Hester Prynne: The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

In a surface examination of the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne, it is quickly evident that no good things come from the wilderness. Therein, the wilderness is often associated with the savages and the devil. In his work The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne finds herself exiled by society for having an adulterous affair with the town reverend which brought forth the child known as Pearl. Pearl is quickly established as the child of the wilderness: wild, capricious, and thought by the town to be a demon-child. She represents several entities in the novel just by her being, but when her morality is delved into, much more of the nature of the story can be revealed. Pearl’s role is often overlooked as a formative force in the novel. Some scholars have gone as far as to denounce her as unnecessary to the story’s makeup. Upon close examination, it can be determined that Pearl is indeed a necessary element. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Pearl presents themes of morality, both personal and cultural, as well as the divide between society and nature, through her interactions with Hester, Reverend Dimmesdale, and the scarlet letter itself.

Edward Said, literary critic, has described exile as something “strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience,” and as something that can be “potent, even enriching.” In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne experiences an exile after being marked as an adulteress which intrigues the reader because of its ability to change her substantially throughout the novel. Hester’s exile is intriguing because she often is near other people, but she remains on the outskirts of the town, and of society. Through the years, this exile leads to Hester’s complete transformation proves her incredible strength, even when faced with such tragedy.

A 1636 Plymouth Colony law required anyone convicted of adultery to "wear two Capital letters viz AD cut out in cloth and sowed on theire uppermost Garments on their arme or backe; and if att any time they shallbee taken without the said letters whiles they are in the Govrment soewarn to bee forthwith taken and publickly whipt."[1] Other Massachusetts colonies had their own versions of this law. In fact, "The Capitall Lawes of New-England, as they stand now in force in the Common-wealth, by the Court, in the years 1641, 1642, established within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts," proclaim that "if any person committeth adultery with a married or espoused wife, the

  "What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us," stated Oliver Wendell Holmes. This eventually proves to be especially true for Hester Prynne, the main character in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. Hester Prynne, a fair young maiden whose husband had disappeared two years prior to the opening of the novel, has an affair with the pastor of her Puritan church, resulting in the birth of her child Pearl. Because of this act of adultery, Hester Prynne is branded by the scarlet letter "A," which she is forced to forever wear upon her attire. The plot thickens as Hester's former husband returns to New England and becomes

In the 21 century adultery is not considered unacceptable . However in a 16 century Puritan society adultery is a very bad and serious sin. In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, Arthur Dimmesdale is a powerful religious figure in town. Arthur Dimmesdale is a Puritan preacher that committed adultery with Hester Prynne. Dimmesdale went through the whole novel, over the course of seven years, without confessing his sin and it was mentally killing him. Dimmesdale changed from accusatory to Hester to remorseful to god, this change is showed by his use of diction, his purpose of each speech, and his use of appeals.

In the book The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Dimmesdale gets sicker and sicker the longer he holds in his secret sin of Adultery. It takes place in a Puritan society, which was a strict, conservative, and simple group in Boston Massachusetts. The book focuses on the sin of Hester Pryne committing adultery and having a child, Pearl, with a man other than her husband, Chillingworth. Hester gets shamed and laughed at on the scaffold used for public humiliation. The vulnerable and weakening Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale comes closer to confessing to being Pearl’s father throughout the three scaffold scenes. “Sin as sickness” is a major theme in the book that is represented through Reverend Dimmesdale’s internal conflict. The more Dimmesdale

In the narrative, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the Puritan society in which the novel takes place, Arthur Dimmesdale is the Puritan Minister in this community. With that position, he needs to portray the epitome of the puritan religion and morals. To be an example and role model to the entire community. However, reverend Dimmesdale is the biggest hypocrite to live in the Puritanical society. Although from the outside, a religious society is viewed as a perfect image they are often full of hypocrites. With reason being: asking for hester to confess the name of the father to Pearl and fellow adulterer, his refusal to confess, and overall being the face of a religious society.

In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, one of the main characters is Arthur Dimmesdale, a Puritan minister living in Boston during the seventeenth century. Another main character, Hester Prynne, is the young wife of the aging Roger Chillingworth, a doctor who has recently gone missing. Dimmesdale and Hester commit adultery together and Hester becomes pregnant. Because her husband has been missing, however, the community discoverers her sin and they severely punish Hester. Dimmesdale does not confess to have taken a part in the adultery, and even with the ill treatment she receives, Hester refuses to reveal her partner in crime.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was in his mid-twenties when he published Mrs. Hutchinson in 1830. He referenced this story and its main character in his famous novel The Scarlet Letter, which was published two decades later.

When creating their works, writers often put forth the idea of character alienation to assist in the portrayal of a certain society’s values and morals. Although present in an abundance of literary pieces, the concept of alienation is rarely as vividly accounted for as it is in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 novel, The Scarlet Letter, in which Hester Prynne’s estrangement from puritan society in response to her “sin” of adultery reveals the ideas and standards of puritan society to be hypocritical and punitive.

While the concept of morality has existed for some time, the exact details of determining immorality, and passing judgement over it, has varied greatly over time and between different cultures. In the novel The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the protagonist, Hester Prynne, is convicted of breaking the moral code of Puritan society in committing adultery. Hester is consequently ostracized by her town for her sins, all the while keeping the identity of her lover, a resident priest named Dimmesdale, a secret. Though guilty of the same crime, Dimmesdale’s health fails as the guilt he feels eats away at his body, while Hester, still personally ashamed of her sins, does not feel they invalidate her worth as a human being. Through Hester and Dimmesdale, Hawthorne reveals his belief that while one should not run from their mistakes, neither should one let the established laws of society invalidate their self-worth.

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

1) Prompt: Hester has been called the "American heroine," Do you agree that Hester is a Heroine? How does Hawthorne portray the role of woman in society? What is Hawthorne’s message?

Public humiliation affects Hester and Dimmesdale in different ways but as an effect of their unpleasant acts they receive the same repercussions. Hester seems okay with the effects of public humiliation providing she feels happy. Anyway Hester turns, people are watching her every move. Many Puritan ladies use Hester as an example of what not do. “Thus the young and pure be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast, -at her, the child of honorable parents, - at her, the mother of a babe, that would hereafter be a woman, -as the figure, the body, the reality of sin” (Hawthorne 73). The author, Nathanial Hawthorne, states that the even though Hester sins once, from the town’s perspective it still defines her and everything she does. A few years pass before anyone sees the scarlet letter located on her bosom with a different meaning. Before the Puritans even consider Hester’s side of the story, they think and want greater punishments for her. “Where there is no pain there is no gain” seems to be their philosophy. “‘The magistrates are God-fearing gentlemen, but merciful overmuch, - that is a truth,’ added a third autumnal matron. ‘At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne’s forehead. Madame Hester would have winced at that, I warrant me. But she,

In his essay On The Scarlet Letter, D.H. Lawrence contradicts Hawthorne’s portrayal of Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne respects Hester and portrays her as a victim, whereas Lawrence argues that she is one of the main sinners in the novel. D.H. Lawrence establishes and supports his claim that Hester Prynne is unworthy of Hawthorne’s praise by effectively utilizing concise syntax, frequent repetition, and strong biblical allusions.