Hester's Hypocrisy In The Scarlet Letter

In the book, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester is very strong-willed and loyal. For example, when Dimmesdale tells Hester to identify the father and she replies, “I will not speak!” (51). When Hester is in front of many people; she stays strong and does not give Dimmesdale up. This is important because by not revealing the identity of the father, Hester stays loyal to Dimmesdale. Another example is when the governor tries to take Pearl away from Hester and she says, “Ye shall not take her! I will die first!” (85). Hester continues to be tough and not give up Pearl but also does not give the name of Pearl’s father. Hester continues to argue why she should keep Pearl and is willing to die before she would let someone else raise

Throughout history, mental illness has been labeled as a defining deformity, that harnesses in its “victims,” into a box, parallel to the familiar “mime in a box” image. In a world where we glorify “normality,” a lack of illness, which by all means is a gift, the beauty of one mind takes away from the beauty of an outlier, even though, ironically people may not even recognize their differences. Hester, at a glance suffers from a literal scarlet letter, but an imprint on her brain may exist as well. Irrational actions, sudden emotional episodes, and destructive thoughts can only prevail for so long following sin; Hester’s persona has branches of self-defeating personality disorder, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder. No one of her time, however, will bring the issue to light, Hester will be left known as the mistress, a witch, or “A,” rather than to explore her “complicated” condition. As decades pass, Hester’s state will remain, as the “A,” the mark of the stigma on mental illness today. When left neglected, society rejects the possibility that under a visible coating, mental deformities may lie; those who are divergent, who require affection more, are made subordinate, marginalized with no quest for a cure.

Many times, a wrongdoing cannot be made right, but the only option is to accept the consequences and move on. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester accepts the consequences of her wrongdoing. Hester bears a letter A for being adulterous, but Hester does love Dimmesdale, so she does not repent for what she did, because her consequence is a result of her true love for Dimmesdale. In comparison to Hester, Crane loves for the wrong reasons. In "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," even after Crane doesn't obtain his objective of marrying Katrina, he doesn't have remorse and spreads his story around town.

First of all, the scarlet letter stands for Hester's sin. By forcing Hester to wear the letter A on her bosom, the Puritan community not only punishes this weak young woman for her adultery but labels her identity as an adulteress and immoral human being as well. "Thus the young and the pure would be taught to look at her, with the letter flaming on her chest", also "as the figure, the body and the reality of sin." And the day Hester began to wear the scarlet A on her bosom is the opening of her darkness. From that moment, people, who look at her, must notice the letter A manifest itself in the red color covering not only her bosom, but her own character. The Puritans now only see the letter A, the representation of sin, scorn and hate

The Scarlet Letter is about a woman named Hester Prim that has an adulterous affair and has a baby so the colony makes her wear a scarlet letter A on her clothing. Hester keeps the baby daddy a secret. They made Hester stand on a pillory platform which is a device used for locking people up in public.

Throughout the book, The Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthorne, there is much talk and criticism of Hester. The idea of hypocrisy, the thought and claim to have moral standards but ones behavior does not equal, is prominent in the lives of each character throughout the book. Hawthorne uses hypocrisy as a way to display the moral of his characters and setting. In the scarlet letter, the characters all display some sort of hypocrisy.

This essay will cover how these topics relate to one another. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the protagonist, Hester Prynne, commits the sin of adultery and is forced to wear a scarlet “A” on her clothing as punishment (chap. 2). However, even though Hester partially feels remorse for her actions, she keeps on living her life normally and at times acts like the scarlet letter isn’t even there.

Think of any one sin that you have ever committed. The sin could be small and effect few to no people or large and affect many. But, imagine this one sin effecting the way that you lived for the rest of your existence. In The Scarlet Letter, each character had committed a sin that affected their own lives, as well as each others and contributed to the plot of the book. Hester, Chillingworth, and Dimmesdale all represent different sins that they have committed and have opposing outcomes that affect themselves and the conclusion of the novel.

In The Scarlet Letter, Hester wears the scarlet letter as a sign of shame for committing adultery when her husband was lost at sea. By wearing the scarlet letter, Hester shows that she accepts the sin that she has committed. Even after Chillingworth allows Hester to remove the scarlet letter, Hester still wears the scarlet letter. By continuing to wear the scarlet letter, Hester accepts the scarlet letter as her reminder of her sin. Through her reflection of her sin with the scarlet letter, Hester changes and becomes more strong, honest, and kind. Hester exhibits strength when she persists to keep her oath of Pearl’s father, and when she

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.

In the book The Scarlet Letter, Hester is forgiven.She was cursed and was made fun of because of the “A” on her chest. “Those first steps out of the prison may have been a greater torture than the elaborate public humiliation described before, when the entire town gathered to point its fingers at her.” Hester had been able to take off the letter if she wished. “ She undid the clasps that fastened the Scarlet Letter.” Hester’s true self had been shown when she had taken the A that had been placed upon her chest off. Nathaniel Hawthorne says “ she undid the clasps that fastened the Scarlet Letter.”

The “A” worn on Hester’s chest is a symbol of her unfaithfulness to her husband. Thus the letter was a punishment conceived to make her feel ashamed and different from everyone else. “Here, She said to herself, had been the seen of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment: and so, perchance, the torture of her daily shame would at length purge her soul, and work out another purity than that which she had lost; more saint-like, because the result of martyrdom,” (pg. 67). This shows the shame that Hester bears from her sin because if she felt that she wasn’t guilty than she wouldn’t try to repent for her sin. Furthermore it is evident that Hester is embarrassed for her sin because she runs away to a secluded cottage. “On the outskirts of the town, within the verge of the peninsula, but not in clos vicinity to any other habitation, there was a small thatched cottage,” (pg. 67). If Hester had

As the novel progresses the meaning of the symbolism of the letter “A” starts ti blossom into a new meaning. Toward the climax of the novel Hester Prynne’s appearance is altered to where she is no longer viewed as a sinner. The meaning on the symbol changes from of the devil to a some what vague symbol, as if it has lost its initial connotation. Society now views her a symbol that differs whom she really is, she is viewed as a strong woman through all the torment that is put in a unfortunate situation. At this point Hester has already learned how to dealt with the burden of the scarlet letter. Withstanding the pressures of society boiling down waiting patiently for Hester Prynne to crack, she does not, she grows into a stronger woman. A woman that has gone through hell and back and continues to thrive in her society even under the circumstances she lives in. The scarlet letter “A” meaning has changed, “ hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility” (Hawthorne 147). Slowly Hester’s hard feelings toward the letter, and to the situation itself, begins to diminish. However, it is

Novelist, Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his fictional novel, “The Scarlet Letter”, expresses a story about a young woman, Hester Prynne, back in the 1600s who was convicted of adultery and must now wear a big “A” on her chest to show those in the small Massachusetts Bay colony the sin she has committed. Hawthorne’s purpose is to illustrate the hardships Hester must go through for committing such act in the small colony where religion was put first. Hawthorne adopts a serious and pitiful tone throughout the novel to get the adult readers to sympathize with the main character, Hester Prynne. Though this book was written back in the 1800s and is based off a woman who’s shamed for adultery, this book can still relate to today’s world with some of

Critics generally agree Hawthorne uses the effects of the scarlet letter to reveal the atrocities of the patriarchy and masculine hegemony. The patriarchal forces women to carry the burden of an action despite the entity of the original sinners. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne takes the responsibilities and consequences of adultery, even though Dimmesdale should have equal, if not more, punishment. When Hester stands in front of a jury and endures the tremendous hatred from the individuals within the audience who believe Hester “has brought shame” to society, she declares,“Ye cannot take it off, and would that I might endure his agony, as well as mine!” (Hawthorne 39, 49). Hawthorne reveals how society isolates and condemns women for the actions and results of men. If the women do not hold the accountability of all sin, they experience ignominy from society; if they do hold accountability of all sin, they still experience ignominy. The patriarchy enforces the idea that women should hold all responsibilities for all of men’s actions. Advancing Hawthorne's argument, critic Jane Swisshelm reveals the treatment of women as they endure ignominy: “[Hester] was the moral leper whom none might dare to touch - the blazing emblem of the virtuous indignation of an entire community” (Swisshelm 273). So long women exist, the consequences of the world’s