The Importance Of Duality In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

In everyday life, people are often viewed as one sided. Constant emotion seen from the perspective of another person. Easily understandable, the quality of this emotion is distinguished as natural. These emotions can shape a person’s personality, but does a person really only have one personality? Some people are often dual sided with multiple personalities and interchanging emotions. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne is sentenced to wearing the scarlet letter as a punishment for her crime of adultery. While she is on the scaffold, an unknown man later identified as Roger Chillingworth is spotted by Hester on the outskirts of the crowd. Having recognized baby Pearl in the arms of Hester, he vows to seek out her lover …show more content…
After her term of captivity was brought to an end, Hester Prynne and her newly attached symbol caught the eye of others as she was walking away from the prison door, “thus having the young and pure be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast,—at her, the child of honorable parents,—at her, the mother of a babe, that would hereafter be a woman,—at her, who had once been innocent,—as the figure, the body, the reality of sin.”(73) Though once an innocent woman herself, the scarlet letter “A” now embodied onto Hester, now symbolizes her as a walking sign of sin, and shaming her that her ignominy would be the only plaque over her grave. In contrast, as the years gone by, “. the letter was now the symbol of her calling. Such helpfulness was found in her,—so much power to do, and power to sympathize” “ They said that it meant Able; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman’s strength.”(146) Hester is now a strong women in the eyes of the community. She is so helpful with lots of power to assist and condolence to, that the elders of the community refuse to view the scarlet letter A as its original intent betokening the letter “A” as dual …show more content…
If duality was represented through the characters in The Scarlet Letter, then it would be represented through the players kneeling during the national anthem. Some people say it’s okay for the players to peacefully protest while expressing their first amendment rights. On the other hand, some people say the players should be forced to stand as a sign of respect for our country. Ultimately, as Herman Melville once said, “there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.” Everything in the known world does not exist solely from one