The Scarlet Letter Compared to the 21st Century

Sacrificing of the soul and dedication can lead to suffering for some, but meaning in life for others. This is the main theme of The Scarlet Letter,by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The story takes place in the seventeenth century in Puritan New England. The main character of the legend is Hester Prynne, who has an affair with Arthur Dimmesdale, the minister, and they produce Pearl. Hester's husband, Roger Chillingworth is the town physician. He is seen as the healer, collecting magical herbs to make medicine. Hawthorne twists the purpose of the physician by turning these healing powers into vengeance for an unhappy man.

The setting of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet letter” is crucial to the understanding of the event that takes place in the story. The setting of the story is in Salem, Massachusetts during the Puritan era. During the Puritan era, adultery was taken as a very serious sin, and this is what Hester and Dimmesdale committ with each other. Because of the sin, their lives change, Hester has to walk around in public with a Scarlet Letter “A” which stands for adultery, and she is constantly being tortured and is thought of as less than a person. Dimmesdale walks around with his sin kept as secret, because he never admits his sin, his mental state is changing, and the sin degrades his well-being. Chillingworth

Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays the ideology of Puritan society in the novel the Scarlet Letter; however reader also get to witness his characters being an illustration of hypocrisy and victims to their own guilt. In the Scarlet Letter, as in many of Hawthorne’s shorter works, he makes profuse use of the Puritan past: its odd exclusionary belief, its harsh code of ruling, its concern with sex and witchcraft. The Scarlet Letter is a story that is embellished but yet simple. Many readers may view this novel as a soap opera due to the way Hawthorne conveys this Puritan society’s sense of strictness and inability to express true emotion along with the secrecy and how deceiving the characters are being. As the story unfolds the main character Hester Prynne is bounded in marriage at an early age. She engages in an adulterous affair with an unknown member of their small village. Hester soon becomes pregnant and with her husband’s absence the chances of this child belonging to her husband are slim. The towns’ people know that she has committed a sin and imprisons her for her crime.

Society has unintentionally been guided by the same themes since the beginning of time. The recurring themes that are present in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic The Scarlet Letter are still relevant in today’s society. When high school students and teachers claim that Hawthorne’s novel is archaic and should be removed from the curriculum, they are absolutely wrong. Hester Prynne, the main character of the novel, commits adultery and as punishment, has to wear a scarlet letter “A” on her chest for everyone to see. Throughout the novel, Hester is faced with obstacles such as the struggle between self and society and the burden of publicly suffering for her sins. Despite a substantial amount of time having passed since Puritan times, the themes that Hester Prynne had to experience are still pertinent. Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s husband, is driven mad by his incessant need for revenge and in society today there are many occasions where people are plagued with the desire to seek vengeance. There are some instances in life where human nature takes over without people even realizing and revenge is one of them. Also, people are right when they say “history repeats itself” because some of these themes never go away. The Scarlet Letter takes place in the strict religious time of the 1600’s and although the book seems outdated and obsolete, the ideas inside are still relevant and therefore high school students should continue to read this work

Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his bold novel, The Scarlet Letter tackles a variety of themes that include: sin, guilt, redemption, postfeminism, and organized religion's abuse of power. Hawthorne spoke in a somber and grim tone, designed to arouse a sense of suspense for his readers. The audience in which he was addressing would have been conservative Christians and women suffragettes, all of whom reflected the ideologies during this time period. By instilling clever diction, Hawthorne exposes hypocrisy in Puritanism and objects against the religion's superfluous punishments; which force individuals to endure unnecessary and extreme suffering.

Imagine, after making one mistake, being placed in the public eye and forced to wear and everyday reminder of that one mistake. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a novel that brings attention to the way society ostracizes people who it deems unfit. The main character, Hester Prynne, is condemned to a life of shame and seclusion as a result of the punishments of her sin of adultery. By displaying a character that experiences the harsh punishments and lifelong effects of the world’s treatment of what it views as abominationabonination, Hawthorne argues that society’s ruthless behavior toward sin and sinners is emotionally and morally crippling to those

Nathaniel Hawthorne is the author of the classic novel the Scarlet Letter based on the Puritan Era in Massachusetts. D.H Lawrence a British writer critiques the novel and gives his opinions on the piece in a persuasive argumentative manner. He believes that the heroine of the novel is not the beloved, marvelous character we all believe she is.He uses confident literary techniques like powerful tone, abrupt syntax and classic biblical allusions to convince people that the beloved character Hester Prynne is truly a conniving adulteress who thrives off of stealing one's purity.

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is often renowned as his best work. The novel tells about the rigid ideas of 19th century Puritan New England through the story of Hester Prynne, Minister Dimmesdale, and Pearl. Hawthorne points out that the Puritans are often more ready to judge, punish, and damn someone than to forgive them. He is very critical of this idea, and goes against it by ending the novel with Hester Prynne becoming a respected individual that other women often look to for advice, and by changing the perception many people have of the Scarlet Letter from, “Adultery” to “Able”. Throughout the novel Hawthorne refutes the harsh ideals of the Puritans through the

A mother’s love for her child compares to no other. Hester Prynne’s mothering abilities were challenged in the chapter, The Elf-Child and the Minister, but she did not let that deter her from fighting for her child. Mr. Wilson, a venerable pastor, cried out to Pearl “…who art thou, and what has ailed thy mother to bedizen thee in this strange fashion? Art thou a Christian child-ha? Dost know thy catechism? Or art thou one of those naughty elfs or fairies whom we thought to have left behind us…”. Mr. Wilson’s interest in the child lead Governor Bellingham, an elderly gentleman, to inquire about her religious upbringing. “Canst thou tell me, my child, who made thee?” said the Governor. Even though the girl had been informed about her heavenly father, Pearl replied that “she had not been made at all, but had been plucked by her mother off the bush of wild roses that grew by the prison door”. The Governor was astonished and quickly implied that the child should be immediately released into the control of the Puritan Magistrate. Hester, a force to be reckoned with, confronted the Governor and yelled, “God gave me the child! He gave her in requital of all things else, which ye had taken from me. She is my happiness…Pearl keeps me here in life! … Ye shall not take her! I will die first!” Her passion for the child seeped through every word spoken by herself and Mr. Dimmesdale who also defended her. Hester faced many difficulties throughout the novel but she remained strong through everything, even when her daughter was threatened to be taken from her. It takes immense strength to continue living somewhere when everything you love is imperiled and you are constantly being

The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne is based off a Puritan village during the 1640s. Hawthorne believes in the power of the individual and that society entices the individual to commit evil acts, this ideology is contradicting to Puritan beliefs. Hawthorne is a critic of the harsh Puritan punishments and public shame. Through Hester Prynne’s life, the author demonstrates how society attempted to fix sin at the expense of the individual. Hawthorne builds on the principles of Romanticism, with his main focus on the heart over logic and he moves away from traditional Puritanism and theocracy.

Additionally, the hardships Hester experiences demonstrate Hawthorne’s point of view that women go through much more criticism than men, yet through Hester’s eventual successes, he proves that women are still able to remain strong and live out their lives.

The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a prime example of why one should freely show to the world their shortcomings, and sins rather than live under a false image of purity. The Scarlet Letter shows the dangers of lying. It has become an anomaly to find someone who is open about their shortcomings. We all have flaws and defects, but hiding them from one another will make it impossible to change our ways so we can reach a positive outcome.

The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a timeless classic with many symbolic meanings. Such as the forest which symbolizes much more than one might imagine. In this mysterious dark landscape Hester and Dimmesdale met once again and this time they let their guard down profess their love to one another and committed adultery here. Nathaniel Hawthorne, created a literary masterpiece. He took a landscape and made it a place of morally astray, and a place for natural innocence.

From afar, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne seems like a simple story, but it holds symbols that create a relatable message. In his book, How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C Foster writes, “Hawthorne is perhaps the best American writer that exploring our symbolic consciousness, at finding the ways we display suspicion and loneliness and envy.” (Foster 289). In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne uses Foster's idea of biblical symbolism to explore human loneliness, suspicion, and envy while delivering a relatable message.

The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne consist of many hidden literary aspects and devices to help convey a multitude of themes. Hawthorne introduces the lives of Hester Prynne, Roger Chillingworth, and Arthur Dimmesdale as they find themselves in difficult situations full of right and wrong decisions. Hester, an adulterous forever marked with the scarlet letter ‘A’, is married to Chillingworth who makes it his duty to find and torture the man responsible for his wife’s infidelity, while Dimmesdale, the town's minister, has trouble revealing his own sin. Through the use of the literary devices diction and tone, Hawthorne presents the theme that the choices you make today, shape your life tomorrow in only either a positive or negative angle.