The Scarlet Letter Essay

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the imagery of light and darkness are portrayed through many characters that either open up to the new world or get consumed by its evil. In chapter XVIII, “A Flood of Sunshine,” Hester Prynne finds light when she takes off her letter, while Arthur Dimmesdale struggles to find this light like Hester and stays in the darkness. The comparison between these two characters shows the complexity, juxtaposition and sources of their internal strengths.…

The Scarlet Letter is a novel highlighting the sin of a young woman named Hester and the toll it takes on her and those around her. This sin – adultery – was born from passion, and from that passion was born a child named Pearl. Pearl is a living, physical entity of the sin. Hawthorne reveals the character Pearl’s nature in the Scarlet Letter through the text by shaping her personal qualities, her symbolic value, and her function in the plot. Immediately, Pearl becomes locked into a role. Her…

on what they considered the “right” way to live. In the historical fiction novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, he uses the development of the different colors red, black, and white to portray his ideas of good and evil in the puritan town. He uses the colors to symbolize specific elements of the book including the Scarlet Letter "A", Roger Chillingworth, and…

“The Scarlet Letter” was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850, the actual story takes places in the 1600’s in a Puritan society. Hawthorne was an anti-transcendentalist. An anti-transcendentalist means that humans are naturally evil , society keeps them in check and nature is evil. Hawthorne used symbols throughout the story to represent his ideas, symbols are a representation of qualities or ideas. In his novel “The Scarlet Letter”, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the symbolism of the wild rosebush,…

The mirror scenes throughout the “Scarlet letter” play a big role in how Hawthorne portrays Pearl. “In the first mirror scene (and throughout the novel) Pearl laughs at the whole Symbolic framework; in the second she bypasses the mirror stage to become her mother's other. The third mirror scene takes place again in "The margin of the brook" which here figures the margin of the book, for what escapes the "dark necessity" of the story is Pearl's reflexive play in and on the text.” By reading this…

there was a type of punishment in Puritan society where someone would have to wear a scarlet letter on their shirt. This was for the reason of public humiliation so people would be discouraged to do anything bad. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne the main character Hester Prynne is being punished for a crime she committed and the punishment was public humiliation so she was forced to wear a scarlet letter. She was being discriminated and left out of society. In this book Hawthorne…

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a story of a young woman’s struggle to remain true to herself despite society’s influence. After committing adultery with the Reverend Dimmesdale, this young woman, Hester Prynne, is branded with a scarlet letter A to signify her sin and humiliation. While at first, Hester refuses to give in the society’s influence, she conforms to Puritan standards by the end of the novel. From the start of the book to the end, a dramatic change in Hester’s attitude…

The Scarlet Letter The Scarlet Letter is about a woman named Hester Prynne who lived in a Boston Puritan settlement in the seventeenth century. Her husband sends her to America to Boston with the thought that he would follow her, but he never arrives. In the meantime Hester has an affair and gives birth to a daughter, but she never tells anyone who the father is. Hester is punished for adultery. She has to spend three hours on a scaffold, and she must wear a scarlet letter “A” on her breast for…

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is about Hester Prynne, who’s the protagonist. Overall, she has been branded with the letter A, which signifies adultery, for the wrong that she has done in her life. For the rest of her life, and till death, she is forced to wear forever her public shame. Now, in the society that we live in currently, people aren’t branded, but if I was branded with a letter that shows my flaw, what would it be? What letter would I have that would shame for the rest of…

Making scarifies is a hard thing for anyone to do. Even so there are many examples of character forfeiting something in the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. No one though sacrificed more than Hester Prynne. Hester deals with many trials and tribulations throughout the book; she sacrifices her freedom, continues to do charity work, and most of all she gives up her own happiness; and all of these things greatly reflects her character. When Hester is placed upon the platformed and…