How Does Nathaniel Hawthorne Use Sympathy In The Scarlet Letter

Sympathy in The Scarlet Letter The Scarlet Letter is a novel composed of several underlying meanings and connections to the author, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne, born in the early 1800s, utilizes his families Puritan rich ancestry and his strong female role models, including his mother, to further enhance his writing. These personal connections of Hawthorne directly correlate to not only the meaning of the word sympathy, but also to who Hawthorne persuades the reader to feel sympathetic for. Hawthorne uses the term thirty-five times throughout The Scarlet Letter, and associates a vagueness and an ambivalence with the term. Frequently, it implies a deep, dual meaning, where both sympathy and antipathy are present, at other times it suggests …show more content…
The meaning of the term here is in the traditional context of a person carrying about someone else’s troubles. “The crowd is unable to sympathize with Hester because their moral disapproval of her is so strong” (Hunt). In this occasion Hawthorne uses the term in a paradoxical way, he generates sympathy by showing an unsympathetic crowd. The Puritan bystanders are not able to sympathize with Hester because they have a moral disapproval of the crime she had committed, and one of the necessary qualities of sympathy is approval. In other words, in order for one to feel sympathetic for someone, they must approve their actions. By describing the crowd in such a cruel and unsympathetic way, Hawthorne generates sympathy for Hester from the reader. Hester is shown as the isolated person facing an extensive number of devote Puritan follows, who view her as a disgrace to their …show more content…
While begging to keep her child, Hester appeals to Reverend Dimmesdale, “I will not lose the child! Speak for me! Thou knowest!—for thou has sympathies which these men lack!—thou knowest what is in my heart.” At this point Hester and the Reverend are the only two people who know the secret concerning their relationship; therefore, Hester makes use of this knowledge and indirectly, but in a kind way, warns Reverend Dimmesdale of what she could say. “Hester is playing the devil’s game with a vengeance” (Manierre 507). She knows the Reverend and seeks to touch his weak soul, but she does not have a choice. If Hester lets Pearl go, she will be unable to decline Mistress Hibbins’ invitation to the forest witch gathering. Hawthorne plays on the readers sympathies again by portraying Hester’s dire situation. This allows him to get away with Hester’s blackmail, which in another context would be frowned upon by the