The Theme of Sin in the Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

This page describing her crime shows how Hester defies the Puritan belief system through rebellion because the crime of adultery is a serious sin in their religion, showing that she purposely disobeys the laws of their religion by having an affair. Hester Prynne also defies the Puritan belief system through the scene where she immerges from the jail cell and is seen in public with her wedlock child for the first time. Hawthorne describes the manner in which she immerges from the jail and how the town reacts, in the quote “Those who had before known her, and had expected to behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she had enveloped” (46). This quote shows Hester’s rebellion against the Puritan beliefs because, due to how serious her crime is seen in the Puritan community, the town members had expected her to show sorrow, shame, and weakness as she walked from the jail cell. But, instead she walks out with her head held high, ignoring their judgment, showing no shame and in the crime she committed, and disregarding the mannerisms the Puritan’s expected of her. Along with her rebellion, Hester Prynne defies the Puritan belief system

The author, in lines 24 to 29, compares Hester’s scarlet letter to a “passport into regions where other women dared not tread,” and later mentions how the mentors of her life—shame, despair, and solitude—taught her strong but amiss, different from other women. These metaphors depict the dual nature of Hester: the sinful bearer of the scarlet letter and audacious woman of brooding resilience. In spite of her emblem of shame, Hester boldly continued to hold her head high, resisting all the consequences of her adultery. The metaphors employed here, therefore, provide a thorough inspection of Hester’s state of mind and paints a deeper and more poignant picture of Hester Prynne’s

Which is what the book revolves around. Hester’s sin is her act of adultery that she committed with Dimmesdale. But, as punishment she has to wear a Scarlet Letter. But as the story moves along the scarlet letter becomes less of a symbol of shame, and more of a symbol of strength. Because of the “A” Hester becomes stronger both emotionally and mentally. The punishment ultimately teaches Hester that strength and individuality are not gained by wearing noticeable clothing. But by quiet self-assertion and a self-reconfiguration, of one’s assigned

During this scene, Hester begins to realize she is now only recognized as the scarlet letter, therefore the town no longer views her as an equal part. Thus making her agnise that she is no longer a part of the Puritan society like she once was. Another example, is when standing upon the scaffolding in the marketplace at the beginning of the novel, Hester “turned her eyes downward at the scarlet letter, and even touched it with her finger, to assure herself that… the shame were real” (12). In other words, this shows that she has been set as an outcast, forcing her to move to the outskirts of town and wear the scarlet letter upon her chest as people whispered, stared, and pointed as the human hidden behind the scarlet letter strode by. These occurrences irked her, as she knew that the people of the society who were judging her were not sin free themselves, they had all committed a wrongdoing and were hypocritical and far from pure, they were merely keeping their sins a secret.

“Out of the mouths of babes” often times comes the purest. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the young characters embrace the truth and old characters express themselves through lies. In the rigid Puritan society of the 1690s, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale have broken one of the most egregious sin--adultery. Hester, who is married to old Roger Chillingworth, becomes pregnant with Dimmesdale’s child, Pearl. To shame her for her penance, Hester is sentenced to wear a scarlet letter upon her chest. Although all these adults live vastly different lives, they all share a mutual crime-- sin. Hawthorne illustrates a motif between young and old characters. One interesting aspect of this motif is that as the characters increase in age,

Puritan tradition is full of shaming the “wrong” in a very cruel and brute like manner. The shaming of Hester seems to bring the town joy or solace, because they can put all of the guilt that comes with sin on her, while concealing theirs. As God fearers, the Puritans know that sin is within everyone, yet they continue to condemn and shame one person, even though it is universal. Hawthorne is demonstrating and shaming the hypocritical aspects seen in Puritan citizens at the time in the early days of America. The first example of this is in the market place. “…they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne’s forehead…”, “This woman has brought shame upon us all and ought to die. Is there not a law for it? Truly there is, both in the Scripture and the statue book…” (43). The author shows the reader the twisted mindset of the Puritans using diction to make the women sound as harsh as possible. The fact they are considered “Goodwives” is ironic, because even the sophisticated and “pure” ladies in the town are

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

The harsh townspeople force her up on the scaffold to be humiliated in front of the whole town. Not only is she sent up on the scaffold with her sin revealed by the “A” for everyone to see, Hester becomes an example of what a woman should not come to be. The author is talking about Hesters experience on the scaffold and her pregnancy, “Throughout them all, giving up her individuality, she would become the general symbol at which the preacher and moralist might point, and in which they might vivify and embody their images of woman's frailty and sinful passion”(32). Hester looses her individuality and is labeled by the townspeople and known for the Scarlet Letter. Further, the townspeople singled her out as an alien or outcast of the town forcing her to live an abnormal live. She was ridiculed and known for her one sin, unable to have acceptance back into society. Although the townspeople feel as if Hester has brought sin upon there lives, she clearly have not harmed any of the townspeople physically, and they have no grounds to punish Hester. The cause of the townspeople's harsh disciplinary acts on Hester originates from a strict, unrealistic standards of puritan society and the zero tolerance of any ungodly behavior observed in the town. Due to the absence of proper justice, Hester's sentencing is left up to the harsh townspeople in which they show no mercy or

With society mocking and roaring at Hester Prynne, it is evident that they are against her, and that the Puritan society has, at a whole, condemned her act of adultery and abandoned her and her child. In the narrator's description, “...the heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes...” it is clear that society holds a rather disapproving view of Hester.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of The Scarlet Letter, emphasizes the severity of sin throughout the entire novel. He uses different symbols to show how sin was dealt with when it came to what the people in the Puritan community believe. When a sin was committed, the community punished the person, sometimes to the point of death. Hester Prynne committed adultery, which was one act of sin taken very seriously. The community wanted to kill her, but Arthur Dimmesdale, a minister and also her daughter’s father, convinced the other ministers to spare Hester. She was forced to wear the scarlet letter ‘A,’ which stand for adulterer, for the rest of her life. Hawthorne reveals a common theme of sin by using: the scarlet letter ‘A,’ Pearl, and Arthur Dimmesdale’s failing health along with Roger Chillingworth’s thirst for revenge.

The Scarlet Letter that was beared onto Hester Prynne’s chest was originally to represent her sins and damnation towards God. Refusing to reveal the seducer that allowed her with a child she is faced with public shame and isolation from the Puritan community. Regards to this, Hester Prynne allows the Scarlet Letter to become an influential symbol of identity for herself which afterwards changes her perspective on society. Ulteriorly, we learn the Scarlet Letter’s true meaning and how great of a presence it had on others. With such a great impact the symbol even allowed the purest of souls to be corrupted with sin and guilt that opened the path to their own death. In the end as many years pass the Scarlet Letter is told as a mere urban legend.

It was in Hester’s nature to be kind, tender, and submissive; but because of the token of sin worn on her chest, it was hard for the townspeople to treat her with the respect she deserved. For the most part, there are many characteristics of Hester that we should all strive to be more like. By not allowing one mistake and the comments of others to define her, she epitomized what it means to have true dignity. Sin is the Break in Human Relationships If there was no sin, there would be no sadness, arguments, or pain.

Hester’s life “attracted the world’s scorn and bitterness.” Those that surrounded her attacked her mortal identity and labeled it with demeaning titles. They grant themselves the duty of identifying Hester and what she was. She became a social construct, a product of relentless torment of those who didn’t see her fit to live amongst them. They labeled her as "the figure, the body, the reality of sin.” (5,1) Societal beliefs caused Hester’s right to Self-Identification to be stolen, falsely based on grounds of a sin. Consequently, Hester loses all control and regardless of her situation or efforts to combat the oppression, she continues to be titled.

Hester’s sin, in the Scarlet Letter is great. At the beginning of the novel, she commits adultery and is publicly shunned for it. The townspeople, who represent society as a whole in the novel, consider Hester to be a “brazen hussy”, and treat her accordingly (41). They also consider her “fantastically embroidered” letter to be “ignominious” and a symbol of Hester’s “disgrace” (41,42). Hester, by wearing the letter, feels the wrath of the townspeople, as the narrator describes in Hester’s walk from the prison to the scaffold. Hester, during her walk to the scaffold, feels “ an agony from every footstep”, and “as if her heart had been flung into the street for them [the townspeople] all to spurn and trample upon” (41). The scarlet letter forces Hester into a suffering and despair; however, her suffering eventually leads to her survival. As the novel progresses, the townspeople becoming more accepting of Hester, and slowly begin to accept her. Seven years after Pearl is born, Hester has “found her place” as a “rightful inmate”, and become “so strong” (105, 106). Hester, seven years after her

Throughout the novel, Hawthorne integrates Hester’s character through a series of conflicts between herself as well as with other characters, which aid her to develop her new sense of morality. In the second chapter, “The Market Place”, Hester is escorted to the overly crowded market place to pay her price of public humiliation for her sin of adultery. She faces the crowd of ashamed women as they judge her for her proclaimed lenient punishment, for “she-the naughty baggage” (45), “will .. care [little for] what they put upon the bodice of her gown!” (45). This encounter with the so called “women being of mature age and church members in a good repute” (44-45), gives Hester her first experience of the attitude of oppression she receives from society, in which she must become accustomed to in order develop her new sense of moral and journey through life. As Hester faces these encounters of conflict with society, she conjures conflict within herself as she battles to