Loss Of Innocence In Scarlet Letter

In the Garden of Eden, where God first created man, Adam and Eve faced temptation and sin at the hands of Satan and forbidden fruit. Swallowing the fruit and their pride, Adam and Eve were forced to leave the Garden as punishment. Through their sin, Adam and Eve learned the difference between right and wrong. And through their repentance, God was able to forgive them. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter, he highlights the transgressions and penitence of his characters in a Puritan society. The story follows the trinity of Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth, who commit adultery, hypocrisy, and revenge respectively. Although each character displays varying degrees of grief regarding their actions, Hawthorne maintains …show more content…
Yet, Hester refuses to succumb to the negative stigma and uses her punishment as a new baptism. Void of care for the opinions of others, “The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers,—stern and wild ones,—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss,” (180). Not only does Hawthorne use personification to preach the dynamic impact of the scarlet letter on Hester, but he uses diction to convey the uncharted territory that Hester treads. By using words such as “passport”, “region”, and “wild” Hawthorne depicts the nature of Hester Prynne. As an independent woman who cares not for the conventional stylings of Puritan society, Hester uses the letter A emblazoned on her chest as a symbol of her identity as much as of her punishment. Even though her atonement may not be considered traditional, Hester derives her character in spite of her public persona. In this way, the reader can disregard her adulterer status in favor of one of charity and …show more content…
To go against the purity and innate innocence of man without repentance is an unforgivable crime in the eyes of the author. Hester and Dimmesdale, though they were punished for their crimes, sought forgiveness and moved past their transgressions. Chillingworth, however, remained consumed with vengeance until his bitter end. “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 space of time, undertake a devil’s office,” (153). Without a shred of remorse for torturing Dimmesdale psychologically, Chillingworth’s sin is far greater than that of Hester and Dimmesdale. Only through repentance does Hawthorne promote compassion. Only through repentance do the characters find peace. Only through repentance will God forgive