The Thematic Trifecta Of The Scarlet Letter

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.

Hawthorne's Hester Prynne is the underdog protagonist that the reader cannot help but want to succeed. She is flawed but her flaws are outshone by her good heart and spirit. This shamed and humiliated woman is the one the reader, with the help of Hawthorne’s descriptions, wants to support. This sinful woman, with a child from wedlock, a diabolical “husband”, and a secretive lover is the motivating force that drives the reader to continue on with The Scarlet Letter. The language, descriptions, and plot of The Scarlet Letter show that Hawthorne believes the reader should look past gender stereotypes because not everything is what is

Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" is set in the early days of Puritan America. Hester Prynne, a seamstress, comes to the New World before her husband in order to prepare a place for them. During his absence, she develops a relationship with Arthur Dimmesdale, a rising minister in the newly founded Puritan community. Hester becomes pregnant. The novel is widely viewed to be a story about her trials and tribulations; however, critic Randall Steward argues that, "…Hester is not the protagonist, the chief actor, and the tragedy of the novel is not her tragedy but Arthur's. He is the persecuted one, the tempted one. He it was whom the sorrows of death encompassed…His public confession is one of

With all the chaos present in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, there is a central point at which the novel revolves around: Hester Prynne’s sin. Because of her adulterous actions, she is mocked by both modern and Puritan society. It is through her character as an adulteress that D.H. Lawrence scorns and evaluates Hester Prynne’s flaws through his use of brief diction, sarcastic tone, and biblical allusions.

The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne focuses more on the symbolic meaning than on characterization. The Scarlet Letter revolves around the themes of sin, guilt and redemption, which are conceptualized through an adulterous life story in Massachusetts. Adultery is expressed in a means, which is not only psychologically disturbing but also reflects upon understanding of the human heart. Hester Prynne is an adulteress who is forced to wear a scarlet letter A on her gown according to Puritan practices. Arthur Dimmesdale, struggles in the background with guilt for fathering her secret child, Pearl yet the woman gets to be castigated independently. Furthermore, Dimmesdale is a cleric and Chillingworth who is Hester’s husband, from

    Nathaniel Hawthorne was inspired by John Hathorne to create the novel The Scarlet Letter.  Throughout the novel, Hawthorne displayed some of the cruel punishments people in that society faced at the time, even though the crime was neither serious nor threatening to others.  In The Scarlet Letter,  the protagonist, Hester Prynne, is accused by Puritan minister, Arthur Dimmesdale, for commiting the sin of adultery.  In a Puritan society, adultery is an unacceptable action and should receive punishment.  In chapter two of the novel, a crowd of Puritan women wait outside the prison discussing Hester Prynne’s sin and expect the punishment to be quite grand.  The punishment Hester had to suffer was to wear a scarlet letter “A” and stand on the scaffold in front of an unsympathetic crowd.   While on the

The Scarlet Letter is set in the mid-1800’s, a time of strong religious values where adultery was considered one of the most horrendous sins one could commit. The novel takes place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony; a community with deeply-rooted religious morals. This setting that Nathaniel Hawthorne chose heightens the severity of the wrongdoing that Hester, the novel’s protagonist, perpetrates. Reverend Dimmesdale, a church figure who is widely respected throughout the community, commits the exact same crime as Hester, however the two handled their situations very differently. By examining the two character’s mental states, it becomes evident that Hawthorne is demonstrating the theme of how taking responsibility for one’s sins enables that

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a novel about guilt and innocence in Boston, Massachusetts during the 1640s. Hester Prynne, the protagonist of the novel, is a beautiful married woman who has committed adultery and had a child while her husband was lost at sea. She is now forced to bear the scarlet letter on her chest to let the public know what sin she has committed. Roger Chillingworth is Hesters lost husband who has returned back from seas to learn that his wife has been unfaithful to him. He has devoted himself to finding who Hesters lover is and seek revenge on him, even if it wreaks him. Arthur Dimmesdale is the town’s reverend and Hesters secret lover. He is in continuous conflict against himself since he is supposed to be

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a Romantic novel about two adulterers, Hester and Dimmesdale, who are forced to live with the repercussions of their sin. Hester Prynne is punished by wearing a scarlet ‘A’ which ostracizes her from Puritan Boston, leading to several years of solitude. During this time, Roger Chillingworth, her vengeful husband, preys on Dimmesdale, whose only source of repent is in his hypocritical preachings. When Dimmesdale finally speaks to Hester again, they plan to escape their wrongdoings by fleeing back to England, where they can live together as a loving family with their daughter Pearl. Although some may argue that Hester and Dimmesdale are in love, a closer examination of the novel shows that they are

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays the harshness of society and its impact on a member of the community who has done wrong. Hester Prynne was a young, beautiful, and married woman whose husband was over seas when she got pregnant. Accused with the crime of adultery, Hester has to deal with being shunned by her Puritan community. Refusing to give up the father’s name, Hester must raise her child alone and live with the guilt of her sins in dishonor. This contributes to the idea that Dimmesdale and Hester were both destroyed by their deception and secrecy.

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

Hawthorne’s work takes America’s Puritan past as its subject, but The Scarlet Letter uses the material to the greatest effect. The Puritans were

Set in seventeenth century Boston, The Scarlet Letter is a riveting tale about the life of an adulteress in the Puritan culture. The Scarlet Letter is written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The century in which the book takes place has much to do with the way Hester Prynne and her daughter, Pearl, are treated and judged by the townspeople. People in that time did not seem to treat an adulteress and the offspring of the affair as human beings. Hester, Pearl, and Arthur Dimmesdale, the preacher, are the main characters in the story. The major theme in this story could almost be perceived as karma. All darkness must come into light, and all sin will soon be known.

The Scarlet Letter, a novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a didactic tale of one woman who defies the rules of early Puritan society along with the struggles she endured. Hester Prynne, a woman who had an affair with Reverend Dimmesdale and as a result conceives Pearl, was chastised because of the affair and is then made in outcast in society. Hester was seen as a sinner and in result reprimanded for this with imprisonment and then the letter being made an outcast by being forced to stitch a scarlet letter A into her clothing, and forced to live outside of town in the woods completely secluded. As the novel develops Hawthorne explores the sin and hypocrisy of the Puritan lifestyle, and uses symbolism to demonstrate the isolation of Hester and Pearl.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, one of the most intellectual and sophisticated writers known to man, creatively interpreted common themes and entwined them into his literary work by enhancing the characterization within his novels. Taking the characters he created and giving them intricate and deep involvement gives his writing a more detailed and elaborate perception of its themes, specifically heroism in his novel The Scarlet Letter. The novel takes place within a theocratic community where Puritan values and beliefs are worshiped, and societal standards are raised and demanded to be followed. When Hester Prynne and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, a well-respected minister, commit adultery,