Summary Of ' The Scarlet Letter '

In the book Seedfolks, a character named Kim travels to vacant lot in her town, Cleveland Ohio, to plant Lima Beans to honor her father, who passed away before Kim was even born. While Kim is in the process of planting her beans and watering them daily, people around the vacant lot being to notice her actions . Many people follow what Kim is doing and make there own little garden, which causes the community of Cleveland to be together and to communicate to one another. Throughout the book many character come and go to the garden, and each character shares something in common with someone else apart of this Community Garden. The novel Seedfolks shows that the garden has change everyone’s perspectives on things, and made them feel apart of something they might have never been apart of before. Some people that are involved are KIm, Ana, Sae Young, Maricela, and Curtis.

Each generation feels a personal connection to the land because the land is how each generation makes its living, no matter how big the piece of land may be. In an inter-chapter, a tenant farmer explains to the tractor driver, who is evicting his family, the special bond between man and the land:

Almost immediately, we start to recognize the true pit that has been dug by Hester and her decision to fornicate with Arthur Dimmesdale, the town priest. She is set up for failure and disaster when Hawthorne describes the trials she will have to endure in her everyday life. He depicts a life where “tomorrow would bring its own trial and yet the same that was now so unutterably grievous to be borne.” (54). He seems to put her on display as a case of ultimate failure that not only will last for days and months but “ for the accumulating, and added years, would pile up their misery upon the heap of shame.” (54). Though her life seems miserable at the moment, she stays in her town that she 's always been a part of. The author is trying to show how those who are the closest to you and may have known you the longest can turn on you once you do commit sin. The “A” she has sewn upon her chest will remain even if removed because of her public humiliation by the Puritan townsfolk. She becomes the actual embodiment of a ruined future and a ruined life for those in her family or associate with her. For it isn’t only

Lost in her thoughts, “she had wandered, without rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness; as vast, as intricate and shadowy, as the untamed forest, amid the gloom of which they were now holding a colloquy that was to decide their fate” (128). In the middle of a forest, both literally and metaphorically, she pondered on her seven year old guilt, and the townspeople who were blaming her without fundamentals in their lives. Hawthorne gives Hester innocence in nature, for she is able to show her true self without being humiliated; in society, guilt is a recurring theme, for the townspeople look down on her and shame her. With time, Hester learns to live with her mark, and with “the stigma gone, Hester heaved a long, deep sigh, in which the burden of shame and anguish departed from her spirit. O exquisite relief! She had not known the weight, until she felt the freedom” (130). The scene seems to represent that the letter itself is sewed with shame and guilt, once she removes the letter innocence returns. This shows Hawthorne stance against the townspeople, and believes that their judgment is nothing more than material, or in other words insignificant. Hawthorne exemplifies the importance of being true to oneself; one cannot be subjugate to a Puritan level, for they themselves had flaws in their community; prejudice and

Chapters 9 and 10 investigate the relationship in the middle of Chillingworth and Dimmesdale. On one level, Chillingworth speaks to "science" and Dimmesdale speaks to "deep sense of being." Like Chillingworth 's disfigured shoulders, Dimmesdale 's disease is an outward sign of an internal condition, and not medication or religion suffices to cure it. What hampers his recuperation is his failure to admit his infidelity with Hester, which is by all accounts due, in any event to a limited extent, to the group 's reliance on the adolescent priest. He comprehends that he, in the same way as Hester, is an image of an option that is bigger than himself—for his situation, devotion and goodness. As it were, admitting would mean mending himself at the cost of the community.dimmesdale considers other, apparently hopeless good contemplations. The numerous disagreements that he experiences may come from the constrictive and off and on again two-faced nature of the ethical framework. For instance, the priest declines to wed any of the ladies in the group who show sympathy toward him, both out of a feeling of duty to Hester and out of an unwillingness to embroil a blameless outsider in a dim history of "sin." On the other hand, by inactively holding up for God to deal with things, as he proclaims himself to be doing, Dimmesdale causes Hester to endure awfully.

With a “tall…figure of perfect elegance…and dark and abundant hair,” Hester has but one fault about her: the “scarlet letter…upon her bosom” (Hawthorne 44). Destined to wear the letter A on her chest for the rest of her natural life, Hester recognizes that this is not only her punishment, but also a reminder to every one of her adulterous actions. With the act of adultery being Hester’s only known sin, thus far, the reader is left wondering just how deeply it will affect her. Coming with a larger price than she could have ever imagined, Hester’s sin essentially makes her an outcast and “in all her intercourse with society…there [is] nothing that [makes] her feel as if she belong[s]” (Hawthorne 67). After her sinful act is brought into the open, Hester is isolated within her own realm, with only her young daughter to accompany her. This sense of isolation builds a metaphorical barrier between the people of Hester’s community and herself, despite her attempts to integrate back into their sphere. Following seven long years of this lifestyle, it seems that Hester finally is accepted by her community, and shockingly enough, “many people refuse to interpret the scarlet letter A by its original signification [, and instead,] they sa[y] that it

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

Through the acceptance of her sin, Hester is able to live a more respectable life. At the beginning of the novel, Hester believes what she and Dimmesdale did “had a consecration of its own” (170). Their sin, she believes, was brought to light by something bigger and more sacred than the both of them, love. It was not affected or influenced by society, but was real as it was created by a natural human tendency. Hester’s belief that her sin is not worthy of punishment, is clear when “she [repels] [the town beadle], by an action marked with natural dignity and force of character, and… free will” (49) as she exits the jail. Although strong in the belief that her sin was a consecration at the beginning, Hester quickly becomes doubtful of her innocence as she begins to believe what society says about the severity of her sin. Each time someone looks at her scarlet letter, “they branded it afresh into Hester’s soul” (77). The constant reminder and rumors about her sin make Hester question which story, her’s or society’s, is true. And each time, “she could scarcely refrain, yet always did refrain, from covering the symbol with her hand” (77) as she wants to

As time goes by we humans tend to change due to our experiences and influences from our societies. This is demonstrated in the Puritan society with the use of shaming as a punishment, this changed a person’s point of view of another person or themselves. In chapter 13, Nathaniel Hawthorne describes Hester’s change from being a “passion and feeling” person to a lonely and independent person as a woman and a “sinner” due to her role in society. Hawthorne uses a somber tone, strong imagery, and repetition of lonely and dark dictions, to show Hester's change.

Chapter 12: Standing upon the scaffold, Hester and Pearl join Dimmesdale. Their connection forms an electric feeling. Pearl understands a lot more of the man than she leads Hester to believe. Through the imagery created by Dimmesdale’s self agony, it is felt that his own problem is not just clouding his understanding of himself but of others as well. Not being able to express his problems and come to terms with his actions, he is unable to understand the honest reality of others. This deters his ability to be the revolutionary minister he is thought of to be.

As Hester’s story in The Scarlet Letter progressed, she became more independent. She started to question the community’s thinking, and decided to accept the sin she committed rather than live in self pity. Hester did not need to be dependent on a man, which was not ordinary during this time period. Instead, Hester was dependent on herself and spent her focus on her daughter or the poor, caring for young Pearl and attending to the less fortunate. Hester Prynne also began to think more freely, and did not restrict herself to thinking the same way all the puritans had done.

At first glance, Hester is portrayed more so as the victim rather than the heroine. Because she committed adultery against her husband, we see the people in her society brand her with a red “A”. She’s forced to stand in shame of a thousand Puritan citizens, enduring their stares and whispers. Hester therefore,

Symbolism is the practice of representing things by symbols, or of investing things with a symbolic meaning or character. In the novel “The Scarlet Letter”, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, symbolism is the main feature of the story. Symbolism is used throughout the novel to describe every object in the story from the characters to the rosebush to the scarlet letter itself. One of the major symbols in “The Scarlet Letter” is the black man, who can not only be connected to the development of the characters: Chillingworth, Pearl, Hester, and Dimmesdale, but also to the history of Puritanism (the time period at which this novel takes place).

The Puritan community, with it’s harsh, uncompromising beliefs show no mercy in Hester and collectively push her away as much as possible, as exemplified by Hawthorne: “She perchance underwent an agony from every footstep of those that thronged to see her, as if her heart had been flung in the street for them all to spurn and trample upon.”(65)

Within this introduction, Hawthorne’s purpose is to introduce the protagonist of The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne, through himself. He vividly describes his life, in which he is alienated and detached from those around him. Through this description, Hawthorne creates a parallel between himself and Hester, who is also separated from society. In addition, Hawthorne uses the first person, which allows the reader to easily sympathize with him, and therefore Hester. Hawthorne effectively forms a connection between the audience and the protagonist even before the story has begun.