Theme Of The Scarlet Letter And The Tell Tale Heart

Without an honorable reputation a person is not worthy of respect from others in their society. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, the struggle to shake off the past is an underlying theme throughout the novel. Characters in this novel go through their lives struggling with trying to cope with the guilt and shame associated with actions that lost them their honorable reputation. Particularly, Hawthorne shows the lasting effect that sin and guilt has on two of the main characters in the book: Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale.

Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter conveys the war between passion and responsibility, and how it concerns moral duty. Conflicts which Reverend Dimmesdale faces show readers how difficult it can be to come forward and reveal your sins. The circumstances which victimized Dimmesdale made it harder for him to accept responsibility publicly, which is the foundation of much of this novel. Hawthorne uses Dimmesdale’s character to convey the true struggle between passion and responsibility in The Scarlet Letter. While Dimmesdale yearned to face his sins, his passion overpowered him and took over the

In the short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe creates the guilty character of an unnamed narrator through indirect characterization. Using the components of actions, dialogue, and motivations, Poe depicts a story about immorality and reveals confidence can cause a person to lose their awareness of a situation.

In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author presents three symbols that all reinforce the main idea of the novel. The main idea that reoccurred throughout the novel is that people don’t have to let their mistakes or circumstances determine who they are or what they become; it’s all in how one interprets life. Many symbols may seem as just an ordinary character or coincidental object to some readers, but the symbols have a deeper, underlying meaning. Although there are many symbols in this book, there are three that really help support the main idea: Hester Prynne’s scarlet letter, the meteor, and Hester’s daughter Pearl.

“Reality is easy. Deception that's the hard the hard work” -Lauryn Hill. In the novel the Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses literary elements such as symbolism, irony and conflict to show deception and secrecy can lead to self-destruction. This relates to the Scarlet Letter because in the book the protagonist character commits an act of sin that was more than just frowned upon. Not only does the community gossip and turn their cheek to the sinner but a sickness comes along from keeping a secret from the community.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, as an admirer of psychology, uses a distinctive theme of moral ambiguity amongst his characters in the novel The Scarlet Letter. The characters, in particular Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth, are rather difficult to classify as either good or bad; they are simply human. Hawthorne’s moral ambiguity amongst these characters makes them more relatable to real human beings and serves as a clear portrayal of the complex human psyche. One can not be defined as simply bad or good; humans are much more complex than these two binary words which is why Hawthorne’s realization of moral ambiguity is quite profound.

One main theme present in the work "The Scarlet Lette" is that of sin and guilt. Nathaniel Hawthorne attempts to show how guilt can be a form of everlasting punishment. The book represents sin and guilt through symbolism and character development. In his novel, "The Scarlet Letter", Nathaniel Hawthorne explains how the punishment of guilt causes the most suffering among those affected.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, a well-know Dark Romantic, employs the issues prevalent in Dark Romanticism in his novel The Scarlet Letter. These include the concepts of: guilt and sin, good and evil, and madness in the human psyche. Guilt and sin are heavily addressed in the novel, focusing on Hester’s outward versus Dimmesdale’s hidden guilt, and the sins committed by the adulterous couple and the revenge-driven Roger Chillingworth. The idea of what good and evil are is questioned in the novel. For example, the reader is led to question if Hester was right in not revealing Dimmesdale, and in turn if both Dimmesdale and Chillingworth were

“A choir is made up of many voices, including yours and mine. If one by one all go silent then all that will be left are the soloists. Don’t let a loud few determine the nature of the sound. It makes for poor harmony and diminishes the song,” (Vera Nazarian). People let others control them and their actions which causes serious consequences and very few virtues. Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of The Scarlet Letter, wrote a novel about a woman, Hester Prynne who has committed the most dreadful of sins. When her story is revealed to the civilization, ignominy follows her and the ones closest to her. The Other Wes Moore, written by Wes Moore, it the chilling story of two men who were raised in comparable neighborhoods, but end up with

Every individual has signs of guilt with them, whether it is obviously plastered straight onto their body or secretly engraved within them. Typically, self-condemnation is due to what society or the person himself deems to be shameful, and that person often tries their best to beat the gnawing feeling of wrongdoing away to overcome it, or they resort to keep it hidden. In the subtle, yet dramatic scenes of “The Scarlet Letter,” written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in the early 19th century, reveals a character who is tugged from two opposing ends in his life; on one hand he held his unforgivable, adulterous past and the other his glowing reputation amongst society. Hawthorne distinctively expresses Arthur Dimmesdale’s hopeless struggle to uphold

Nathaniel Hawthorne's bold novel, The Scarlet Letter, revolves around sin and punishment.  The main characters of the novel sharply contrast each other in the way they react to the sin that has been committed

In the world today, themes and symbolisms have played a major role in the development and presentation of past and present novels. These themes and symbolisms within a novel shape the overall story and often work hand in hand to convey its purpose and meaning. One such novel would include The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne; in this story, along with all his others, he has incorporated his three predominant, driving themes: sin, hypocrisy, and corruption. In The Scarlet Letter,

The Scarlet Letter, a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a novel that takes place in the town of Boston, Massachusetts in 1642. Hester Prynne, the main character of the story, commits the sin of adultery. Because of this sin, she is "blessed" with a child named Pearl. Her punishment is to wear a scarlet letter “A" on her chest for the rest of her life, which affects the way the townspeople look and act around her. Also, she must stand on the scaffold in the town for three hours for the whole town to recognize her grave sins. The man who should be standing upon the scaffold along with her and Pearl is the town minister, Dimmesdale. He is presented as a weak character because of his fear of losing his beloved reputation as such a holy

In the stories of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, the antagonist characters display parallel story lines through their searches for the enemy. Roger Chillingworth, the former husband of Hester Prynne and the antagonist of The Scarlet Letter, works against his wife in order to find her untold second lover. Frankenstein is a contrasting story in which an unnamed monster is the antagonist towards his human creator, Dr. Frankenstein. Yet despite quite different story lines, the two characters possess traits that exibit parallels between them. In the novel The Scarlet Letter, Roger Chillingworth displays the startling passionate characteristics of an unwavering drive to seek out his foe, madness as his focus on his search takes over his entire being, and terrible anguish when his task is unexpectedly over, all of which are reflected in the daemon created at the hand of Dr. Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley 's novel Frankenstein.

The Scarlet Letter, a novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, depicts a woman ostracized from her town in Puritan New England after her sin of adultery is revealed, although the father of the illegitimate child remains unknown to the town. In The Tell-Tale Heart, a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator murders an elderly man in the middle of the night and attempts to cover up his crime. Hawthorne and Poe use the psychological torment and suffering of Arthur Dimmesdale and the narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart to convey that hiding one’s sinful actions from society leads to the strong emotions of pain and guilt, demonstrating that one can only end their misery, leading to freedom, by accepting and exposing their mistakes to society.