Scarlet Letter Literary Analysis

Hester would sacrifice everything she had for Hester. The importance of Pearl to Hester is expressed when the narrator says “But she named the infant “Pearl,” as being of great price, ---purchased with all she had, --- her mother’s only treasure!” (Hawthorne 82). Hester more importantly wanted to teach Pearl what she learned in her sin. Pearl was the result of her tremendous sin and she saw the beauty in the baby being born while everyone else looked at Pearl as if she were a devil child. Pearl is a representation of the constant guilt and shame that Hester has to continuously live with. This guilt was expressed through public shame and the fact that the first thing that Hester saw when she was born was her mother's Scarlet letter and she would constantly be distracted by the letter and it reminded Hester of the way everybody saw her. Her willingness to do anything for Pearl leads to her giving into her childish demands. Pearl, being born out of her mother’s sin, does not want the scarlet letter to leave her mother. This is expressed in, “The child will not let her mother cast the scarlet letter aside because Pearl herself is emblem of a passion which partook of that same heathen, natural wilderness. ("Hester's Double Providence: The Scarlet Letter and the Green”), which shows how Pearl wants all three of them to stand on the scaffold. Pearl was much focused on the

The characters in the Scarlet Letter are judged greatly through how and who they are able and unable to forgive. Such as the main female lead, Hester Prynne, and her struggle for the town to forgive her, finding the will to forgive herself and having God forgive her. Although, this was hard because every day she had to live with the scarlet letter upon her chest as a reminder of her sin. Another character that had one of the roughest times in the novel was Arthur Dimmesdale. This man kept a sin hidden for most of the novel and let it eat him away. The person that Dimmesdale needed to forgivehim the most was Pearl. He spent most of the novel trying to earn her beloved trust. Pearl would ask him favors to go into town with her but it

In a novel that revolves almost solely around sin, the consequences of said sin, and redemption, there is no greater sin than that of revenge. No character in The Scarlet Letter is free of sin, but all gain some sort of redemption, save one Roger Chillingworth, who is arguably the greatest sinner of them all. Hester Prynne may have committed adultery, and Arthur Dimmesdale may have also committed adultery with Hester (as a priest, no less), but sins of passion are not the same as sins of vengeance and anger. These sins of revenge and madness are what Chillingworth is guilty of, ultimately making him the worst sinner in the entire book.

In the corners of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, stand two fascinating characters—Pearl and Roger Chillingsworth. In the story, Pearl is the illegitimate child of the protagonist, Hester Prynne, and the minister, Arthur Dimmesdale, while Chillingsworth is Hester’s estranged husband who everyone thought was dead. Both of these two supporting characters have a surreal presences and each are deeply involved in Hester’s life, particularly her life after the discovery of her adultry. With as many similarities as they have, the reader may question what the respective rolls of these two characters are. Much has been said about the characters individually, but in this paper I will explore how the characters relate to each other in the telling of the story. Based on the similarities, differences, and roles that the characters play in the story; I will explain how they many in fact be read as foils of one another.

In chapter 16, how does Pearl show that she is different from the rest of the citizens of the community?

In The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the story revolves around the lives and the events of the following characters: Hester Prynne, who is the mother of an illegitimate child with the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale and is now being outcasted by her Puritan community because of it; the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale who is the charming minister of 17th century Boston, the father of an illegitimate child and has not had his sin revealed; then there's Roger Chillingworth who is the estranged husband of Hester Prynne who has given up a life-long pursuit of knowledge in exchange for one of revenge and evil. All of these main characters are important to the story of the scarlet letter, but the one who arguably has the most important and

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a nineteenth-century author who lived in the 1800s, and his novels were focused on Puritan-era New England in the 1600s. His novel. The Scarlet Letter, tells the story of a woman named Hester Prynne and how she must pay for her sin of adultery by wearing a scarlet letter “A” on her bosom for the rest of her life. Throughout the story, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses symbolism to represent and convey his themes. In the Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the symbolism of Pearl, the cottage, and Dimmesdale to contribute to the overall theme of imperfection.

Pearl is the physical and living embodiment of the sin committed by Hester and Dimmesdale. The name “Pearl” seems almost as a misnomer due to the sinful and shameful roots of the child. Similar to Jesus’ parable in the Bible in which a pearl is bought at a “great price,” to Hester, her child represents all that she had to give. The narrator even goes on to characterize her as “the living hieroglyphic” (page 188) of a broken law. Pearl’s existence as a living symbol of the scarlet letter persistently torments Hester and Dimmesdale throughout the novel, but in the end, Pearl’s rumored happiness as a mother in Europe encapsulates the final triumph of love over a forsaken beginning.

What Does the construction and furnishing of Governor Bellingham’s Mansion reveal about the Governor and Puritan culture?

In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne's most prominent use of symbolism revolves around the use of a scarlet letter, “A.” Throughout the novel, the meaning of this letter transforms as the main character, Hester Prynne, herself evolves. From “adultery” to “able,” the scarlet letter ultimately comes to function as a representation of Hester’s inner identity, defining her very being. In using this symbol of identity to represent Hester, Hawthorne utilizes the letter to contrast Hester from her Puritan counterparts, and subsequently, criticize their beliefs system and moral

The Scarlet Letter is about a young woman named Hester Prynne who must wears a scarlet letter on her bosom as a punishment and represents her shame for cheating on her husband Chillingworth with her lover Dimmesdale. This book contains many themes such as secret sin and guilt but the theme I’ll be focusing on is good vs. evil. There are many symbols that Nathaniel Hawthorne uses to portray this theme. In his novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the symbolism of the wild rosebush, Pearl and Hester’s cabin to contribute to the overall theme of good vs. evil.

The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is one of the long-lived examples of symbolism in the sensational world of literature. The novel portrays many symbolic features that actually make the novel its own unique story, in which the story would be entirely different without such symbols. Therefore, I will explain the different symbols in the novel, which would be the scarlet letter, Pearl, and the meteor, and how they effect the novel. The most meaningful form of symbolism in the novel would be the scarlet letter “A”, which is placed upon the bosom of the main character, Hester. The scarlet letter is meant to be a symbol for the sin and adultery Hester committed, although it later becomes a part of Hester and her identity.

What influences an author to write a novel? Many authors have used their personal experiences and ancestral backgrounds to influence the plot and events in their novel, to develop themes and relationships. The events in an author’s life affect the style and content of their literary works, which is expressed throughout Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Pearl being an outcast from the rigid Puritan morals, and Hester's being independent and strong-willed challenges traditional society. These aspects all mirror the author's emotions and hardships of his early life through the literary element of characterization. Through the analysis of the main characters Hester and Pearl, we see how The Scarlet Letter is a reflection of Hawthorne's

In the movie Easy A a cinematic film directed by Will Gluck is a comedy about a girl in high school whose social life completely changes because of a small lie that dominates her image. This rumor connects to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s the scarlet letter due to the fact that themes are drawn such as sin and redemption.

Throughout Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, “The Scarlet Letter,” the main symbol “A” changes profoundly. As a recurring symbol, the “A” first represents the reality of sin, and more specifically, Hester’s sinful act of committing adultery, however it eventually transforms into other contrasting ideas, such as power, braveness, and even “able”. It can also be related to Hester’s daughter, Pearl. Hawthorne first introduces the letter in the second chapter, where it is described as, “so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom,” (52).