Helen Keller once proclaimed “Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.” Nathaniel Hawthorne develops this theme through the use of symbolism in his novel, The Scarlet Letter. The brook, which Pearl happens to innately draw to, plays a role in her comfort among nature. The rose-bush growing next to the prison door grants comfort to all who pass. The scaffold, which makes periodic appearances throughout the novel, allows…
Nathaniel Hawthorne 's The Scarlet Letter tells a story of guilt, shame, and hardship. Through the book, he writes of two main characters ' lives. A common theme throughout the very different individuals ' stories is; one should always be true to others as he would be to himself. The author illustrates the corrosion and corruption that occurs when you put up a mask to the public, while also displaying the counter, a freeing life of accepting who you are. Hawthorne contrasts the two outcomes by…
divine law”. The bible defines sin as an act through which a Christian can “lose his fellowship, joy, power, testimony, and reward, and incur the Father 's chastisement” (I Corinthians 3:11-17; Hebrews 12:5-11; I Corinthians 11:32-39). While Nathaniel Hawthorne defines it “as a state…[of]…alienation…[which] needs no fire and brimstone as consequence; it is in itself a hell”, (Buckner) through the plot of his 1850s, romantic fiction novel, The Scarlet Letter. In all practicality, sin is…
The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a classic work of American literature that speaks to social injustice and the guilt of the human conscience. Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, the protagonists of the novel, feel the weight of this guilt after they partake in the act of adultery. Each member of the estranged couple experience the ignominy of their sin in different ways. After giving birth to her illegitimate child, Hester Prynne is publicly condemned for her crime of passion by…
isolation is the conscious choice to stay aloof from society. The differences between the two concepts are revealed in Chapter Five of Nathaniel Hawthorne 's novel The Scarlet Letter, where Hawthorne portrays Hester Prynne as a strong and charitable woman after committing a sin and being publicly punished for it. By portraying Hester as fallen and strong, Hawthorne describes…
Setting The Scarlet Letter was a very eventful book. The Scarlet Letter was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Scarlet Letter takes place in the 1600’s. The Scarlet Letter is a story about a woman, Hester Prynne, who committed a sin which caused her to have a child. The child’s name was Pearl, she was the biggest influence on the book because she was a living representation of the scarlet letter. The book has many settings from the forest to the scaffold to the brook to Hester’s cottage plus…
The perceived righteousness or reprehensibility of adultery by an individual subsists where that individual chooses to comply or dissent from the ubiquity of society. The perception of morals proffered in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is “shadowed forth,” as is stated in the words of one of Hawthorne’s contemporaries. (“Review of ‘The Scarlet Letter”’) In the novel, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale battle the respective shame and guilt imposed by a judgmental Puritanical society…
because no one is perfect. Everyone has committed sins and when living in a strict Puritan society, such as the society presented in The Scarlet Letter, one wrongdoing can envelop and control the lives of numerous people. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the symbol of the Puritan society to shine light on the hypocrisy present in human nature. Hester is defined by the scarlet letter “A” that sits upon her bosom and is rejected from the strict Puritan society for many years due to…
Owning up to the truth is a difficult task that most people struggle to do. It is often easier for humans to hide their wrongdoings from their peers, rather than being truthful. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, both main characters, Dimmesdale and Hester commit an act that is regarded by their peers, the Puritans, as a sin. The Puritans were a Protestant religious group that sailed to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in order to practice their religion in peace. They had strict moral and…
cloud, were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped. It may be true that, to a sensitive observer, there was something exquisitely painful in it” (Hawthorne). In The Scarlet Letter, a main theme that can be taken from Hester Prynne’s situation is that of self-identity. Hester was meant to suffer under the eyes of the public. They branded her with that letter as a constant reminder of her sin,…