The Scarlet Letter, By Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hester is introduced as a beautiful and graceful young woman. Although she has committed adultery, she is prideful and has force of character. Her situation does not stop her to present herself in front of everyone with class. I believe that is very admirable. Although she is being disgraced and ridiculed in front of everyone she knows, she does not show she is hurt. Hester Prynne is brave not only is she judged for her actions, but so is her baby. Although the child has done nothing wrong it is seen as the offspring of adultery, and the mother’s sin. The child is used to make Hester reveal the father of the infant but she refuses, once again proving her determination and force of character. As expected the crowd does not welcome Hester.

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

““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

Hester Prynne starts her life as an average respected young woman until she commits the loathsome crime of adultery, which forever condemns her to wear a

Hester Prynne makes a decision that changes her life forever. Her one little mistake led to such a long-lasting result that she lives with it for the rest of her life. She commits adultery with a man named Arthur Dimmesdale, who also begins to live with a long lasting result of the sin they commit together. The outcome of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale’s sin is a child. Pearl, is the child’s name, who now stands as a symbol of her mother's sin.

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.

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,

     Hester Prynne, through the eyes of the Puritans, is an extreme sinner. She has gone against the Puritan ways by committing Adultery. The Puritans believed that Hester was a lost soul that could only be saved by sincere and thorough repentance. For this

Hester’s battle with herself can only be understood by taking a glimpse into her daily life with her beloved daughter, Pearl. Pearl is the physical manifestation of her sin, of the adultery that Hester committed with her secret lover; with every waking hour, Pearl is always alongside Hester, constantly reminding Hester of her transgression. Whenever Hester sees Pearl, she sees a young and energetic girl, who also possesses the same attributes that she loathes about herself, the difficult and wild side of herself that would never give up. Hawthorne writes that Pearl, “lacked reference and adaptation to the world into which she was born. [Pearl] could not be made amenable to rules” (Hawthorne

The scarlet letter symbolizes a part of Hester’s past that she can never forget but also represents a sense of strength that she overcame all the hardship that was a result of her sin, though she still feels the pain of the letter when encountering Mr. Dimmesdale. In chapter sixteen, Hester plans to meet with the minister in order to discuss their plans about what to do with Roger Chillingworth, but also just to talk to somebody who understands her situation. Eventually, Pearl brings up the Black Man again when she describes how “he haunts this forest, and carries a book with him [...] and how this ugly Black Man offers this book [...] to everybody that meets him here [...] and they are to write their names with their own blood [...] then

“All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual.”(Albert Einstein), but the society during the 1640’s prevents the people of New England to develop in a way that benefits their well being. In the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, readers notice how the characters, Hester Prynne, Pearl Prynne, Roger Chillingworth, and Arthur Dimmesdale act throughout the story. When reading The Scarlet Letter, the way society runs in New England, during the 1640s, changes the way the main characters act, some in a positive ways that end up helping the character, and others in a negative way that affect the characters. The city of Boston, Massachusetts has very strict protocols when it comes to religion, crime, and the birth of a “sin” born child. These protocols affect the way Hester, Pearl, Roger, and Arthur act throughout the novel.

Not everything in life has just one meaning. Symbolism occurs in everyday ordinary life. One of the most recognizable stories that contain symbolism in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter”. Symbolism is when an object is used in place of a different object. Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the most symbolic writers in all of American history. In “The Scarlet Letter”, the letter “A” is used to symbolize a variety of different concepts. The three major symbolistic ideas that the letter “A” represents in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” are; shame, guilt, and ability.

From the beginning, we see that Hester Prynne is a young and beautiful woman who has brought a child into the world with an unknown father. She is punished by Puritan society by wearing the scarlet letter A on the bosom of her dress and standing on the scaffold for three hours. The scaffold is a painful task to bear; the townspeople gathered around to gossip and stare at Hester and her newborn child, whom she suitably named Pearl, named because of her extreme value to her mother. Her subjection to the crowd of

The Scarlet Letter was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850 which is based on the time frame of the Puritans, a religious group who arrived in Massachusetts in the 1630’s. The Puritans were in a religious period that was known for the strict social norms in which lead to the intolerance of different lifestyles. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the puritan’s strict lifestyles to relate to the universal issues among us. The time frame of the puritans resulted in Hawthorne eventually thinking that the puritans lifestyle as too extreme. Transcendentalism was a philosophical way of thinking for oneself, and not letting the belief of society alter the personal opinion. Transcendentalism correlates with The Scarlet Letter and its characters as they battle society’s set values of what is socially right or wrong. Adultery and which craft are just two of the topics that would not be exceptional to the puritans. Hawthorne came to realization that everyone is human and as humans we make mistakes, we should not punish each mistake to the extreme. Using the original work of Nathaniel Hawthorne and the literary criticism of three critics, I analyze the different interpretations of the scarlet letter in terms of individualism, conformity, and homoerotic dynamics. While researching the scarlet letter I found many different perceptions of the novel, The Scarlet letter is a story that changes interpretation

Each character in the novel represents one or more philosophies including Romanticism, Reason, and Puritanism that one could adhere to in life. Romanticism focuses on the individual and preaches finding truth, Reason, involves the belief that one can use logic to solve anything and a perfect society will create perfect men, and Puritanism, where all that matters to anyone is God. In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses Hester Prynne 's untethered adherence to several philosophies, Roger Chillingworth 's strict adherence to logic and reason, and Arthur Dimmesdale 's unwavering devotion to Puritanism to prove that true, and complete happiness can never be attained by strictly following one philosophy.