Keeping Secrets: Direct Effect On The Mind

The Strong and Righteous Hester of The Scarlet Letter   "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

Compare and Contrast: Hester and Chillingworth The Scarlet letter is a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850 that follows main character, Hester Prynn, as she endures life in The Massachusetts Bay Colony with her daughter. Hester’s life in this society is mainly focussed around the actions of two characters other than her daughter Pearl. These characters are Roger Chillingworth and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. In the novel, Chillingworth was Hester’s husband when she lived in Europe and Dimmesdale is the local reverend who became the father of Pearl after a love affair with Hester. The two have contrasting roles in The Scarlet Letter but are bound together through their relationships with Hester forming the structure of the novel. With the use of symbolism, imagery, and diction, Hawthorne molds the characters of Roger Chillingworth and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale into representations of the flawed natures of the Puritan colonies in 17th century New England.

Kristen Zinzi Ms. Wasnetsky AP Literature 15 January 2016 The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is often renowned as his best work. The novel tells about the rigid ideas of 19th century Puritan New England through the story of Hester Prynne, Minister Dimmesdale, and Pearl. Hawthorne points out that the Puritans are often

In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne’s act of adultery with Arthur Dimmesdale (Hawthorne 231) ultimately leads to negative and positive impacts on her life, including being isolated from everyone in town, being mocked and gossiped about, being more mature, and being more compassionate. One of the negative

"One token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another." (Hawthorne, 2) Guilt and shame are two of the most devastating feelings that can haunt and eat people alive for the rest of their lives. Everyone has experienced either guilt or shame in their lifetime, especially

The Art of Owning Up The classic novel The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a story of guilt and love. The main character, Hester Prynne, has an affair with the minister, Arthur Dimmesdale. Hester then gives birth to her child, Pearl, after which she is then forced to wear an “A” on her chest for adultery. While this story focuses on the story of Hester, there is a deeper meaning behind the relationship between her and Dimmesdale. He displays great character development throughout the novel. He gives the reader a deeper meaning of how to conform to society while creating boundaries for self-exploration. Dimmesdale experience foreshadows the entire story when questioning Hester at the scaffold at the novel’s beginning. As the

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale has an affair with Hester Prynne. Unfortunately for the two of them, Hester becomes pregnant. This makes the two lover’s actions obvious to the public; therefore, creating a chain of events that puts both of them in utterly miserable states.

Nathaniel Hawthorne shows the outcome stemming from the guilt of concealing a crime through Arthur Dimmesdale’s decaying mental and physical state in his novel The Scarlet Letter. Dimmesdale, the clergyman who all the townspeople thought so highly of, was the man who impregnated Hester Prynne, forcing her to wear the dreaded Scarlet Letter that signified her sin of adultery. The preacher managed to evade any ramifications from the law, but his soul was continually tortured as punishment, severely weakening him, both physically and mentally. Although he knows that he would never do so, as the weight of the sin was too much to bear, Dimmesdale remarks that standing beside Hester “on thy [Hester’s] pedestal of shame” would be a more desirable

The Novel, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne is about a woman named Hester Prynne who is married to an older man, but not for love. Mrs. Pryne has an affair with another man named Arthur Dimmsdale and is completely ostracized by the community. It is revealed that because of this affair she gave birth to a daughter, Pearl. The main conflict Is external with Hester, but internal with her lover, Arthur. It is later revealed, Hester had taken full blame for the affair, but that is eating away at Dimmsdale’s conscience. Arthur’s health is slowly deteriorating. The climax is when Dimmsdale becomes an idol in the town after preaching powerful and influential sermons. Arthur would love nothing more than to confess, but such

In the Dark Romantic novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne reveals that the truth will unleash its dominance over the soul through broken barriers of secrecy of a character. Arthur Dimmesdale, was a respected and dignified man in the Puritan town because of his reputation as a minister. Dimmsdale soon found his paramour, Hester Prynne and both of them committed the sin of adultery together. Hester confessed her sin of adultery and paid the price for it; unlike Dimmesdale, he waited seven years to confess to his crime of impregnating Hester. After years of waiting, the truth consumed his soul and began to unleash out into the Puritan town. When Dimmesdale confessed he stated, “ye, that have loved me!—ye, that have deemed me holy!—behold

In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne describes the life of Hester Prynne as a struggle with society, forced to wear a scarlet "A" as a public reminder and shaming of the adultery she has committed. However, her lover, Arthur Dimmesdale, must only live with the guilt of the deed, rather than being shamed by the Puritan world. Indeed, the novel demonstrates the strength of the oppressed against the weakness of the privileged when both are plagued with shame or guilt.

Dimmesdale is virtually bound for ruin. Hester Prynne’s ability to sustain her stability and strength of spirit is the express result of her public guilt and penance. She was Arthur Dimmesdale’s partner in adultery, but she is used by Hawthorne as a complete foil to his situation. Unlike Dimmesdale, Hester is both strong and honest. Walking out of prison at the beginning of the novel, she decides that she must “sustain and carry” her burden forward “by the ordinary resources of her nature, or sink with it. She could no longer borrow from the future to help her through the present grief” (54). Hester openly acknowledges her sin to the public, and always wears her scarlet letter A. In the forest scene, she explains to Dimmesdale that she has been truthful in all things except in revealing his part in her pregnancy. “A lie is never good, even though death threaten on the other side” (133). Even Dimmesdale himself realizes that Hester’s situation is much healthier than his own when he states, “It must needs be better for the sufferer to be free to show his pain, as this poor woman Hester is, than to cover it all up in his heart” (92-93). This life of public shame and repentance, although bitter, lonely, and difficult, helps Hester retain her true identity while Dimmesdale seems to be losing his.

To make a decision, one weighs the benefits and the downfalls, and concludes by judging the factors of each alternative. One's choice of whether to conform to society's demands or submit to personal impulses is difficult, especially under strenuous circumstances. Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is a profound romance in

The Scarlet Letter is a classic novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne which entangles the lives of two characters Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale together through an unpardonable sin-adultery. With two different lifestyles, this act of adultery affects each of them differently. Hester is an average female citizen who is married to a Roger Chillingworth from Europe while Dimmesdale is a Puritan minister from England (61). Along the course of time after the act of adultery had happened, Hester could not hide the fact that she was bearing a child that was not of her husband, but from another man. She never reveals that this man is in fact Arthur Dimmesdale, and so only she receives the punishment of prison. Although it is Hester who

    The narrator of The Scarlet Letter is an unknown customhouse worker, who is omniscient. He can greatly be compared to Hawthorne, but he should not be taken as a literal embodiment of his opinions. The protagonist of this novel is Hester Prynne. She was sent to Boston by her husband, who was going to join her after he got his affairs in order in Europe. He was captured by indians and she thought he would never return to her. She has an affair and becomes pregnant, the peoplenof the community then realize that she has committed the sin of adultery. She refuses to confess the identity of her baby’s father. Hester is persecuted for committing the sin, and forced to wear a scarlet letter ‘A’ for the rest of her life. Pearl, Hester and Dimmesdale 's love child, lives under the same persecution as her mother during the entire novel. She is moody and mischievous little girl. She is very wise