The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

The children In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter play a major role in the Puritan society. With their honest opinions of Hester and Pearl, the children are presented as more perceptive and more honest than adults. Due to their innocence, children are capable of expressing themselves without constraints; there are no laws or regulations that they are bounded by. As an adolescent go through the stages of life and grow older, they begin to be more conscious of the how they act as they are more aware of society and the things that are occurring in the world, creating a filter for their actions. When they remain as the children, on the other hand, are adventurous; they are still exploring the universe that seems to fill with mysteries that are bound to be solved. They tend to attach to the truth and they are not afraid to speak it freely. Children differ from adults in their potential for expressing these perceptions. With their obliviousness to the things that are actually going on around the town, children therefore react differently compared to the adults, who are more knowledgeable. Perceived to be immature, young children are presented as more perceptive and more honest than adults due to their innocence, how they are unaware of the reality and the crimes that are presented in society by the adults enables them to be blithe and not afraid of saying what they feel like. Due to their naivety, when they express what they perceive to be true, they do not get punished,

““There was witchcraft in little Pearl’s eyes, and her face, as she glanced upward at the minister, wore that naughty smile which made its expression frequently so elvish.” (Hawthorne 145) This, is a misleading description that Nathaniel Hawthorne depicts of Pearl, the daughter of Hester Prynne, in his classic novel The Scarlet Letter. Pearl is the living product of sin for her mother. Born out of wedlock, Pearl is a unique child that tends to be very moody and unpredictable. However, Pearl, at such a young age, demonstrates outstanding knowledge and exhibits curiosity to her mother’s scarlet letter, and the hypocrisy of Puritan society. Although Pearl portrays devilish characteristics and performs mischievous behaviour, she

As great effect as emotions can have on someone, even greater is the effect of how one reacts to his emotions. Arguably the two most influential of these emotions are guilt and anger. They can drive a man to madness or encourage actions of vindication. Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale are subject to this very notion in Nathaniel Hawthorne 's The Scarlet Letter. Hester simply accepted that what she had done was wrong, whereas Dimmesdale, being a man of high regard, did not want to accept the reality of what he did. Similar to Hester and Dimmesdale, Roger Chillingworth allows his emotions to influence his life; however, his influence came as the result of his anger. Throughout the book, Hawthorne documents how Dimmesdale and Hester 's

Why is sin important? It is believed that sin is important to people because their deity places guilt on their wrongdoings to show that those actions are not to be repeated. In contrary to this belief, there are people with religious views that hold no importance with sin. Depending on the individual’s religious views, sin can be a conflict between oneself and a “higher” being or it can not affect the individual at all. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Arthur Dimmesdale is an ordained Puritan priest that had committed a grave sin in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He had committed adultery with a married woman, Hester, the woman that is married to Roger Chillingworth. After Chillingworth has heard about this news, he seeks

All of the major characters in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne are dynamic and go through some form of character development. Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, who are at the forefront of the central conflict in the plot of the novel, are no exception. While their respective evolutions in character were noticeably different, each was emphasized by the three scaffold scenes. The differences of Hester and Dimmesdale’s respective character developments are highlighted and emphasized by the three scaffold scenes in the novel.

In the Scarlet Letter there are characters that are important to the novel; however there is one specific character that relates to the topic of the story is Arthur Dimmesdale. The character Arthur Dimmesdale is a respected minster in Boston. However even though, Arthur Dimmesdale is a minister and preaches against sin to his congregation, he commits the ultimate sin with a young married woman named Hester Pryne. For punishment Hester Pryne becomes pregnant and shunned from public society, Dimmesdale is forced to live with guilt and later in the novel dies from the same sin within his body. Critics that have read the Scarlet letter would argue that Dimmesdale is a weak or ennobled character because he didn’t tell the community of his sinful crime. Another characteristic that critics would agree on is that Dimmesdale was a hypocrite. Arthur Dimmesdale is a character that is weak and hypocritical to his own belief.

A child stealing candy from the bowl when she knows she isn’t supposed to; a drug addict coming forward to admit he has a terrible plight; a student cheating on their final exam after choosing not to study; a young girl admitting to pushing another child down on the playground; a husband cheating on his wife. Some stories of these subjects are known by all, able to heal and move forward with a clear conscience, while others are sheltered within them, left to fester and grow in destructiveness. All of these examples portray a subject either bound, or given peace by the truth of something depending on whether it is concealed or uncovered. The power and significance of exposed/hidden truth is something utilized in writing all the time when an

Reverend Dimmesdale is a beloved Puritan minister who's Hester's paramour and father of Pearl. One of rivaling enemies is Chillingworth, physician and Hester's husband, who suspects Dimmesdale is Pearl's father. He begins to notice Dimmesdale declining health and considers moving in with him to ‘nurse him back to health.’ However, as a means of revenge, he takes the opportunity to implement torture and pain upon him. One night, when Dimmesdale falls asleep, Chillingworth sneaks a glance at his chest and discovers a carving within his chest. He then dances with glee and enjoys the sight of subtle torture Dimmesdale has self-inflicted since the “doctor’s joy from Satan’s was the quality of wonder.” The discovery of Dimmesdale's chest may have

Nathaniel Hawthorne composes Pearl as a powerful character even though she is not the main one. Her actions not only represent what she is as a person, but what other characters are and what their actions are. Hawthorne makes Pearl the character that helps readers understand what the other characters are. She fits perfectly into every scene she is mentioned in because of the way her identity and personality is. Pearl grows throughout the book, which in the end, help the readers better understand what the significance of The Scarlet Letter is.

What Dimmesdale allowed Hester to emotionally suffer through is an unforgiveable action, but comprehensible. Dimmesdale is a clergyman, a religious and ideally pure man, in the settlement which this novel is taking place. Therefore, Dimmesdale committing one of the most horrid sins

The townspeople force Hester to embroider a scarlet letter “A” on her chest as a reminder for committing adultery. Although the reader knows Dimmesdale is Pearl’s father, Hester keeps this a secret from everyone in her town to protect him from punishment. The symbolism of the scarlet letter changes throughout the novel. In the beginning, it stands for “adultery”, which is a serious sin in the eyes of Puritans. However, as Hester carefully embroiders the letter “A” for her bosom, she essentially takes control of her own punishment.

Her “teachers” have made Hester into a stronger woman emotionally, but they have also disconnected her from society and she is flawed in the sense that she no longer has the same social skills as before and therefore she prefers to be alone rather than have any sort of company. The miserable state in which Mr. Dimmesdale has been living is filled with guilt and depression. He knows that the right and noble thing to do would be admitting to his sin but his position and reputation with the church is holding him back. The citizens of the Puritan society view the Minister as a God’s gift and for him to reveal his darkest secret would hurt the people as much as it would hurt him. During their time together, Dimmesdale explains to Hester that hope has risen up from within him after she agrees to run off with him and Pearl, thus leaving their old life behind. He is overwhelmed with the excitement of starting over and even cries to Hester “thou art my better angel!” (167). Overcome with exhilaration as well, Hester is ready to start a new chapter in her life and “undid the clasp that fastened the scarlet letter, and, taking it from her bosom, threw it to a distance among the withered leaves” (167). This action symbolizes Hester’s feelings toward the whole situation and proves to the reader that she is ready to move on and never look back. Towards the end of the chapter, the narrator describes Pearl as one with the forest and the “mother-forest, and these

Susan Block once said that “Puritans, like poachers, shoot to kill your inner bonobo.” Nathaniel Hawthorne demonstrates a Puritan society that ridicules a young woman named Hester Prynne for committing adultery and not disclosing the name of the man who fathered her child in his Gothic Romance novel entitled The Scarlet Letter. The father, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, reveals this persona to the collective that he is a dutiful minister; however, he achieves individuation when he rejects Calvinism and redefined his faith after a troublesome battle with his inner self. His endeavor takes a toll on him mentally, physically, and emotionally as he struggles to seek a way to rid the guilt that is eating him alive.

Throughout the literary work of art, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the characters that he created to express the dysfunctionality of the Puritan society’s process of punishment for sins. The Scarlet Letter was written in 1840 and published in 1850 by Ticknor and Fields. Hawthorne portrays themes of sin and redemption through The Scarlet Letter’s intricate narrative of how a woman, Hesther Prynne, commits adultery with a highly respected religious figure within the Puritan society, whose name is Arthur Dimmesdale, while the woman’s former husband seeks for justice. Hawthorne also incorporates his own story into The Scarlet Letter, using his experience as an ancestor of John Hathorne, a vicious judge for The Salem Witch Trials, which took place in Salem, MA 1692-1693. Hesther, the adulterer, was punished by the Puritan society and was sentenced to wear a scarlet letter “A” upon the chest of gown for the remainder of her days whereas, her partner, Dimmesdale was not initially revealed to the society as Hesther’s lover. Hesther’s former husband Roger Prynne, soon to be named Chillingworth because of his embarrassment of his affiliation with Hester, was seeking to bring the partner of Hesther’s affair to justice in the light of God’s punishment. Hawthorne argues the difficulties of how sin and redemption causes a ripple effect in which it not only affects the sinners, but all those around them.

On the contrary, Hawthorne, demonstrates darkness in Hester’s redemption. She must struggle through the primary years of her life just to get by and provide for Pearl. Hester illustrates hope despite the odds aren't in her favor. As Hawthorne’s heroine, Hester Prynne rebels and resists in the face of oppressive laws. She is sentenced to wear the scarlet letter, but she derides that sentence with her needlework. Once the town is aware of Hester’s beautiful clothing, they wish for her to make them things. This can be viewed as hypocritical because Puritans believe in shunning sinners yet Hester has something they desire so the townspeople converse with her. The burden of her sin has had a major impact on Hester's outer and inner self. Hester's strength of character and ability to cope with the weight of her sin have resulted in a change in meaning of the Scarlet Letter in the eyes of the community. Hester challenged the Puritans by not letting her sin dictate her future. No longer is it a symbol of her sin, but rather it is a symbol of her salvation, which is not the purpose the Puritans wanted it to