Preview

The Protagonist In The Scarlet Letter

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
536 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Protagonist In The Scarlet Letter
The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Protagonist: The Protagonist in the Scarlet Letter is Hester Prynne. Hester Prynne is a tall elegant, beautiful women. She has dark abundant hair and according to Nathaniel Hawthorne deep dark eyes. Hester Prynne could leave people awestruck. She was such a nice, kind, and generous woman. She was also the greatest seamstress to most. Hester Prynne is the main focus of our story The Scarlet Letter. (65)
Antagonist: The antagonist in the story is Dr. Roger Chillingworth. Roger Chillingworth is a thin, small man, with a slightly deformed shoulder. He is older than hester and he has an old face with wrinkles. Chillingworth causes a conflict with Arthur Dimmesdale, who is also a protagonist in the story. He starts the conflict by seeking revenge terrorizing Dimmesdale and causing him to go crazy. (62)
…show more content…
The townspeople accused her of adultery after she gave birth to her daughter pearl. As her punishment she has to wear the Scarlet Letter A on the chest of her gown to shame her and let everyone else know of her crime. Prynne refuses to name the other who committed the crime with her. One day Hester's husband comes into town. While in town he decides to stay and goes by a new name of Dr. Roger Chillingworth. He is not angry with Hester when he finds out about her crime, since they didn't marry out of love. Chillingworth is angry about her unknown lover and is seeking revenge of the person who committed the crime of adultery with Hyster.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the Scarlet Letter Hester Prynne is the protagonist. She is a young woman condemned for adultery and required to wear a letter "A" on every piece of clothing she owns. She refuses to reveal the identity of Pearl's daughter.…

    • 141 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hester resist the request, explaining that she may have if she wasn’t allowed to keep Pearl, implying Pearl is steering her away from the devil. Roger Chillingworth is a cold and deceitful man. His actions border on psychopathic due to his lack of empathy and manipulation of other people. He is purely driven by revenge, lying to the whole town about his identity.…

    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Scarlet Letter is one of the first novels ever written to feature a strong female character as the lead role. Hester Prynne is punished for committing adultery against her ex husband Roger Dimmesdale. She is to be punished for seven, horrific, lonely years of her and her daughter, Pearl, lives. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne is punished in three different ways.…

    • 976 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter describes life through the eyes of 4 main characters, including a woman who was caught of committing adultery. Hester Prynn was the emotional martyr and symbol of the Scarlet Letter. Throughout the course of the story she undergoes change in her mentality state, the way her eyes perceive the World, and perhaps even the way she smiles. Her strength becomes the Scarlet Letter and her innocent Pear. She encounters much conflict (internal and external), throughout the story. Hester, once a prisoner of her sin, spent a long life held by its chains. This all transpired until forgiveness stepped in.…

    • 754 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the Scarlet Letter, it is remarkable how Hawthorne shows Hester Prynne's strength of character. Although Hawthorne does not give us much information about Hester's life prior to the novel, he does show her great character which is revealed through the number of trials and obstacles she faced, her public humiliation and isolated Puritan life. Hester seems to have changed the greatest in character and attitude, from a haughty and proud demeanor to having a warm and tender heart. Throughout the novel, Hester changes three different times, from being a shamed woman to a capable and able woman and then to a healer. Her honesty, strong willed spirit and compassion may have been in her character all along, but the scarlet letter really brought it to the attention or others.…

    • 1139 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hester Prynne is the novel’s individual who is the wearer of the scarlet letter. While in her youth, she resided in Amsterdam with her older husband Roger Chillingworth. Chillingworth sent the young and beautiful Hester to America before him, so he could finish his business. While Hester waited for her husband, she had a love affair with the Reverend Dimmesdale and conceived a child. Later, she gives birth to a girl, Pearl, and must endure the shame and scorn of the town. Punishment for her crime of adultery was the display of her scarlet A upon her bosom. Hester shows her courage and strength throughout the predicament.…

    • 1438 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Upon Roger Chillingworth’s arrival to Boston, he discovers his wife being publicly shamed for a crime. Though the name of the mysterious lover was not yet revealed, Chillingworth changes his identity to mask the details of his past and pursuit “a new purpose; dark, it is true” as he lusts for revenge (Hawthorne, 72). Chillingworth takes an interest in Reverend Dimmesdale and, using his European science and native science…

    • 489 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the scarlet letter, the main character, Hester Prynne, both excepts and rejects traditional gender roles for her culture. This is evident throughout the whole book as she rejects the typical stereotype of women of this day in time, while she also follows along with it as well. Also in this book it is obvious of another character who is less of what the typical man should be. Therefore making Hester Prynne a powerful symbol of strength for women by not completely conforming to the typical role that women often played during this point in time in the puritan society.…

    • 456 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Even Pearl realizes this, calling him “The Black Man” and notes how the devil “hath got hold of the minister already” (Hawthorne 122). It starts to become very obvious that Chillingworth has lost it when a seven year old can connect the dots. During Hester and Chillingworth’s conversation, Hester exclaims to the physician about how his hatred “has transformed a wise and just man to a fiend! Wilt thou yet purge it out of thee, and be once more human?” (Hawthorne 157). Now, Hester and Pearl both realize the enemy Roger Chillingworth has become. It is almost as if he wears his obsession and hate like a sleeve on his arm, for all to…

    • 986 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Throughout the story, Chillingworth’s thirst for revenge drives him mad, his personality progressively souring to the point of pure evil, making him the biggest sinner. From the moment he pleads with Hester for the father’s identity, the demise of his sanity begins. Because the scarlet letter gives her the ability to read souls, Hester immediately detects a negative energy as Chillingworth looks at her with “a gaze that made her heart shrink and shudder, because familiar, and yet so strange” (50). After the gaze, his outer appearance and frequent smirks begin to reflect his evil tendencies and how genuinely he enjoys causing pain. Merely three chapters later, Chillingworth’s vengeance on Dimmesdale starts to take a toll physically: “Old Roger Chillingworth, with a smile on his face, whispered something in the young clergyman’s ear. Hester Prynne looked at the man of skill and was started to perceive what a change had come over his features,…

    • 1611 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Prynne is released from the prison, “Hester Prynne’s term of confinement was now at an end. Her prison-door was thrown open, and she came forth into the sunshine, which, falling on all alike, seemed, to her sick and morbid heart, as if meant for no other purpose than to reveal the scarlet letter on her breast” (Hawthorne 72). Isolated from the entire town, all Prynne has left is her infant, Pearl; the living proof of her sin. Prynne chose to live this way in order for her to protect Dimmesdale, the man she loved. She almost decides to flee town because of the extremity of how she is treated, but her heart is blinded by love, which tells her she needs to stay…

    • 653 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Scarlet Letter Analysis

    • 373 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Hester Pryne is the main character of the Scarlett Letter, she’s the woman who has an affair with Dimmesdale and has a baby girl, Pearl. Dimmesdale is the pastor of the community and keeps the affair a secret, which would eventually cause him to have a heart attack, which in turn ends his life. Hester has been alienated from the community because of her affair. Hester is one that is usually rational to others, but she’s not going to be like that any longer, since it would mean she’d have to give up her daughter Pearl. Hester is the one person that respects the community. She goes out to take the poor folk some food and extra clothing. Hester is not an extraordinary woman of the community, but she can be intelligent and capable of handling different circumstances. Hester Pryne is one of the most important characters throughout the entire novel.…

    • 373 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    After being set up by his fellow comrades he is on a mission to clear his name and take down the bad guys. 1 year ago he started to notice some things were not right on a case he was working on. Coworkers within his agency were caught up in political and government scheme of mayhem. Conspiracies were happening all around him. The deeper he started to dig the things he found he couldn’t believe were going on. It is clear that it was all a set up and they exposed him as the culprit before the Lt. could expose them. On a mission to clear his name and expose his fellow coworkers for the true criminals that they are he must set out to prove that he is actually one of the good guys and the chief of police along with others are the true conspirators in this game of criminology and…

    • 889 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    For those who do not consider themselves basketball fans, the sport’s significance may seem irrelevant or of very little. While these people may not think to thank Dr. James Naismith for his invention of the game, we should all thank him for the major contributions he made and paths he paved for this country. Although basketball may be seen as just a sport played for fun and enjoyment, its invention’s impact on Americans was huge, positive, and everlasting.…

    • 1705 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Prosocial behaviour encompasses voluntary helping acts that the society values, with the intention of promoting harmonious relations and benefiting another as opposed to oneself (Vaughan & Hogg, 2005).…

    • 2888 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays