Characters Evolve The Scarlet Letter was a challenging book to read. The book was hard for me to understand until I got half way into the book. While reading this book, I learned of many lifelong lessons that these characters experience. 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. Hester is the black shadow when she has the letter A on, but when she removes the A, the sunshine appears. “All at once, as with a sudden smile of heaven, forth burst the sunshine” (Hawthorne 186). The quote is saying that the sunshine appeared when Hester removed the letter. Without the letter on, Hester is a beautiful women with a happy life. “Like a black shadow emerging in sunshine” (Hawthorne 49). Hawthorne is calling Hester a black shadow since she is lackluster with the A on. Hester is coming out of her dull self as she takes the letter off her chest. …show more content…
“A glow of strange enjoyment through its flickering brightens” (Hawthorne 184). Arthur is full of joy when Hester talks to him. The joy he is experiencing flickers here and there throughout the book. “The saint on earth! Alas, if he discern such sinfulness in his own soul” (Hawthorne 132). He is letting go of his sin. Arthur lets the people know that he is the father to Pearl. Arthur Dimmesdale thought it was best for him to keep the secret from the people. In the end it would have been better for him had he disclosed the secret
This furthers the idea that Hester is completely ostracized from society because even those that are naïve of the letter’s meaning will not accept her. Hawthorne illustrates the isolation Hester experiences, as a result of wearing the scarlet letter, with the symbol of the sphere.
She is someone who didn’t let a mistake completely ruin her life. She instead use her misfortune to encourage, motivate and help others. She became a seamstress which helped to symbolize Hester's need in the community. The scarlet letter is meant to symbolize shame but instead becomes a symbol of identity to Hester and to the rest of the people. The letter A is originally intended to mean adulterer but as time passes it comes to mean able and later angel. On her grave stone it is written “ON A FIELD, SABLE, THE LETTER A. GULES” (Hawthorne 246).
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne presents the reader with the harsh, life changing conflicts of three Puritan characters during the 17th century. Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Robert Chillingworth must endure their different, yet surprisingly similar struggles as the novel progresses. Despite their similarities, Hawthorne shows these individuals deal with their conflicts differently, and in the end, only one prevails. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s intricately critical diction helps determine his didactic tone; during the course of The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne reveals that happiness can be harnessed through one’s perseverance.
Set in seventeenth-century Boston, “The Scarlett Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a story of principal human values and the consequences if said values are replaced with deceit and falsehood. Sincerity and honesty are indirectly pinned as requisites by Hawthorne in order to be a genuine and sane person in society. This is best expressed in the line, "No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true.” Hawthorne continued his claim by recounting the stories of Pearl, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth who all went about deceit differently or not at all.
Arthur Dimmesdale can be identified as the priest of a small town in Boston Massachusetts. The townspeople admire Dimmesdale and think of him as one of the purest members of their small puritan community. Contradicting these assumptions made by the Puritans, Dimmesdale commits sexual acts with a woman named Hester Prynne. To others, they committed adultery because even though Hester’s husband has disappeared, they still classify as married because they never filed a divorce, therefore a married woman. As he did this, he became prey to the moral consequences that followed. Pearl, or
There are many forms of symbolism found in The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne, the author uses his many forms of symbolism to project a lesson or moral created throughout the story. Even each of the main characters has a different moral representation. Guilt, repentance, purity, and strength each are shown through the eyes of a different character. Pear, Hester Prynne, Chillingworth, and Reverend Dimmesdale are main characters that are used to show that you should “Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!”(Hawthorne286)
Again near the end of the novel Hawthorne continues to further portray Hester as an able- bodied human being rather than the adulteress she is originally seen as by the townspeople. The letter further develops its meaning and creates a new importance even stronger than the significance before. Hester begins to find her true self before the scar of the letter was placed onto her clothing and to her esteem continues to change along with the meaning of the "A" that adorns her clothing. Hester realizes then that, "the angel and apostle of the coming must be a woman, indeed, but lofty pure and beautiful, and wise moreover, not through dusky grief, but the ethereal medium of joy" as she "glanced her eyes downward at the scarlet letter. And after many years a new grave was delved after a sunken one..." Yet again we see that the letter further changes its meaning and proves to be not a shameful one, but one that allows her to see herself as a positive influence in the community again.
“They averred that the symbol was not mere scarlet cloth tinged in an earthly depot, but was red-hot with infernal fire, and could be seen glowing all alight whenever Hester Prynne walked abroad in the nighttime. And we must needs say it seared Hester’s bosom so deeply,” Chapter 5, pg. 73
The Scarlet Letter displays a theme of sin throughout the novel through multiple major events. To start off, in chapter seven, “The Governor’s Hall”, Hester observes herself in a convex shaped mirror, and realizes that the scarlet letter was exaggerated in size. The second major event is the entrance of Roger Chillingworth. He was quickly accepted into the Puritan society as an excellent physician, but as time passed, a few puritans started to suspect Chillingworth of using the skill of black art from the Indians. Hester also starts to realize a change, which goes into another major event to display the theme of sin. As Hester and Chillingworth were talking, she started to recognize a change in him, similar to a demon that had possessed him. But Hester wasn’t the only one to notice, Chillingworth noticed himself. In chapter nine and ten, Chillingworth is given the opportunity to cure Mr. Dimmesdale and to discover all of Dimmesdale’s hidden secrets. The final major event to represent sin is in chapter fifteen, “Hester and Pearl”, when Hester rids herself of the scarlet letter and realizes the freedom from the weight of her sin and shame. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses appearance versus reality to illustrate sin.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, a well-know Dark Romantic, employs the issues prevalent in Dark Romanticism in his novel The Scarlet Letter. These include the concepts of: guilt and sin, good and evil, and madness in the human psyche. Guilt and sin are heavily addressed in the novel, focusing on Hester’s outward versus Dimmesdale’s hidden guilt, and the sins committed by the adulterous couple and the revenge-driven Roger Chillingworth. The idea of what good and evil are is questioned in the novel. For example, the reader is led to question if Hester was right in not revealing Dimmesdale, and in turn if both Dimmesdale and Chillingworth were
Dimmesdale's choice to keep his sin inside himself and the consequences that follow show exactly how differently he deals with his guilt. Scheef explains that Dimmesdale’s reaction to guilt is because of his self-esteem as well, “Shame occurs when a person feels the self negatively evaluated, either by self or other” (Scheff 401). In this case, he has low self-esteem because inside Dimmesdale knows what he has done is wrong, but lacks confessing until the end, causing him to beat himself up. Considering his lack of confessing his guilt, Arthur’s shame destroys him and breaks him apart. Dimmesdale’s failure to confess at the beginning shows another type of reaction that is procured from an individual
"Those who before had known her, and had expected to behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped" (39). Hester, who is being openly condemned for her sins, Hawthorne describes ironically. To the Puritans, Hester should be dim and obscure, surrounded by darkness and evil. However, Hawthorne instead describes her shining beauty and the godliness she makes out of her sin and shame by exposing it to the public. The Puritans condemn Hester for her sin and look towards her as evil, yet she is exposing her sin to the sunshine, to the public, something that Hawthorne praises in the novel. "A blessing on the righteous Colony of the Massachusetts, where iniquity is dragged out into the sunshine! Come along, Madame Hester, and show your scarlet letter in the market-place!" (40). The Puritans feel that they are hurting Hester Prynne by exposing her sin, yet it is only making her stronger and making her grow.
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
Hester was demanded to admit the father’s name of her child, and promised she wouldn’t have to keep the scarlet ‘A’ branded upon her bosom. But she still refuses to confess a name, announcing she will take the father’s punishment as well as hers. Hawthorne uses the dialogue to issue an intense scene to the readers, allowing them to imagine what is occurring. Also, Hawthorne uses the letter and Hester’s daughter Pearl to symbolize the sin Hester committed and the outcome she traded everything for.
Hester Prynne, a character within The Scarlet Letter, is a prime example of Hawthorne's common transformation of individuals within his books. These mutations involve the qualities and attributes of her physical appearance, feminine emotions, and reputation among the townspeople. Throughout the novel, the mentioned elements of Hester's character develop and change several times, providing the reader with better understanding of the influence that the scarlet letter and other characters have on her.