Analysis Of Nathaniel Hawthorne s The Scarlet Letter

Marin Fallon Mrs. Janosy English 2H 23 November 2015 Sin in the The Scarlet Letter The story of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is one with many twists and turns. A young woman moves to Boston, Massachusetts while her husband takes care of affairs in England. After two years pass she secretly has an affair with the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. When she becomes pregnant and gives birth to her daughter Pearl, the town punishes her for committing the act of adultery. She is sentenced to stand on the town scaffold for public embarrassment and to wear a letter â€Å"A† on her bosom for the rest of her life. As she stands there she sees her husband from England in the crowd, who later threatens to find the father of the child and seek his†¦show more content†¦He knew that he was going to commit a sin but he did not know what the repercussions would be. â€Å"In a word, Old Roger Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man’s faculty of transforming himself into a devil, if he will only, for a reasonable spac e of time, undertake a devil’s office.† (Pg 140). Chillingworth gets a great deal of pleasure from torturing Dimmesdale. The narrator of the novel goes as far as to say that he is transforming himself into a devil. He feels this is the only thing that makes him happy. Similar to the devil, inflicting pain on others is the only way he feels happy. â€Å"After Mr. Dimmesdale’s death, a remarkable change took place in the appearance and personality of the old man known as Roger Chillingworth. All his strength and energy, all his physical and intellectual force, seemed to leave him at once. He withered up, shriveled away, and almost vanished from human sight, like an uprooted weed that wilts in the sun. This sad man had made the pursuit of revenge the one mission in his life.† (citation) Chillingworth spent a majority of his life torturing and getting revenge on Dimmesdale. Once Dimmesdale was gone, the purpose of his life was gone. Chillingworth had been livi ng his life for this and as soon as it went away he deteriorated. The sin was the sole purpose of his life and it ultimately lead to his demise. Hester is the only character in the novel that has a Analysis Of Nathaniel Hawthorne s The Scarlet Letter Conformation Paragraphs Erika Bloes 11 / 19 / 15 Mr. Keating Block 6 Throughout, â€Å"The Scarlet Letter,† Hawthorne is able to enhance the plot by intricately incorporating symbols which represent a deeper meaning. One of which, is the infamous, and ambiguous, scarlet letter that lays upon the bosom of Hester Prynne. In the beginning of the book, the audience is immediately introduced to the scarlet letter as a symbol of shame and adultery. The narrator describes the Puritan society as very judgemental and harsh. Comments like, â€Å"This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die,† creates this negative and unwelcoming atmosphere which surrounds Hester for a majority of the book. From then on, the Puritans constantly refer to the†¦show more content†¦For example, on page 51 the narrator says, â€Å"But the point which drew all eyes, and, as it were, transfigured the wearer--so that both men and women who had been familiarly acquainted with Hester Prynne were now impressed as if they beheld her for the first time- -was that SCARLET LETTER, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.† By so carefully embroidering this letter, Hester reconstructs the meaning behind the letter from criticism and sin to individuality and dictates how she wants herself to appear towards society. The letter becomes apart of her identity and especially her strength. Even though Hester could ve easily given up on herself, she was able to push through the criticism and create an alternate ending for herself and her child and this is represented in the scarlet letter and its beauty. Furthermore, towards the end of the book, the scarlet letter becomes a representation of the overall struggle that Hester had to overcome throughout the book. The initial point of the scarlet letter was to remind Hester of the adulterous act she had committed. However, towards the end of th e book the letter â€Å"A† stood as a symbol of light. Even the puritan society reflected upon this symbol as relating to â€Å"able† and Analysis Of Nathaniel Hawthorne s The Scarlet Letter Botts 1 McKenzie Botts Mrs. Eron English 2330, Section 02 November 10, 2014 A Sin is a Sin Nathaniel Hawthorne was a brilliant writer of the 19th century. Hawthorne created a novel that reflected the time period of the Puritans in New England. The Scarlet Letter contains a representation of the people during that time period but can also be related to the reader’s time period. Originally, God created the world with complete perfection until man fell, and sin entered the world. In the eyes of God, a sin is a sin. There is no worse sin that one can commit. Man is the one that decided that one sin could be more harshly judged than another. Hawthorne uses the theme of sin to show the importance of one’s faith and conviction and how those principles relate to fallen sinners. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale committed adultery. The Puritans decided that God’s judgment was not enough for Hester, and therefore, she needed to be humiliated and isolated from everyone in that town. Christians are called to bring people to God not condemn. â€Å"Let God punish! Thou shalt forgive† (Hawthorne 557). The sin committed by Hester and Dimmesdale was a sin of passion. A sin of passion is a sin that is committed in the moment. Hawthorne develops his whole novel around the sin of these two people. With every sin committed, there are consequences that follow. Hawthorne uses this sin to show how consequences affect those directly involved and those that are not. It is trueShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Nathaniel Hawthorne s The Scarlet Letter Essay1234 Words   |  5 PagesNathaniel Hawthorne, in The Scarlet Letter, and Daniel Solove in his piece about â€Å"Shaming and the Digital Scarlet Letter† show that one who lives two lives with two dual personalities, purposefully or accidentally, can live the lie for only so long before he makes a mistake, becomes confused, and betrays his identity. The two lives that one leads most often have one persona used to conceal the other personality that society typically shuns, and he chooses to have these two personalities. He choosesRead MoreAnalysis Of Nathaniel Hawthorne s The Scarlet Letter 1452 Words   |  6 PagesJunhee Chung A.P English Language August 20, 2015 Novel Analysis Assignment The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Plot and Conflict The Crucible is a story that revolves around the Salem Witch Trials. The novel takes place in Salem Massachusetts in 1692. It starts off with the local pastor, Reverend Parris, catching a group of girls, one of them his daughter and one of them being his niece, practicing witchcraft in the woods. Abigail is the leader of the group of girls, and her motive forRead MoreAnalysis Of Nathaniel Hawthorne s The Scarlet Letter 1606 Words   |  7 PagesMarin Fallon Mrs. Janosy English 2H 23 November 2015 Sin in the The Scarlet Letter The story of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is one with many twists and turns. A young woman moves to Boston, Massachusetts while her husband takes care of affairs in England. After two years pass she secretly has an affair with the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. When she becomes pregnant and gives birth to her daughter Pearl, the town punishes her for committing the act of adultery. She is sentenced to standRead MoreAnalysis Of Nathaniel Hawthorne s The Scarlet Letter Essay1368 Words   |  6 PagesCharacters’ Name in The Scarlet Letter† (2015), suggests that Nathaniel Hawthorne uses symbolism to greatly enhance the importance of three of the main characters in his novel. Lei supports her suggestion by talking about the different ways in which each character’s name is symbolic, and how that directly correlates with their characteristics and their actions. Lei’s purpose is to elaborate on the depth of the main characters names in order to revea l to the reader how Hawthorne implicitly makes theRead MoreAnalysis Of Nathaniel Hawthorne s The Scarlet Letter 1503 Words   |  7 PagesMartinez Mrs. Lee English 3H, Period 2 9 December 2015 Judgement Day American author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, felt guilty about the intolerance of his Puritan ancestors, one of whom judged at the Salem witch trials. He utilized his passionate sentiments regarding Puritanism as an inspiration for his iconic literary work, The Scarlet Letter; in which he does not embrace but rather critiques Puritan ideology. Because Hawthorne has fathomed the Puritan community, he favors to provide a more in depth understandingRead MoreAnalysis Of Nathaniel Hawthorne s The Scarlet Letter1371 Words   |  6 Pagesmoney or a cost that cannot be remedied in the physical world. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne illustrates the high cost of identity and selfhood in society. Through the protagonist Hester Prynne, Hawthorne reveals the societal standards regarding chastity and sin that drive the high cost of identity and selfhood in society and their relation to the physical and metaphysical worlds. In addition, Hawthorne uses the townspeople of B oston, such as the old women in the town,Read MoreAnalysis Of Nathaniel Hawthorne s The Scarlet Letter 1128 Words   |  5 PagesNathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.He was born in Masasschusetts in 1804 , whose father was a sea captain.He was descedant as a Puritan family known for their attacks on Quakers , Indians and ‘’witches ‘’.Therefore when he was 20 years old , he added a ‘’w’’ to his original name â€Å"†Hathorne’’ as a distance to his family past . Hawthorne ‘s characterists were described as a shy ,solitary ,idle student at school , who prefered reading as a lifestyle.He was graduatedRead MoreAnalysis Of Nathaniel Hawthorne s The Scarlet Letter 1071 Words   |  5 PagesMrs. Jackson 16 December 2015 A Sinner Defined by The Scarlet Letter Society has not changed as far as labeling people and probably never will. In the Puritan society they branded, tortured, and defined human beings the way they saw them even though they did not know how the person they were humiliating truly was. Hester Prynne is a good example of this in the novel The Scarlet Letter written by the author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne is using the character Hester in this novel to show how societyRead MoreAnalysis Of Nathaniel Hawthorne s Scarlet Letter 1392 Words   |  6 PagesAP Short Form â€Å"Scarlett Letter† AP English Language and Composition Title: Scarlet Letter Author and Date of Publication: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Publication in 1850 Significance of the Title: This book was titled The Scarlet Letter because the plot of the novel is centered around the question of who, besides Hetser is the other adulteress. Main Characters: Hester Prynne - The character of Hester is labeled as an adulteress, and is condemned to wear the scarlet letter for the rest of her daysRead MoreAnalysis Of Nathaniel Hawthorne s The Scarlet Letter 1138 Words   |  5 PagesNathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter, asserts that we must try to change situations if one feels like they can have control to do so. One should attempt to change conditions in the attempt to make life more joyful for themselves and if possible their community as well. It is the responsibility of an individual to make the world a better place to live for the future generations. The concept of making the best of every situation while spreading positive ideas accentuates the responsibilities