Hypocrisy In Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter

Society has unintentionally been guided by the same themes since the beginning of time. The recurring themes that are present in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic The Scarlet Letter are still relevant in today’s society. When high school students and teachers claim that Hawthorne’s novel is archaic and should be removed from the curriculum, they are absolutely wrong. Hester Prynne, the main character of the novel, commits adultery and as punishment, has to wear a scarlet letter “A” on her chest for everyone to see. Throughout the novel, Hester is faced with obstacles such as the struggle between self and society and the burden of publicly suffering for her sins. Despite a substantial amount of time having passed since Puritan times, the themes that Hester Prynne had to experience are still pertinent. Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s husband, is driven mad by his incessant need for revenge and in society today there are many occasions where people are plagued with the desire to seek vengeance. There are some instances in life where human nature takes over without people even realizing and revenge is one of them. Also, people are right when they say “history repeats itself” because some of these themes never go away. The Scarlet Letter takes place in the strict religious time of the 1600’s and although the book seems outdated and obsolete, the ideas inside are still relevant and therefore high school students should continue to read this work

   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

The Scarlet Letter is regarded as the first symbolic novel in American Literature for Nathaniel Hawthorne 's skillful use of symbolism and allegory. The novel is also said to be the greatest accomplishment of American short story and is viewed as the first American psychological novel, which makes Hawthorne win an incomparable position in American Literature. Hawthorne’s “unique gift” for using this kind of skills taps into the roots of man 's moral nature and gives vivid explanation of the implications in his works (Lei). Hawthorne is outstanding for his skillful employment of symbolism and psychological insight. Hawthorne set the stage for all other American Literature writers.

“The Scarlet Letter” is the embodiment of persecution, harassment, and torment. There’s a few places that come to mind when I hear those words. Jail maybe, but what didn’t pop in my head was high school. But now that i have had a chance to read some of this amazing literature by Nathaniel Hawthorne i’ve had the chance to reflect and see the similarities that are present between the conditions of “Hester” the main character of the story and My High school through “Scarlet Letter Day”.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne has an extremely complicated relationship with her community. Throughout the course of the novel, this relationship changes dramatically, going from one of contempt and isolation to a more healthy one, in which the town accepts and even venerates her. Hester’s relationship with the town parallels the symbolic change in meaning behind the scarlet letter. In the townspeople’s point of view, she and her letter transform from a physical representation of sin and shame to a symbol of charity and ableness.

For centuries written language remains the most common form of passing information and ideas. Society greedily uses it for its own purposes of persuasion and assertion upon impressionable youths. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses this platform to express his rightfully negative feelings about the Puritan lifestyle through The Scarlet Letter as a way of persuading himself of separation. His purpose is to shed the guilt he ancestrally bears from the witch trials in the feministic, romantic tale of Hester and Dimmesdale. The self-proclaimed romantic author of The Scarlet Letter uses the letter attached to Hester’s bosom as a symbol of Alienation intensely exploited through himself, Hester and Dimmesdale.

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.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter emphasises the behavior of the characters to propose that hypocrisy creates a culture that solely relies on appearance and conformity, while effacing genuity in society.

In general terms, hypocrisy is the practice of believing to have moral standards but one’s behavior showing different. Hypocrisy is very evident in The Scarlet Letter, which is a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The main and recurring characters Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth, seem to thrive in a society that promotes hypocrisy. The Scarlet Letter, also considered to be the first American novel, is a straight-forward portrayal of the destructive nature of hypocrisy. Hawthorne skillfully paralleled the transparent nature of the characters as they became overwhelmed by the sins of hypocrisy, therefore giving us, the readers, an understanding of hypocrisy being the biggest sin out of any in the novel.

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne captures the conflict Hester Prynne faces as she struggles to cope with the various forms of guilt and the challenges that life presents her with. At the beginning of chapter five, Hester Prynne is out of jail and is contemplating deeply about her past and present. This deep contemplation marks the beginning of a ‘new’ Hester—one who is thinking critically about the choices she must make in life in order to survive as a ‘pure’ soul in an otherwise rigid society of Puritans. Through the author’s diction, symbolism and literary devices such as juxtaposition, personification, anaphora, visual imagery and irony, readers begin to explore the conflict in Hester’s mind and the message that amidst conflict,

Sin and innocence both are found evident in life, with one marking the dark transgression imprinted upon every aching being and the other embellishing the pure, lighter essence every creature has at birth. The two are sharp contrasts that may seem incapable of holding together a single complex being, yet are found in all humans and generally constitute the basis of morals and human nature. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter beautifully weaves a tale of blind revenge, unintentional hypocrisy, and mortal transgressions, presenting the characters’ penitence from said transgressions in the form of a constantly changing Hester Prynne who must face the retribution of her affair with a tormented minister. Through the development of the characters Chillingworth, Dimmesdale, and Hester, Hawthorne illustrates the naturally wicked and flawed, however benevolent and atoning dual nature within man.

The Scarlet Letter is a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne during the nineteenth century. The novel is set in the seventeenth century Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Scarlet Letter tells the story of Hester Prynne who has an affair. Prynne is awarded a scarlet letter “A” to show the public she committed adultery. In the novel, Nathaniel Hawthorne presents us with Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth, characters who possess sinful characteristics throughout the novel; yet during the time the novel is set (1600’s), each of the characters have experienced punishments appropriate for the time.

Judith Martin once stated that, “Hypocrisy is not generally a social sin, but a social virtue.” This can be tied directly to the hypocritical nature of the Puritan society. In saying so, the role of Hester Prynne in the hypocritical setting of Puritan Boston that deems her as the tragic hero. Hester, the envied and desired woman of the town, possess the necessary traits to be classified as the tragic hero. Some of these traits includes her extreme hubris towards her misdeed. As reinforced by critical analyzers Monika Elbert and Tiffany Wayne’s criticism of Hester, the sin and heresy of the puritans is displayed through the character of Hester. Furthermore, in order to portray the hypocritical nature of the Puritan society, Nathaniel Hawthorne

In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses Hester Prynne to provide an audience with ethical lessons. Caught for committing adultery, the protagonist of the novel transforms her life through dealing with her punishment.  Using symbolism and evident themes, the author clarifies the meaning of his work, which is to teach a moral lesson, making him a “contemporary” author.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter centers around Hester Prynne; her child, Pearl; her lover, Arthur Dimmesdale; her estranged husband, Roger Chillingworth; and their lives after Hester and Dimmesdale commit adultery. After Hester’s adultery becomes known, the people of Hester’s town, Boston, shun her and force her to wear a scarlet “A” to forewarn others of her sin. Hawthorne’s Hester is tormented by her sin but remains outwardly dignified in spite of her guilt.