure, he is also a man of sin. Dimmesdale, like Hester Prynne, committed the sin of adultery. Dimmesdale plays a huge role in the morale of this story set by Hawthorne. He, unlike Hester, was not put into a position to have let all the townspeople know of his crime, thence leading him to keep it a secret. This is where the morale of the story takes place in Dimmesdale’s life.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of The Scarlet Letter, focuses the majority of the book on sin and the effects of sin on the protagonist's daily lives throughout the book. This standard essentially goes with the Puritan ideals with punishment. The main protagonist, Hester Prynne, is the primary target for these harsh effects. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the novel The Scarlet Letter to appeal to the Puritanical ideals of this era, mainly the idea of sin because of Hester Prynne, Reverend Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth, the other two main protagonists of the novel, and their encounters with the punishments they endured.