Theme Of Individualism In The Scarlet Letter

The Puritans despised Hester and her symbol for her sin, and shunned her for many years even after her prison sentence. Hester could have just lived a depressed, lonely life in seclusion with her daughter Pearl, but she decided to accept her sin and wrong doing to become a mentally stronger woman. During the many years of Hester being in prison and being rejected when she was released, she practiced needlework to provide food for her and her daughter. As the people in Salem recognized her talent of her embroidery and garments, they began respecting her talent, and so the scarlet “A” that stood for “adulterer” slowly began to stand for “able.” Hester started to supply apparel for babies, ceremonies, inaugurations, and funerals. Furthermore, the Scarlet letter has another symbolic meaning. When Pearl went to the seashore, she made a green letter “A” out of seaweed – nature’s color. This was symbolic for Pearl’s sinless life so far because she hasn’t truly been introduced to sin; she still is “green” and “pure”. As for Hester, her scarlet “A” is symbolic of her many sins, for no one can avoid sin as they grow older.

"Those who before had 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 was enveloped" (39).  Hester, who is being openly condemned for her sins, Hawthorne describes ironically.  To the Puritans, Hester should be dim and obscure, surrounded by darkness and evil.  However, Hawthorne instead describes her shining beauty and the godliness she makes out of her sin and shame by exposing it to the public.  The Puritans condemn Hester for her sin and look towards her as evil, yet she is exposing her sin to the sunshine, to the public, something that Hawthorne praises in the novel.  "A blessing on the righteous Colony of the Massachusetts, where iniquity is dragged out into the sunshine!  Come along, Madame Hester, and show your scarlet letter in the market-place!" (40).  The Puritans feel that they are hurting Hester Prynne by exposing her sin, yet it is only making her stronger and making her grow.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter introduces adultery between Hester and Dimmesdale to oppose Puritanism, which believes in absolute goodness and wickedness. These two sinners’ mutual crime and yearning for redemption indicate dualism in humanity. The conflicted irony between their inner and public selves heightens the tension in the novel that dissolves with their unity. Hawthorne’s use of contrast in The Scarlet Letter reveals the duality of Dimmesdale and Hester’s identities to criticize Puritanism’s inflexible judgment and to promote tolerance within humanity, which resolves with the acceptance of one’s unchanging identity at the end.

Puritans come from a very conservative background and very hating towards sin. Hence comes the sinner, Hester Prynne, who is to wear the letter “A” upon her bosom. But then again, unlike the Puritans, Hester was not ashamed of the act of adultery she committed. In fact, she was proud that she had done something the Puritans were not accustomed to. In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne shows individuality, shows how her daughter’s support helps her ignore the Puritan’s, and evolves her personality with the letter.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne has an extremely complicated relationship with her community. Throughout the course of the novel, this relationship changes dramatically, going from one of contempt and isolation to a more healthy one, in which the town accepts and even venerates her. Hester’s relationship with the town parallels the symbolic change in meaning behind the scarlet letter. In the townspeople’s point of view, she and her letter transform from a physical representation of sin and shame to a symbol of charity and ableness.

In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the unnecessarily severe punishments for committing a sin in a pitiless Puritan society were shown through Hester’s public embarrassment, through Dimmesdale’s internal

Theology and Human Qualities Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter explores the elaborate theocracies of a seventeenth-century Puritan town in which the character Hester Prynne resides. Hawthorne suggests that human nature and its ability to make mistakes are caused by humanity’s innately imperfect nature. He shows the disbalance of power towards Puritan religious leaders as they control and shame those whose mistakes become visible. If one does not stay within the socially constructed borders, he or she becomes a threat to Puritan social order.

The downfall of an individuality can grow from the societal influences of the world’s compulsion to conform. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne and reverend Arthur Dimmesdale endeavor to assimilate to the expectations of a puritan society. Throughout the narrative, Prynne and Dimmesdale fight to make amends for their sin of adultery, as the town glares a spiteful eye at Prynne. Prynne makes a conscious decision to embrace her quarantine from the community’s shunning. However, Dimmesdale faces an internal battle of shame and guilt. Prynne and Dimmesdale suffer the fate of alienation however, Prynne accepts isolation, becoming steadfast, while Dimmesdale denies his sin, creating a lonely visceral conflict.

Having grown up with Puritan ancestry, Nathanial Hawthorne well understood their philosophies and shortcomings. In his book The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne makes a statement regarding the standards of Puritan society and the frailties of human nature. Puritan life was marked by living an undefiled life as defined by the Bible. As punishment for committing adultery, Hester Prynne is sentenced to wear the scarlet letter A upon her bosom for the extent of her life.

Instead of running away from it, she lives with it and accepts her punishment. In the 19th century novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne exposes the hypocrisy of societal constructs through the sacrifices of Hester Prynne. The town is obsessed with gossiping about other people. Constantly looking for angles to judge and even punish people for going against the Puritan lifestyle.

In chapter 2 of The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the Puritan society and their punishments to show how far they demand and their critical attitude towards sins and repentance. Through the use of archetypal imagery Hester Prynne is portrayed as a heroine.

Society portrays sin as vicious and decides a person’s identity. The Puritan society viewed sin as illegal and severely punished anyone who committed sin. They did not excuse anyone, no matter age, gender, or power in the community. In addition, the Puritans strongly believed that a person could not recover from committing a sin, However, it is possible to recover from sin with a strong sense of individuality. Nathaniel Hawthorne argues through the actions and dialogue of Hester and Pearl from The Scarlet Letter that anybody’s individuality, skill, and personality outweighs their sins.

In the beginning of the novel, Hester Prynne comes out as an adulterous on the scaffold with the scarlet letter on her chest which symbolizes “woman’s frailty and sinful passion” (Hawthorne 55). Hester commits an act of adultery, a death sentencing sin within puritan society for which she stands and proclaims her sin for all to see. She willingly bears her sin as a sign of strength. Hawthorne demonstrates how a woman can stand up for herself even when “under the heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes, all fastened upon her, and concentrated at her bosom” (Hawthorne 41). Hawthorne uses Hester as an example of the flaws within puritan society, Michael Pringle agrees with Hawthorne and says “Adulteress, the A isolates Hester, but … enables her to exploit a weakness in the punitive, politically imposed emblem her community uses to discipline her” (Pringle 33). Pringle, like Hawthorne sees how Puritan society promotes a hypocritical attitude towards the sinners. Each person doesn’t hesitate to persecute another while the persecutor commits the same sins. Hester longs for the love of a man since she believes she lost her husband to the sea which leads into her affair with Arthur Dimmesdale, the reverend of the colony. Puritans possess a deep faith in God so an act of sin stimulates great turmoil within the colony, especially when a man of God commits the sin. Hawthorne emphasizes on the Puritan way of life,

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter describes the fallout after a Puritan woman, Hester Prynne, has an affair with the town minister, Arthur Dimmesdale. Moreover, the story focuses on the relationships of the characters and how they individually handle the situation. From the outset of the novel, Hester is depicted as being naive, sinful, and rather pathetic. Over time, however, her narrative transforms to reveal her as a capable, intelligent, and respectable woman.

The theme of isolation is highly present in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter.” Isolation Plays a very important role in the novel. Every main character finds themselves isolated in one way or another, but while some are absolutely and thoroughly destroyed by it, others gain loads of power. Characters Hester Prynne, Chillingworth, and Arthur Dimmesdale are all victims of isolation in the Puritan town of Boston, due to a different reasons such as Adultery, upbringing, and their past.