“Chillingworth was the worst he tried to get revenge and kill someone!” “Dimmesdale is the worst, he was a minister and committed adultery.” “Pearls the worst she was a disrespectful kid.” These all sound like bad people but seriously, we all know Hester has got to be the worse character of them all. Hester is the reason everything happened, without Hester none of the other characters would have had any conflicts. If Hester did not go to the woods with Dimmesdale, or if she would have told him…
In today’s society women have strongly been fighting for equality for quite some time. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne expresses his views about women 's issues that people can see today. Hawthorne reveals multiple issues that can be seen by the reader all throughout the novel. Carolyn Maibor expresses how she believes that Hawthorne is expressing women 's issues in her article A Woman’s Calling. Maibor’s article shows that Hester could be a leader in society…
Being the bystander is as dangerous as being the perpetrator. Nathaniel Hawthorne exemplifies this adage in his novel, The Scarlet Letter, through his brilliant characterization of the protagonist: Hester Prynne. Hawthorne follows Hester’s lamentable alienation from society through her affair with Arthur Dimmesdale. In her segregation, Hester is revealed as an affectionate, intelligent, and sympathetic figure that is forced to persevere and endlessly battle the constant, everyday struggles of…
Suffering happens because of an inability to comprehend the loss of something we can not happily live without. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Roger Chillingworth lost his love to another man. Chillingworth searches to validate meaning in life by torturing the man who is more capable of providing happiness to his wife than he. Chillingworth's suffering is evident in his body and soul which was formerly occupied with joy and love but is occupied now with loathing and revenge. The…
When the Puritans came to America in 1630, they established a government where religion was a critical factor. The Puritans’ way of life was very strict; they seeked to establish a community as pure as one might find in Heaven. Their efforts were so strict that any defiance would be met with strict repercussions. Hester Prynne, the main character in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, is a classic instance of somebody who dared to break the traditions of Puritan society. Hester does so by…
Brazilian author Paulo Coelho once wrote, "We can 't choose our lives, but we can decide what to do with the joys and griefs we are given." In the novel The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the current society excommunicates those who they deemed more sinful than others. At the time, one of the most scandalous sins was adultery. Hester Prynne was among those who were cast out of society due to their sinful deeds, her’s being of the “worse”. In result, her daughter Pearl was one of…
In the face of god and people Pearl’s life is the consequence of her mother’s sin, Pearl not only functions as a complex character, but she is also a symbol within the novel. She is the second reminder of Hester’s sin; the first is the scarlet letter. Throughout The Scarlet Letter, Pearl is a painful reminder of evilness that resulted from adultery. She is labeled as a wicked child and referred to as the Devil’s daughter. But, she does not only signify wickedness, for she represents something…
Extenuating circumstances are always evident when one is confronted with moral choices; however, individual ramifications are not the only scenario to consider. Hawthorne allowed for each person The Scarlet Letter to further explain their side of the sin and how they were afflicted by the outcomes of their mysterious secret in their daily lives. Hester and Dimmesdale generated an unthought out situation for their daughter, Pearl, that could have influenced her way of living for the rest of her…
Defined by its exploration of the darker themes within humanity, Nathaniel Hawthorne paints The Scarlet Letter as a tragic romance embodied by the immoral lovers Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, in the aftermath of their sin. Set in the middle of the seventeenth century during a time of religious fervor, Hawthorne’s novel unfolds in the colony of Massachusetts, characterized by its strict, traditional Puritan community at the time. In consequence for their actions, Hester and Dimmesdale…
In the book The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, a woman named Hester Prynne commits adultery and has an affair with the the priest of the Boston community named, Arthur Dimmesdale. Roger Chillingworth, seems unaware of his wife’s undoing, until he arrived back from being a captive of the Indians and sees what others can’t in the community. Knowing that his wife cheated on him and had a child, he decides find the man involved and take matters into his own hands. Secrets are kept…