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,

While Hester tries to protect Dimmesdale by not giving the name of Pearl's father, she actually condemns him to a long road of

““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

To start the book, we find that a young woman has committed adultery and when standing in front of a mocking crowd, she is ashamed of her actions. Continuing through the book we find that the adulteress, Hester Prynne, displays many examples of positive outcomes arising from negative situations. She becomes more and more aware of the faults of society and becomes wiser as she deals with the consequences of her actions. Even though Hester made a terrible decision that came with many extremely negative effects, she gained personality traits, perceptions, and people that rose from her mistake.

Surveillance can be considered the act of being watched under a close eye and can have either a positive or negative effect on a person. Some individuals feel more at ease knowing that someone is always there watching which is to create a supposedly safe environment. Others feel pressure from society or their peers to live up to their respected positions and morals of the society, much like Dimmesdale, which causes extreme paranoia. In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Dimmesdale is an example that demonstrates negative effects that surveillance can have on a person. In the romance, Dimmesdale is faced with both his own surveillance and Chillingworth’s surveillance. However, Dimmesdale’s own scrutiny causes more damage to himself than Chillingworth’s does.

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.

The novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, many of the main characters suffer from toils of sin. Especially Arthur Dimmesdale, the local puritan clergyman who has committed adultery and can 't admit to the people of the town in Boston what he has done. He lived under a strict society where the system and all of its components were based on God. He suffers from this because he values the Puritan way. Arthur Dimmesdale does not come out for many reasons and that isn 't right, which makes him a coward throughout 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

Nathaniel Hawthorne was quite progressive for his time and his novel, The Scarlet Letter, is a wonderful example of this. Before he married his wife, Sophia Peabody, Hawthorne joined Brook Farm, a transcendentalist group (Nathaniel Hawthorne). According to Merriam Webster, transcendentalism is, “a philosophy that emphasizes the a priori conditions of knowledge and experience or the unknowable character of ultimate reality or that emphasizes the transcendent as the fundamental reality” (“Transcendentalism”). Put simply, transcendentalists thought that intuition and knowledge of ourselves is more a more important reality than the scientific, sensual reality. As a group, these people held very progressive views on women’s rights, education,

Pearl is the constant reminder of Hester’s sin; however, Pearl also brings Hester extraordinary joy. She is the cause of Hester’s determination to try and create a better life for Pearl and herself. Pearl was also a boundless joy to her biological father, Revered Dimmesdale, in one scene, Pearl grabbed Dimmesdale by the hand and kissed it. This shocked Hester because this was one of the only times that Pearl showed affection to anyone, which brought immense joy to Dimmesdale (Lorcher, Trent). Dimmesdale is known to have committed the same crime as Hester when he clutches his chest constantly and is seen having the marking or the scarlet “A” engraved on his chest. Reverend Dimmesdale’s sin is more permanently proclaimed than Hester’s that is sewn on to her clothes, while his is a tattoo burned on his skin (Analysis: The Red Mark on Dimmesdale’s Chest). It is seen like an outward representation of the sin that is inside him that he is not fully open with (Lorcher, Trent). Pearl is always talking about the “Black Man” and she is referring to Satan and how Dimmesdale wrote his name in the Black Man’s book (Analysis: The Black Man). Hester’s husband, Roger Chillingworth is a symbol of evil and a sort of revenge for Hester (Lorcher, Trent). When Dimmesdale, Pearl and Hester meet on the scaffold one night a meteor streaks across the sky in the shape of a letter “A” and it seems to mean that God has

Dimmesdale is the town’s reverend, whom is looked upon as god by the town’s people. But what no one knows is that he has committed a sin in which he will not tell anyone. This is his greatest secret and greatest fear. This secret he holds is causing his health to deteriorate and cause his to be very ill. Instead of him confessing his sin he chooses to inflict self-punishment; such as fasting, scourging, and all night vigils. He committed the sin of adulthood with Hester Prynn, this sin caused Hester to bear a child. Reverend Dimmesdale is connected to Hester by their child pearl.

Dimmesdale is the head minister of the town who ends up having an affair with Pearl, and getting her pregnant. Dimmesdale knows he has committed a sin as quoted "If thou feelest it to be for thy soul's peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer!" (Hawthorne 64). Additionally, dimmesdale does not publicly reveal he is Pearl's father until the end of the story; in which Dimmesdale dies shortly after revealing this major sin not helping Hester at all. Correspondingly this is why Hester is able to overcome so much, because she is dealing with basically everyone's problem and most of the others surrounding her only cause her grief and