Scarlet Letter Thesis

What is The Scarlet Letter about? The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a novel about a woman named Hester Prynne who committed the sin of adultery and was sent to prison for it. She was required to wear an embroidered “A”, standing for adultery, on all of her clothes so people would know what she had done. When she had the baby, it was named Pearl. She was forced into standing on a scaffold with her baby as a public humiliation. While she being publicly humiliated, her husband, Roger Chillingworth, was in the crowd watching. He had been overseas with the Indians, studying herbs and plants to use as antibiotics, so nobody knew that he was Hester’s husband. When he had to go to the prison to aid Hester and her baby, he made her promise not to reveal his identity. Also, he promised that he would figure out the name of Pearl’s father. Throughout the novel, Hawthorne usually only includes Chillingworth in his times of vengeance, which teaches the readers a great deal about him. It teaches them that Chillingworth was a symbol of something evil. He was described as small, thin, and slightly …show more content…
In fact, some of the Puritans even view it as a special act of Providence that a man of Chillingworth's knowledge should have been "dropped," as it were, into their community just when their beloved young minister's health seemed to be failing. And, although Dimmesdale protests that he needs no medicine and is prepared to die if it is the will of God, he agrees to put his health in Chillingworth's hands. The two men begin spending much time together and, finally, at Chillingworth's suggestion, they move into the same house, where, although they have separate apartments, they can move back and forth