The Scarlet Letter Essay

Hester displays acts of courage that portray her as a heroic character. Hester clearly suffers from her punishment of having to wear the scarlet letter ‘A’ in public as she attempts to maintain

In his book, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne tells of a story where a young woman has had an adulterous relationship with a respected priest in a Puritan community. Typical of Hawthorne's writings is the use of imagery and symbolism. In Chapter 12, The Minister's Vigil, there are several uses of imagery when Dimmesdale, the priest, is battling with confessing his sin, which has plagued him for seven years. Three evident techniques used to personify symbolism in this chapter are the use of darkness versus light, the use of inner guilt versus confession, and lastly the use of colors (black versus white).

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.

In The Scarlet Letter Hester Prynne is more than a literary figure in a classic novel, she is known by some people to be one of the earliest American Hero’s. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Hester commits adultery and has a child that she must care for all alone. She is forced to wear a powerful, attention grabbing “Scarlet A” on her chest while she must try to make a living to support her and her child, Pearl. Even though she must face all the harsh judgment and stares she does not allow her sin to stop her from living a successful life. She looks past the Letter as a symbol of sin and turns it into a sign of approval. Hester

Hester and Pearl venture into the forest in order for Hester to talk with Dimmesdale in order “to make known to [him]...the true character of the man who had crept into his intimacy” (125), hence, she wanted to warn Dimmesdale of Chillingworth. Pearl goes with Hester because she was was the “companion of all her mother’s expeditions”(125), regardless of how inconvenient it may be to Hester.

When Chillingworth asks Hester the identity of her lover, she refuses to answer. Because of this, Chillingworth makes her promise never to reveal that he is her husband. After Hester is released from prison, she goes to live in a small cottage at the edge of town. After a few years, people begin to notice that her daughter, Pearl, behaves very strangely, and they threaten to take her away from Hester. Hester takes Pearl to Governor Bellingham's mansion planning to plead for the right to keep her daughter. At the mansion she is met by the governor and his three guests, Reverend Wilson, Reverend Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth. Reverend Dimmesdale convinces the governor to allow Hester to keep Pearl. Chillingworth, who has been living with Reverend Dimmesdale since his arrival in town, begins to suspect that Reverend Dimmesdale is the father of Pearl. One evening while Dimmesdale is sleeping, Chillingworth examines Dimmesdale's chest and finds something which confirms his suspicion. From this moment on, Chillingworth devotes himself to seeking revenge. One night, Dimmesdale is so tormented by his conscience that he goes and stands on the scaffold that Hester had stood on seven years earlier. As he is standing there, he sees Hester and Pearl walk by and he calls them onto the scaffold with him. After he acknowledges his guilt to them, a giant red A

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

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.

The Scarlet letter shows hester as a humble person. She had to suffer a lot in the beginning. I tried to convey this with her distaste of the town shaming her. I also made sure to highlight her persistence to protect herself and her child. That’s the one thing Hester always did, protect Pearl. I decided

She touches the scarlet letter, but little does she know that she is the reason for the punishment. They are social outcasts, so they don’t leave their house much. Pearl plays alone and has best friends that are imaginary. She distrusts her own imaginary friends for the same reason that she distrusts all the Puritans in the colony. People treat Hester and Pearl differently than everyone else is treated. She only loves Hester, because Hester spends time with her and is a good mother. She plays with her and teaches her Bible stories. Pearl knows the whole catechism at the age of three, but refuses to say it to anyone. She is smarter than everyone thinks she is. Chillingworth speaks to Pearl about the scarlet letter. He asked her if she knew the reason why her mother must wear the scarlet letter all the time. She replies, “Yes, that is the same reason why the preacher holds his hand over his heart.” Pearl asks her mom all the time the reason why she wears the scarlet letter and why the preacher holds his hand over his heart. She knows that they both do, but she doesn’t know why. Hester tells her that she wears it because of the pretty gold thread, but she doesn’t know the minister’s reason. Later in the story, Dimmesdale, Hester, and Pearl meet in the forest, and Hester rips the scarlet letter off. Pearl gets mad then, because she knows that her mother is supposed to wear it. Dimmesdale kisses Pearl, but she washes the kiss off with

Hester is on the scaffold the first time she sees Chillingworth in the story. Chillingworth vows he is going to find the man Hester had this child with, and to keep quiet about his true identity of him being Hester's esteemed husband who left three years ago. Chillingworth had no contact with Pearl the three years that he was gone. Therefore she believed him dead or to have left her. Moreover, then Dimmesdale comes into play.

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

“Many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. They said that it meant Able (147).” Scandals such as Hester’s have a short-lived impact, and as the shock of Hester’s sin fades, the meaning of her scarlet letter morphs into that of good. Besides just societal acceptance, Hester finds it much easier to accept herself as her sin had been revealed to the town, though not by choice. Though Hester still does not feel entirely as if she has a place in society, she finds solace within her own mind.

Although Hester is forced to wear the Scarlet Letter at all times for the purpose of public humiliation, she actually has the courage to wear it and embrace her sin, despite the countless insults that she receives. And by brushing all of this pain away, along with realizing that she will have to live in isolation, not beautiful, and in pain, Hester becomes a much stronger person. She shows this because she is able to overcome the effects of her sin and move on with her life, choosing to help others. This allows Hester to gradually regain more respect from the townspeople because of her altruism; “Such helpfulness was found in her—so much power to do, and power to sympathise— that many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification” (Scarlet Letter). From this point on, the Scarlet Letter stands for “Able” not “Adulterer,” making Hester a symbol of strength, not

        Pearl primarily serves the role of silently urging Dimmesdale to overcome the pressures to conform to society, and to allow his guilty inner-self to emerge and receive retribution for his sins. She exists as a constant and living reminder and product of the sin Hester and Dimmesdale committed, and acknowledges the false innocence Dimmesdale tries so desperately to maintain. Her inquisition, "Why does he not wear [a scarlet letter] outside his bosom as thou dost?" (ch 16) to her mother concerning Dimmesdale is evidence of this. Pearl has no chance to conform to society because at birth she is regarded