The secrecy behind Dimmesdale and Hester’s tawdry affair emphasizes a sole, unique aspect within the three individuals that, when combined, create the crucial essences contained in each human being: the malicious facet, religious loyalty and guilt, and the need for redemption.…
Capital punishment was wide spread in Puritan Boston. Although the Bible was a moral guide, societies were swarmed with crimes and sins. The punishments included severe whipping, imprisonment, slitting nostrils, and public execution on scaffold(“Puritan”). In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, although the two main characters, Hester and Dimmesdale are guilty of the similar sins, they experience different punishments and outcomes.…
In the novel, “The Scarlet Letter,” Nathaniel Hawthorne depicts the scene of 17th century Puritan Boston. The novel was written in Salem and Concord Massachusetts during the late 1840s, but was not published until 1850. The narrator of the novel is an unknown Custom House surveyor that discovers the records and a manuscript written by a previous surveyor, detailing the events while working in and tidying up the attic one day. The fictional story depicts the life and struggles of Hester Prynne as she conceives a fierce and whimsical child, known as Pearl, after she has an affair with an unknown member of the community.…
Dark romance with a splash of mystery embodies the spirit of Nathaniel Hawthorne's enigma, The Scarlet Letter. Every mark of ink is purposely placed to provoke the reader to question every single emotion, motive, and action in the fictional Puritan New England society that Hester calls home in the mid-1600s. Hawthorne divulges the many layers of his multidimensional characters' unique identities and actions, but also leaves the reader's desire for clear character analysis unquenched. Combined with the characters' secrets and a hint of dramatic irony, he forces one to wonder who these characters really are. Hawthorne suggests that perceptions surrounding individuals, whether it is their views of themselves or others, are…
The puritan era was designed to be a utopia but when there are sinners being judged by there one mistake and leaders who are hypocrites the puritan era turned out to be anything but a perfect society. If sinners weren’t judged by hypocrites then the puritan era would have been more successful in creating a utopia. Hypocrites were hidden throughout the puritan era. In the novel The Scarlet Letter many of the great leaders were unknown hypocrites. The puritans may not have known it but their own governor was a hypocrite.…
There are many maladies in this world to which the fragile human body can fall victim. Be it from disease or from physical injury, the end result is the same if the ailment is left unattended for too long. However, what happens when this sickness emerges from the darkest corner of the human soul and begins to agonizingly consume the fibers of one’s being day by day? When the parasite is an insatiable guilt which causes sensations so tortuous and vile that they can drive a man to the brink of insanity, and perhaps even into the waiting claws of death? Such horrid feelings, especially when contained, possess an unfathomably immense danger with grave consequences. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter, Arthur Dimmesdale’s deteriorating…
In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne conveys a stark contrast between Puritan disciplinary institutions, such as the prison and scaffold, and the liberating quality of the wilderness. Through the looming prison-door, the scaffold’s merciless nature, and the forest’s unruly and mysterious spirit, the protagonist, Hester Prynne, recognizes that her New England roots suppress her identity while nature serves as a respite, providing forgiveness and acceptance that relieve Hester of her ignominy. Rather than escaping New England’s firm hand to seek a sake haven in the oasis of the wilderness, Hester realizes that the scarlet letter provides a harmonic relationship with nature, allowing her to create an internal gateway to freedom without having to depart from Boston.…
“ 1988, I lost my reputation and my dignity. I lost almost everything, and I almost lost my life.” Monica Lewinsky is a woman that was affected by public shaming. Public Shaming is a consequence that is served when a human makes a mistake. Often it is a crime that is legal and people still get persecuted. The three sources that support my claim is the scarlet letter, Monica Lewinsky, and Justine Sacco’s issue. These sources display negative effects of public shaming towards the people is unjust. Public shaming causes cruel punishments, depression and it should be left in the past.…
Physically, his sin caused him to look like “an emaciated figure, his thin cheek, his white, heavy, pain-wrinkled brow” (149); he had become so physically pathetic from the guilt which tore at him internally. Dimmesdale’s method of repentance was much worse than Hester’s, both emotionally and physically. Emotionally, Dimmesdale was deeply torn over his moral responsibilities to himself and his responsibility to the community, ultimately refusing to confront his sin and redeem himself. Instead, he attempts to justify and convince himself that he is refusing to “display [himself] black and filthy in the view of men...because, thenceforward...no evil of the past be redeemed by better service” (91). Dimmesdale refuses to expose his secret in fear of losing the his role and respect in the Puritan community. He laments the relief that he has seen in “sinful brethren...who at last draw free air, after long stifling with his own polluted breath” (90), as he is both physically and emotionally pained by the stifling of his guilt. However, contradicting his own morals--based in the Puritan religion--and those that vest right action and right thought in Hester, Dimmesdale continues to suppress his guilt in an attempt to maintain his prestigious standing within the…
The Shame “Shame is nothing more than denial of the truth.” – M. Funkhouser. Everyone agrees that…
The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter share many themes that are still present in today’s society, such as the use of public humiliation as a punishment. Because of their sins, both John Proctor and Hester Prynn were alienated and punished by their peers and town leaders. The public humiliation that they faced helped shape the characters in the eyes of the reader and effected the way that they behaved and acted.…
In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne suffers hardships in result of committing adultery. The townspeople punish Hester by having her wear a visible symbol of her sin: the letter A on all her garments (for adultery). In addition, she is made to stand on a platform for hours throughout a day, for the purpose of self-humiliation. Hester's sin impacts not only her own life, but also the life of the townspeople and her daughter Pearl. In this novel, hypocrisy reveals how people deal with guilt and sin. At first the townspeople seem to be the ones imagined as hypocrites. However, hypocrisy is also evident within Hester Prynne, Roger Chillingworth, and Arthur Dimmesdale because they all say some things but do not hold true to their belief.…
“Guilt is through the spirit and Pain is the body.” Everyone is sinful or guilty in a way, whether it is lying or doing adultery. It is mistakes that are caused by people. Because you will have to be guilty first in order to suffer the pain that was caused by their sin. Mr. Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne had to suffer his own sin and can’t find a way to confess to the society, no one understands what is he going through. Hester has to suffer from her own sin with everyone be disgusted by her, wish to not have any relationship with her. This is the same with John Proctor in The Crucible by Arthur Miller. He had to suffer a sin of his own, due to the affair between him and Abigail Williams. Therefore he has to face…
The truth may not always be beautiful, but it is a part of a person’s identity. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, illustrates how denying the truth affects one’s mental and physical wellness. It is better to be true to one’s identity rather than put up a false identity to please society. Hester and Dimmesdale both bare a scarlet letter “A”. Yet, Hester’s is a symbol of beauty in truth and the Dimmesdale's a symbol for the ugliness of one's character when one is untrue and ashamed.…
In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne uses the lives of Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth to emphasize themes of hypocrisy and sin within the Puritan society by stressing the relevance of forgiveness, the negative outcome of abandoning righteousness, and the austere need for compassion in the Bostonian community .…