The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a confusing and interesting book. At times it can have its good moments where it drags you in, but there are other times when you do not understand what is happening because of the old English. Overall this book is a good read, if you read it until the end. This book can be looked at as having many themes: Revenge, Guilt, Forgiveness, Justice, Nature and Hypocrisy, but the two main themes that I will be writing about are Justice and Forgiveness. In this novel Forgiveness and Justice are main ideas that are needed to make the book the way it is. By that I mean both Forgiveness and Justice are needed to make the book as emotional and interesting as it is.
Forgiveness is the act of …show more content…
At the beginning of this book the people had no forgiveness whatsoever for Hester Prynne, one of the main characters in this novel, because she had committed a sin. The sin was adultery that is why she had the letter A on her chest. The first instance of forgiveness I see in this novel is in chapter 4 when Roger Chillingworth forgives and takes responsibility for Hester committing adultery. " It was my folly, and thy weakness. I- a man of thought, the bookworm of great libraries- a man already in decay, having given my best years to feed the hungry dream of knowledge- what had I to do with youth and beauty like thine own." ( Hawthorne 70). In this passage Roger is saying that he blames himself for Hester's cheating because all he was doing when he was with her was acquiring more knowledge and he never satisfied her. He is saying they he is an old man and he could not know what to do with Hester like a younger man would. Even though Roger Chillingworth forgives Hester, he does not forgive Author Dimmesdale, the father of pearl and other adulterer. Another instance of forgiveness that is seen in this novel is from the townspeople. At first they did not see Hester as …show more content…
For example an unjust thing that happened was just punishing one person for something two people did and also having pearl suffer for what her mother did. To the townspeople shaming Hester seemed like the right Justice for her sin. They would shame her for her life with the A on her chest. Ways of Justice back then and now are so different not only because we have become a more understanding people and religion is not as big in the community as it was back then. Religion could get someone killed back then, but now it would not get someone killed because we value lives much more than the olden day people did. Everyone sees Justice in a different way. Some people take Justice too far, for example to kill one person if they killed another person. Roger Chillingworth thinks that he was taking Justice into his own hands by torturing Dimmesdale. His view of Justice was making Dimmesdale pay for what he did. He wanted Dimmesdale to suffer a lot before he died. So far in this book people have been taking their own forms of judgement and justification to things. This is not what you want in a community because as o said before people see Justice in different ways. Justice to one person could be nothing to another, I think it also depends on how hurt or affected the person is by what happened. Later in the book the people think that Hester has been through enough torture and that she
Forgiveness is the act of …show more content…
At the beginning of this book the people had no forgiveness whatsoever for Hester Prynne, one of the main characters in this novel, because she had committed a sin. The sin was adultery that is why she had the letter A on her chest. The first instance of forgiveness I see in this novel is in chapter 4 when Roger Chillingworth forgives and takes responsibility for Hester committing adultery. " It was my folly, and thy weakness. I- a man of thought, the bookworm of great libraries- a man already in decay, having given my best years to feed the hungry dream of knowledge- what had I to do with youth and beauty like thine own." ( Hawthorne 70). In this passage Roger is saying that he blames himself for Hester's cheating because all he was doing when he was with her was acquiring more knowledge and he never satisfied her. He is saying they he is an old man and he could not know what to do with Hester like a younger man would. Even though Roger Chillingworth forgives Hester, he does not forgive Author Dimmesdale, the father of pearl and other adulterer. Another instance of forgiveness that is seen in this novel is from the townspeople. At first they did not see Hester as …show more content…
For example an unjust thing that happened was just punishing one person for something two people did and also having pearl suffer for what her mother did. To the townspeople shaming Hester seemed like the right Justice for her sin. They would shame her for her life with the A on her chest. Ways of Justice back then and now are so different not only because we have become a more understanding people and religion is not as big in the community as it was back then. Religion could get someone killed back then, but now it would not get someone killed because we value lives much more than the olden day people did. Everyone sees Justice in a different way. Some people take Justice too far, for example to kill one person if they killed another person. Roger Chillingworth thinks that he was taking Justice into his own hands by torturing Dimmesdale. His view of Justice was making Dimmesdale pay for what he did. He wanted Dimmesdale to suffer a lot before he died. So far in this book people have been taking their own forms of judgement and justification to things. This is not what you want in a community because as o said before people see Justice in different ways. Justice to one person could be nothing to another, I think it also depends on how hurt or affected the person is by what happened. Later in the book the people think that Hester has been through enough torture and that she