Essay about The Scarlet Letter: Change and Transformation

Hester Prynne is kind of a role model, almost. I admire her ability to admit to sin and be willing to take the consequences. Surely she was not the only one during Puritan times who had an affair, or even sinned. Everyone sins every day, and so technically everyone should have a scarlet letter of some sort. In my opinion, this makes Hester above everyone else.

The settings in The Scarlet Letter are very important in displaying the themes of the novel. The settings in this novel are almost characters, for they are an important part in developing the story. The scaffold, the forest, the prison, and Hester’s cottage are settings that show sin and its consequences result in shame and suffering.

In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author presents three symbols that all reinforce the main idea of the novel. The main idea that reoccurred throughout the novel is that people don’t have to let their mistakes or circumstances determine who they are or what they become; it’s all in how one interprets life. Many symbols may seem as just an ordinary character or coincidental object to some readers, but the symbols have a deeper, underlying meaning. Although there are many symbols in this book, there are three that really help support the main idea: Hester Prynne’s scarlet letter, the meteor, and Hester’s daughter Pearl.

Physically deformed and mysterious, Roger Chillingworth finally met his wife after being separated from her for almost two years.  He showed no great anger towards her and took upon himself some of the accountability saying it was “...my folly and thy weakness,” (Hawthorne 52) which was the cause of Hester's sin.  Chillingworth's only feeling was one of revenge towards the man who had been Hester's lover.  Chillingworth was obsessed by hate and revenge so much that when Dimmesdale died “... the life seemed to have departed...” (Hawthorne 72) from him and he died within a year of Dimmesdale's death.  Chillingworth never felt guilt or attempted repentance because he “... violated, in cold blood, the sanctity of a human heart.” (Hawthorne 133).  He sought to destroy Dimmesdale's

A common theme throughout literature is religion and how the author feels about his or her faith. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses rhetorical devices to draw comparisons between characters and events in The Scarlet Letter and Biblical figures and accounts. A few of the devices found in this novel that connect it to the Bible are symbolism, paradox, allusions, and characterization. It is important to first look at the characters and how they are described through characterization.

1. As the story opens a throng is gathered.  Who are these people?  Where and why are they gathered?

Out of fear, Dimmesdale shrieks while contemplating the situation he has been placed in. At this point, Dimmesdale’s guilt grows rapidly, taking a toll on his physical health as he suffers from severe health problems. He is described to be looking as if he is slowing wasting away as he grabs his chest as if his heart aches: “He was often observed to put his hand over his heart, with a flush and then a paleness, indicative of pain” (Hawthorne 169). Dimmesdale becomes so upset and depressed, that he beings to whip and starve himself because he feels he deserves to suffer. The book says, “About this period, however, the health of Mr. Dimmesdale has evidently begun to fail… the paleness of the young minister’s cheek was accounted… in order to keep the grossness of this early state from clogging and obscuring his spiritual lamp” (Hawthorne 109). Hester and Pearl walk up to Dimmesdale on the scaffold where Pearl asks him if he will stand with them at noon. Dimmesdale responds saying that he will stand with them on the great judgement day, foreshadowing a significant scene. Holding the sin inside of him, makes him sick, and even with all his pain, there is a value of truth and irony. Dimmesdale is described as if “there came a glare of red light out of his eyes; as if the old man’s soul were on fire, and kept on smoldering duskily

The characters in the Scarlet Letter are judged greatly through how and who they are able and unable to forgive. Such as the main female lead, Hester Prynne, and her struggle for the town to forgive her, finding the will to forgive herself and having God forgive her. Although, this was hard because every day she had to live with the scarlet letter upon her chest as a reminder of her sin. Another character that had one of the roughest times in the novel was Arthur Dimmesdale. This man kept a sin hidden for most of the novel and let it eat him away. The person that Dimmesdale needed to forgivehim the most was Pearl. He spent most of the novel trying to earn her beloved trust. Pearl would ask him favors to go into town with her but it

Chillingworth is, honestly, just a very creepy character, for starters. He reunites with his wife, whom

In fact, the most significant change in Dimmesdale’s self perception is after he admits to his sin on the scaffold alongside Hester and Pearl. This was the product of a removed burden, a change that brought immense relief to the minister. The author obviously meant for this to be a positive change in him, because he, “ in the crisis of acutest pain, had won a victory.” (Hawthorne 210) The relief is so great, that Dimmesdale dies on the scaffold right

What is most remarkeable about Hester Prynne is her strength of character. Her inner strength and honesty and her compassion to others, even ones that have condemned her is what is brought to the reader’s attention throughout the novel. At the beginning of the novel Hester is described as a radiant beauty, however seven years later her beauty is gone and the beautiful hair that she once had is hidden underneath a cap that she wears. In Chapter 13, she removes the cap and the letter “A” and she becomes the beautiful person that she was before her punishment. I think that this is symbolic in that when she removes her cap and letter she taking off the harsh structure of Puritan society. When Pearl demands that she put back on her cap and letter “ her beauty, the warnth and richness of her womanhood, departed, like fading sunshine; and a gray shadow seemed to fall across her.” While her punishment does change her physical appearance, it has a deeper impact on her character.

            Dimmesdale's instantaneous response to the sin is to lie.  He stands before Hester and the rest of the town and proceeds to give a moving speech about how it would be in her and the father's best interest for her to reveal the father's name (67).  Though he never actually says that he is not the other parent, he implies it by talking of the father in third person (67).  Such as, "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

In the corners of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, stand two fascinating characters—Pearl and Roger Chillingsworth. In the story, Pearl is the illegitimate child of the protagonist, Hester Prynne, and the minister, Arthur Dimmesdale, while Chillingsworth is Hester’s estranged husband who everyone thought was dead. Both of these two supporting characters have a surreal presences and each are deeply involved in Hester’s life, particularly her life after the discovery of her adultry. With as many similarities as they have, the reader may question what the respective rolls of these two characters are. Much has been said about the characters individually, but in this paper I will explore how the characters relate to each other in the telling of the story. Based on the similarities, differences, and roles that the characters play in the story; I will explain how they many in fact be read as foils of one another.

        Chillingworth and his connection to the scarlet letter may be the worst of all in the Puritan community. He, in some way, is always identified as the devil’s missionary or the devil himself, this trait shown from the moment he finds the wound on Dimmesdale’s bosom. “But what distinguished the physician’s ecstasy from Satan’s was the trait of wonder in it” (126). Pearl sees him first as a devilish figure; then, before him and Hester’s last confrontation before her confessing to Dimmesdale who he is, she sees him in the form of a satanic figure, a bat. “Chillingworth’s character displays the evilness of heart, if there is heart in him” (Ryskamp). His deformity of body finally represents a deformity of character which heart and soul play little part. His “A” could also stand for alchemist or artist, since he is both. His art, contrasting much from Hester’s creative art, is black art or black magic. In the end, though, bent over on the ground, he looks more along the lines of a snake than he does a human.

“Women belong in the kitchen.” “All women should be barefoot and pregnant.” “Women are strictly homemakers.” These are a few of the commonly used phrases regarding the female role in society that date back to the mid-seventeenth century. However, ardent supporters of gender equality have surfaced in almost every culture where this ideology is practiced. Nathaniel Hawthorne explores this inveterate societal conflict through his story The Scarlet Letter. The main character, Hester Prynne, is punished for committing adultery by being forced to wear a scarlet letter upon her bosom; Hawthorne created a story sympathetic to the female cause and demonstrated, through Hester, qualities of early feminism that later establish themselves during his