Scarlet Letter Criticism

In the 1850’s, America was undergoing a massive internal changes via the industrial revolution. With this new era, American culture was drastically changed as women started to take a more prominent role in American society. In his novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne attempts to stimulate this change by illustrating the positive influence of a strong female character in a Puritanical society through his heroine, Hester Prynne, by putting her in a scandalous situation capable of drawing out the worst in people.

The Scarlet Letter submerses the reader in the Puritan’s culture. The story involves the Puritans portrayal of the sins of a young woman. Although a difficult read, the book stirs the reader to obtain a high moral compass. Throughout the novel, Hawthorne uses the symbols of light and dark to depict good and evil among the characters, Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth.

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a novel that takes place during the sixteen hundreds in a Puritan Boston town and incorporates love, judgment and sin. Sin is one of many things that is frowned upon in many religions. In the Scarlet Letter, Hester is in a predicament she can not escape. Hester has committed the sin of adultery and is bearing a child. Hester is put to shame by society and now she is viewed as a sinful individual.

Throughout his literary endeavors, Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes symbolism to present a certain theme that pertains to human nature and life. In his works, The Scarlet Letter and "The Minister's Black Veil", Hawthorne uses symbolism to present a common theme pertaining to religion; that though manifested sin will ostracize a person from society, un-confessed sin will destroy the soul.

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.

Hawthorne's Hester Prynne is the underdog protagonist that the reader cannot help but want to succeed. She is flawed but her flaws are outshone by her good heart and spirit. This shamed and humiliated woman is the one the reader, with the help of Hawthorne’s descriptions, wants to support. This sinful woman, with a child from wedlock, a diabolical “husband”, and a secretive lover is the motivating force that drives the reader to continue on with The Scarlet Letter. The language, descriptions, and plot of The Scarlet Letter show that Hawthorne believes the reader should look past gender stereotypes because not everything is what is

“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and “The Minister’s Black Veil” both use symbolism to contribute to the impact of Puritanical values on their congregations; however, Edwards utilizes symbolism more effectively. He uses symbolism to create fear when he says, “The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow…” (paragraph 8). He uses the bow to symbolize God’s anger with the people of Edwards’s congregation by being straightforward with them, while Hawthorne’s use of symbolism is more difficult to comprehend. In contrast, Hawthorne uses symbolism to give the black veil a greater purpose than it actually has when he explains, “It shook with his measured breath, as he gave out the psalm; it threw its obscurity between him

People have been stereotyping outcasts since the beginning of time. This behavior is a crucial component of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter. The main character of the story, Hester Prynne, resides in a community of Puritans; who are notorious hypocrites. Their harsh rules are basically impossible to follow, therefore setting their citizens up for failure and punishment. Hawthorne tells the story of Hester Prynne with the elements of sin, judgement, and revenge.

Symbolism plays a major role in the “Minister’s Black Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It influences the setting of the story and it complements the moral message. The minister, Mr. Hooper, has a lot of faith and is very committed to helping the society to be more faithful and closer to God. He lives a very harsh live being rejected by society and goes through unpleasant moments to achieve his original goal. When he decides to wear the black veil, he was not trying to be mysterious and create a gloomy environment like he did; he had much more than that in mind. The Black Veil represents the thought of the puritans that sin was an inexcusable mistake, the secret sin and dark side in each individual, and he uses

The first and most evident symbol is the faces of the people. Georgiana has the birthmark if the shape of a hand, and the black veil that Hooper wore. I think that Hawthorne chooses to focus on the peoples faces because a person"'"s face is pretty much the center of their being. The face is where a person shows the majority of their emotions, and it holds the brain, which well, is where everything starts at. So, a person"'"s face is very

Symbolism in a character portrays the true meaning behind that individual and gives the reader a better understanding of the novel as a whole. Dimmesdale is very well-known to the people of the Puritan town in Boston. In this book, he proves to everyone that he is a true sinner, but not a well-known sinner. He kept this secret of adultery from everyone in the town; it showed that he is a “secret sinner.” Dimmesdale symbolizes weakness and self-centered intellectualism; he understands what is right, but doesn’t have the courage to confess his sins to the town. The main reason the people of the town love Dimmesdale is because he hasn’t told them his sins. He accepts that once he does reveal what he did wrong, the citizens will treat him awfully.

Nathaniel Hawthorne also uses different objects in the story as symbols. One of these is the staff of the devil : "But the only thing about him, that could be fixed upon as remarkable, was his staff, which bore the likeness of a great black snake . . ." (185). This symbol shows the reader the evil that is involved with the devil character because the serpent is an archetype of the devil, or some sort of evil, which is prominent in many different cultures. Another object Hawthorne uses as a recurring symbol is the pink ribbon. The pink ribbon symbolizes the purity and innocence involved with Faith. "And Faith . . . thrust her own pretty had into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons in her cap," is a great example of how Hawthorne correlates Faith with the pink ribbons of innocence (184). The pink ribbons are mentioned later on in the story as they fall from the sky: "But something fluttered lightly down through the air, and caught on the branch of a tree. The young man seized it, and beheld a pink ribbon." (189). This symbolizes Brown's loss of his Faith, referring to both his wife and his faith in mankind, as she hovers over toward the devil's gathering.

Another literary element that Hawthorne utilizes is allusion through symbolism. This is depicted when the story invites a new character: an evil creature that bears a staff in the shape of a black snake. This showcases the author alluding to the story of Adam

In his various works, Nathaniel Hawthorne addresses the religious themes dominant in colonial Puritan society. Mr. Hooper’s black veil is a prime example on how the Puritans believed it could bring nothing but evil. Like many of his works, Hawthorne brings upon a symbol in which tends to symbolize the wrongdoings of such characters. This is not the first in which Hawthorne uses a strong symbol in his works. For example in “The Scarlet Letter”, Hester Prynne is forced to wear the scarlet letter “A” which symbolizes that she is an adulterer. The black veil can be interpreted in many ways, it’s all a matter of perception.

Hester’s Scarlet Letter symbolizes the shame she feels. Moreover, it also symbolizes the meaninglessness of society’s judgement and punishment. This symbolic message connects to the minister’s veil, in which the idea that the veil isolates Mr. Hooper from society, revealing his action of nonconformity to the social norms through wearing the veil. Furthermore, while Mr. Moody serves as a counterpart of Mr. Hooper in “The Minister’s Black Veil, the symbol Scarlet Letter also has its own counterparts. According to Carnochan, Hawthorne finds something in the custom house that “each limb proved to be precisely three inches and a quarter in length” (Carnochan, 184). In addition, Mr. Hoopers’ reason for wearing the veil in “The Minister’s Black Veil” also parallels Dimmesdale’s statement in The Scarlet Letter. According to Hawthorne, “We are not, Hester, the worst sinners in the world. There is one worse than even the polluted priest! That old man's revenge has been blacker than my sin. He has violated, in cold blood, the sanctity of a human heart. Thou and I, Hester, never did so!" (140). The above message along with Mr. Hooper’s final explanation for his reason for wearing the veil effectively reveals the state of mind of both Mr. Hooper and Hawthorne. According to Donoghue, “To Hawthorne, a sin is an act, a condition, a state of consciousness, such that I will not reveal it to my community--or indeed to anyone ”(Donoghue, 221). This criticism directly correlates with Fogle’s criticism about “The Minister’s Black Veil” in which choosing to wear the veil, to exhibit such an extreme action till the end of the life, maintains subjectivity for Mr. Hooper’s character. The individuality displayed through the hidden sin via the conveyance of the symbols in both works leaves the reader with ambiguity and the chance to interpret the state of mind that