Scarlet Letter Guilt Quotes

To begin with, Hester’s sin drove the story, but after the community established her as a sinner, she overcame her sins but she still struggled through other characters. Instead of depicting Hester’s inner turmoil directly to Hester, Hawthorne portrays her tumult through other characters in her life such as Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, and the community. Dimmesdale proclaimed to Hester, “If thou feelest it to be for thy soul’s peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and

"Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth." President John Fitzgerald Kennedy states that conformity imprisons citizens of the world due to the social standards that are set in our cultures. Judgement is the major form of bullying and ridicule found in out society due to the restrictions that are set upon everyone to be publicly "correct". In The Scarlet Letter, Hester is deemed a "whore" in the town due to her adulterous behavior. Along with Hester is Dimmesdale who has avoided social rejection through conforming to the set standards.

In his work “On the Scarlet Letter,” D.H. Lawrence addresses the controversial character of Hester Prynne. He is just one of many critics who have analyzed Nathaniel Hawthorne’s fictional character, where some look to her as a hero and others blatantly shame her for her sin. Lawrence makes up the latter of this crowd, and is able to prove his case in a very meaningful manner. The critic believes that Hawthorne sugarcoats Hester’s image, and tries to make it look as if she is the victim of the tale. Disregarding this sympathy, he addresses the root cause of her sin rather than its consequences. As he writes, he uses a multitude of literary techniques to help convince readers of Hester’s seemingly evil character, using descriptive diction, a

The Scarlet Letter showed that sin corrupts the human soul and motivates evil actions. This can be proven in the cases of Dimmesdale, Hester, and Chillingworth. Dimmesdale, Hester, and Chillingworth were all corrupted with sin, which determined all of their actions in The Scarlet Letter. Hester’s sin occurred before the story began. She sinned by letting herself love a man other than her husband, After the sin of loving another man she went further down the path of sin by having an affair with Dimmesdale.

Guilt is a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense, crime, wrong, etc., whether real or imagined. When someone is feeling guilty there is often a force that is constantly reminding that person of their guilt. For instance, in the Scarlet Letter a woman due to the crime she committed was forced to wear a letter A , but the A was one of many things that remind her of her crime. Hester Prynne is the woman who was forced to wear the A. Hester was married to Roger Chillingworth, who went missing for a few years, and thus she had an affair with Reverend Dimmesdale. In addition to her affair they had a baby named Pearl.

All emotions that an individual can feel can be separated into different stages of intensity. In the book The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, guilt from sins, both hidden and out in the open, are classified into three stages: lack of guilt from terrible sin, extreme guilt from concealed sin, and beneficial guilt from open sin. Each stage of guilt affects the personality of an individual, possibly revealing traits that otherwise might never have been unveiled. Roger Chillingworth transforms into an evil character throughout the course of the novel due to his lack of guilt. In addition, Arthur Dimmesdale suppresses his guilt and sin during his transformation, eventually leading to a major physical change as well. However, guilt does not

The consequences of guilt in the Scarlet Letter are shown by how Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, and Hester react to their scenarios. Each one of the three main characters in the novel, The Scarlet Letter, has a side of guilt that they bring to the story, which holds consequences for each of them. Hester, the main character of the story, chooses to live with the consequences of her guilt which are to live with and raise the child that she bore after committing adultery; although the people wished to bear away the child from Hester’s custody, Hester refused to give up the child. to give her child up and fight for her child. The text states on page 103, “It had reached her ears, that there was a design on the part of some of the leading inhabitants, cherishing the more rigid order of principles in religion and government, to deprive her of her child.”

The sin of revenge is worse than the sin of adultery. Revenge is an action that one takes to deliberately affect someone else negatively, whether through violence, words, etc. On the other hand, adultery may be simply caused by dissatisfaction with someone else, and it is not always a tactic to hurt the original person being betrayed. Therefore, revenge causes more harm in a relationship and life in general. In the novel, though Hester and Arthur committed adultery, Hawthorne may actually agree that revenge is worse. Hawthorne gave Roger devil-like qualities when Roger was planning revenge. The “old man's soul was on fire, and kept on smoldering duskily within his breast.” (116)

“Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men.” (Romans 12:17) Vengeance can create,humiliation and violent,revenge against those who you seek closure. However the one feeling this way can loose their way, become someone crude and not liked. In the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Roger Chillingworth becomes consumed by revenge. Through the character Chillingworth the theme of vengeance is dominate.

“On one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him." Chapter 1, pg. 46

Hester wishes not to bring shame upon her accomplice so she bears the blame of them both. “Thus the young and pure would 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, —at her, who had once been innocent, —as the figure, the body, the reality of sin” (Hawthorne 34). Standing before the crowd, Hester was a living symbol, a reminder, of a sin that she committed. The sin of adultery brought upon great consequences for Hester, but she held her head high and pursued a life for her

Although Hester is shunned and forced to wear a scarlet letter due to her actions, she regardless holds her head high and even gives back to her community. Hawthorne describes how she makes “coarse garments for the poor” and adds that “she offered up a real sacrifice of enjoyment in devoting so many hours to such rude handiwork” (Hawthorne 80). He emphasizes the generosity of Hester’s actions by calling them a “sacrifice” of her free time which she is wasting by doing “rude handiwork.” In addition, although she is described as dull and unpleasant when being shunned in public, Hawthorne illustrates Hester’s true self when in the woods “her sex, her youth, and the whole richness of her beauty, came back…” (199). Through this detailed description, Hawthorne shows how Hester’s character changes when she is not under the pressure and judgement of her community. Although Hester is an adulterer, Hawthorne depicts her true upstanding

This ridicule has a trickle down effect on Hester as she too is banished from her own community for committing adultery. The comparison between Hester and Hawthorne defines the external struggle for the reader to fully understand the effect of opinions from society on them Although reluctant to allow Hester to leave prison, the members of the town suggest that her punishment be to wear a scarlet red letter A on her bosom, thereby allowing all to know of her crime. The scarlet letter “ was red-hot with infernal fire, ” (Hawthorne 81) and defined the state she was currently in, that being eternal hell. Though she was forced to marry an older man at a young age, her rebellion to have an affair is not seen as an internal struggle that she overcame; rather, it is merely seen as a woman who sinned, a woman who shall therefore endure the punishment for the sin, rather than a woman who was never given a say in what she wanted with her life. Time and again, Hester Prynne is seen defying society by allowing herself to stand out from societal norm just as the roses “with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner“ (Hawthorne) did. Instead, she returns to the community and is observed aiding those in need, all with seven year old Pearl by her side.

Hawthorne’s embodiment of tenderness emphasises that Hester is no longer the same person. She does not look as soft and loving. Hawthorne states that she has the capacity to return to her prior state, one that is locked deep in her heart.

By revealing this small, hidden regret, he exposes Hester’s tortured state of mind. Unable to reach salvation in the town she desired to live in, she regretfully decided to leave and abandon her sorrows. The burden society placed on her with the scarlet letter was too demanding for her to handle any longer. Similarly, Arthur Dimmesdale was distressed from his ignominy. Afraid of societal repercussions, Dimmesdale had been “overcome with a great horror of mind, as if the universe were gazing at a scarlet token on his naked breast” (102). Society’s extensive honor toward him exacerbated his pain, thus causing society to trap Dimmesdale; this prevented him from revealing his dark secret and reaching salvation. Additionally, he began to picture his surroundings as an obstacle designed to hinder his path to redemption. His shortcoming to reach salvation agonized Dimmesdale to the point where he was incapable of recalling “[any] text of Scripture, nor aught else, except a brief, pithy, and, as it then appeared to him, unanswerable argument against the immorality of