Enlightenment and Ignorance: The Light, and Dark in our lives Light and dark are very vivid symbols in The Scarlet Letter. Light and dark shows the asymmetry in characters personalities, it shows depletion of intelligence in the people, lastly light epitomizes knowledge, and darkness is the ignorance that controls peoples’ actions: specifically the townspeople’s actions. Towards the beginning of the book Roger Chillingworth’s character is still undefined. He is very mysterious and has a shadow-like personality that no one can really read. He is known to be an educated man who had studied in school and learned the art of medicine. This is what the townspeople perceived by him as he walked through the village. Over time, however, Roger is
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He says, “But, as matters stand with my soul, whatever of good capacity there originally was in me, all of God’s gifts that were the choicest have become the ministers of spiritual torment.”(Hawthorne 147). Arthur is a man of illustriousness, and exemplifies an unworldly human in the peoples’ eyes. In other words, Dimmesdale is a saint among the people, and a transgressor by himself. In time, we see that Dimmesdale is undisturbed by his sin that he has perpetrated. He goes on with life, and doesn’t take into account the guilt that he would be carrying with him. Moreover, he exemplifies a man who does not take into account the seriousness of the situation; causing, a woman to go through an unyielding trial by herself for seven years before she is finally identified as not an equal, but a member of society. Arthur chooses ignorance, he chooses to not recognize the situation as something serious because he is afraid of what it would say about his morale. Dimmesdale has chosen to leave his actions in the dark to make himself feel more tranquil with the seriousness of his actions. With this in mind, the author Nathaniel Hawthorne used light and dark as a symbol to illuminate the characters actions and what drives the meaning behind light and dark. Two men who were both complete opposites, willing to change who they were and recognize the severity of their …show more content…
Knowledge, and truth is what set the peoples’ minds free in order for them to all have their own unbiased judgement. Hawthorne meant to use this, because from the reader’s point of view you were clearly in the light because you the history of what was going on. It is easy to understand what is going on from the reader’s point of view, but the people have to learn how to accept the facts that they were in the dark the whole time. Ignorance, led them to believe that a woman had committed a serious sin on her own, a new man with treasured knowledge was a wise man, and a man based on his spiritual standing was a
He says, “But, as matters stand with my soul, whatever of good capacity there originally was in me, all of God’s gifts that were the choicest have become the ministers of spiritual torment.”(Hawthorne 147). Arthur is a man of illustriousness, and exemplifies an unworldly human in the peoples’ eyes. In other words, Dimmesdale is a saint among the people, and a transgressor by himself. In time, we see that Dimmesdale is undisturbed by his sin that he has perpetrated. He goes on with life, and doesn’t take into account the guilt that he would be carrying with him. Moreover, he exemplifies a man who does not take into account the seriousness of the situation; causing, a woman to go through an unyielding trial by herself for seven years before she is finally identified as not an equal, but a member of society. Arthur chooses ignorance, he chooses to not recognize the situation as something serious because he is afraid of what it would say about his morale. Dimmesdale has chosen to leave his actions in the dark to make himself feel more tranquil with the seriousness of his actions. With this in mind, the author Nathaniel Hawthorne used light and dark as a symbol to illuminate the characters actions and what drives the meaning behind light and dark. Two men who were both complete opposites, willing to change who they were and recognize the severity of their …show more content…
Knowledge, and truth is what set the peoples’ minds free in order for them to all have their own unbiased judgement. Hawthorne meant to use this, because from the reader’s point of view you were clearly in the light because you the history of what was going on. It is easy to understand what is going on from the reader’s point of view, but the people have to learn how to accept the facts that they were in the dark the whole time. Ignorance, led them to believe that a woman had committed a serious sin on her own, a new man with treasured knowledge was a wise man, and a man based on his spiritual standing was a