The feeling of exasperating love defies the health of the mind and body through a vital time in literature. Nathaniel Hawthorne accomplishes this through the book, “The Scarlet Letter”. He emphasizes puritanic views in his writing as well as romanticism through four different characters: Hester Prynne, Roger Chillingworth, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Pearl. The basis of the story was that Hester Prynne was being punished and shamed for her sin of adultery with Arthur Dimmesdale in proof of the baby girl named Pearl, leaving Hester to overtake this ever longing shame for seven years. The relationship between all of these characters of “The Scarlet Letter” exhibits the period of romanticism in American literature and the significance that enhanced the many writings of other authors of this time. This novel expresses the ways of how puritans were treated for their sins and an example of this expression would be Hester Prynne and her sin of adultery. Hester is shamed and stowed upon in the market place in the second chapter as she holds the baby next to her scarlet letter. This …show more content…
Ideally the novel was written in the puritanic age and the salem witch trials of the early 1800s which gave a lot of significance to the story. The blame of the Puritans was what lead to the ever longing shame that Hester Prynne had to deal with. The romanticism was what gave the novel a touch of flavor onto the story making it a more valuable read for the audience. “The Scarlet Letter” really gave an understanding of the puritans and how they treated the sinners of their actions and the precautions they had to face during this time. Most people would agree that this novel best categorizes it as a “romantic read” but the idea of puritanism played as the backbone to the whole purpose to this read. As a result, the ways of puritism overtakes the purpose of romanticism in “The Scarlet
American Romanticism uses literature to explore topics such as individualism, imagination, and nature. Emotions are frequently highlighted in this movement and expressed strongly by characters. Throughout the novel, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, emotions of love, solitude and anguish are the primary focus. The article “Solitude and Love, and Anguish”: The Tragic Design of ‘The Scarlet Letter’, by Seymour Gross, concentrates on the tragedy of The Scarlet Letter, and illustrates the strong emotional themes Hawthorne incorporates into the novel. Gross’ article shows that Hester’s view of her sin, Dimmesdale and Hester’s contrasting moralities, and Dimmesdale’s death are tremendously important when analyzing the novel and realizing
In Ch.8, Hester’s speech about why Pearl should remain in her care includes a metaphor. Identify the metaphor and describe how its meaning reveals insight into Hester’s character.
In Hawthorne's revered novel The Scarlet Letter, the use of Romanticism plays an important role in the development of his characters. He effectively demonstrates individualism in Hester to further our understanding of the difficulties of living in the stern, joyless world of Puritan New England. It is all gloom and doom. If the sun ever shines, one could hardly notice. The entire place seems to be shrouded in black. The people of this society were stern, and repressed natural human impulses and emotions than any society before or since. But for this reason specifically, emotions began bubbling and eventually boiled over, passions a novelist
The judgemental villagers clamored around newly returned Roger Chillingworth, a noteworthy physician, as they strained to see the debacle just ahead of their stances. The door of the confining cavern called prison swung open. Out strode Roger’s wife, Hester Prynne, carrying an unknown child who was claimed as her own and a flourishing scarlet letter A adorned on her bosom. The Scarlet Letter is a historical fiction starring Hester Prynne. Resident adulteress of Salem, Massachusetts. Using descriptive terms and symbolic language, Hawthorne includes many controversial issues of the time including Puritanism, the Renaissance and Romanticism buried between the pages. Roger Chillingworth is the adulteress’ husband and main antagonist who struggles with mental and emotional problems and is a defining contribution to the controversial plot.
The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne focuses more on the symbolic meaning than on characterization. The Scarlet Letter revolves around the themes of sin, guilt and redemption, which are conceptualized through an adulterous life story in Massachusetts. Adultery is expressed in a means, which is not only psychologically disturbing but also reflects upon understanding of the human heart. Hester Prynne is an adulteress who is forced to wear a scarlet letter A on her gown according to Puritan practices. Arthur Dimmesdale, struggles in the background with guilt for fathering her secret child, Pearl yet the woman gets to be castigated independently. Furthermore, Dimmesdale is a cleric and Chillingworth who is Hester’s husband, from
Nathaniel Hawthorne was not a Puritan. But Hawthrone’s forefathers were Puritans, so he had an understanding of their belief system and their basis behind it. He stated that he hoped the sins of his forefathers had been forgiven. Hoping to expose those ideas which he understood, yet despised, Hawthorne purposely presented many important Puritan beliefs as import aspects to the Scarlet Letter. In the Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne addresses three main Puritan beliefs: providence, predestination, and the strict code of ethics that the settlers of New Englanders lived by.
The Scarlet Letter Introduction The Scarlet Letter is a classic tale of sin, punishment, and revenge. It was written in 1850 by the famous American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. It documents the lives of three tragic characters, each of whom suffer greatly because of his or her sins. Shot Plot The story begins with Hester Prynne, a resident of a small Puritan community, being led from the town jailhouse to a public scaffold where she must stand for three hours as punishment for adultery. She must also wear a scarlet A on her dress for the rest of her life as part of her punishment. As she is led to the scaffold, many of the women in the crowd complain that
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.
The Scarlet Letter is a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne during the nineteenth century. The novel is set in the seventeenth century Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Scarlet Letter tells the story of Hester Prynne who has an affair. Prynne is awarded a scarlet letter “A” to show the public she committed adultery. In the novel, Nathaniel Hawthorne presents us with Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth, characters who possess sinful characteristics throughout the novel; yet during the time the novel is set (1600’s), each of the characters have experienced punishments appropriate for the time.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s American classic The Scarlet Letter the main character Hester Prynne is portrayed as the preeminent feminist heroine through the portraiture of her crime and punishment. In this novel, a Puritanical society in New England condemns Hester Prynne to wear a highly embossed depiction of the letter “A” on her breast as punishment for an act of adultery. How Hester handles the consequences of her castigation is what brings about the heroic feministic qualities of the main character. Three aspects that corroborate Hester Prynne’s qualities are: 1. Admitting her sin openly to fellow man and God, 2. Putting up with the taunting and social exile of
In this novel you will find that the main characters are the prime examples of Love, Hate, Sin, and Purity. Although adultery is condemned and seen as sin, adultery isn't what Hawthorne focuses on. Through my analysis of the Scarlet Letter I noticed that there were three different types of love. The act of hatred plays a vile role throughout the novel. Hawthorne uses Pearl as a blatant symbol of purity, from her birth till the end of the novel. As you will see Love, Hate, Sin, and Purity does play a vital role in this story.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, He writes about a disputable scandal which occurs in seventeenth century during a time period where the Puritan way of life is quite prevalent. He reveals the values of the Puritan society as well as how this society affects the characters in his novel. Hawthorne writes about the sin of adultery between protagonist Hester Prynne and her counterpart Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. Hester Prynne is exposed of her sin in the very beginning of the novel. She is ostracized by her community and is sentenced to wear a scarlet letter as a symbol of her crime.
Adultery was a moral wrongdoing and transgression in 1850. Hawthorne captured the essence of the events that could occur in any Puritan woman’s life after committing this sin from his own perspective of the topic, Hawthorne did this within a writing of his. The Scarlet Letter was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850. The Scarlet Letter is about the life of Hester Prynne and the other characters after she played a part in committing the sin of adultery. Hester partakes in moral trials throughout the novel too, some even concerning her daughter Pearl. The Scarlet Letter reflects on the toll that secrets can play of a person, through Dimmesdale and the effects of a person 's’ decision on others around them.
Romanticism is categorized as “a preference for simplicity and naturalness, a love of plain feelings and truth to common place reality, especially as found in natural scenes”. Nathaniel Hawthorne was an anti-transcendentalist and believed in the dark side of man, hence his dark romantic novel The Scarlet Letter. This allegorical novel depends heavily on symbol and character. The novel is chock full of symbolic dimension of images, characters, and descriptions. The Scarlet Letter defines the American Romanticist movement while using symbolic characters and places that give the book seemingly two different stories. The first story denotes the story going on in the book, including the characters. The other story has symbols that speak on
The Scarlet Letter Critical Analysis Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, the direct descendant of John Hawthorne, and a judge at the infamous Salemwitchcraft trials. The guilt that Hawthorne felt over the actions of his ancestor had an enormous impact on his writings. In his introduction of "The Scarlet Letter", Hawthorne accepts the guilt from his forefathers and offers to repent for their crimes (Waggoner, 5). This unusual way of viewing guilt and sin is one driving factor in Hawthorne's writing. The other, which is closely related to the first, is the relationship between men, and of man to humanity as a whole.