Perhaps the foremost purpose of The Scarlet Letter is to illustrate the difference between shaming someone in public and allowing him or her to suffer the consequences of an unjust act privately. According to the legal statutes at the time and the prevailing sentiment of keeping in accordance with a strict interpretation of the Bible‚ adultery was a capital sin that required the execution of both adulterer and adulteress--or at the very least‚ severe public corporal punishment. Indeed‚ even if the
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A Sign for Sin Throughout The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne‚ the effects of sin and guilt on the mind‚ body‚ and soul of Hester and Dimmesdale are revealed through imagery and symbolism. Hester and Dimmesdale are living in the tormented realm of social stigma inflicted by carrying around sin and guilt in different ways. For example‚ in The Scarlet Letter‚ Hester remains beautiful and composed on the outside throughout her punishment‚ while her body and poker face are not affected. Dimmesdale
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Hawthorne manages to create many metaphors within his novel The Scarlet Letter. The rose bush outside the prison door‚ the black man‚ and the scaffold are three metaphors. Perhaps the most important metaphor would be the scaffold‚ which plays a great role throughout the entire story. The three scaffold scenes which Hawthorne incorporated into The Scarlet Letter contain a great deal of significance and importance the plot. Each scene brings a different aspect of the main characters‚ the crowd or
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The novel titled The Scarlet Letter‚ written by Nathaniel Hawthorne‚ was a story full of tragic irony. Hester Prynne‚ throughout the story‚ makes a great effort to conceal secrets among others such as Arthur Dimmesdale‚ and Roger Chillingworth. This effort is filled with hypocrisy because of the way they live their lives day by day. Some being idled for great doing‚ others shunning people of sin‚ when yet each of them have all committed sin of their own. Therefore‚ irony amongst this novel‚ is great
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Arthur Dimmesdale was a very important character in The Scarlet Letter. He encountered many problems and resolved them throughout the novel. He changes a lot throughout the novel‚ physical and mentally. While reading the novel‚ the reader can relate to Dimmesdale by his actions and feelings. Minister Arthur Dimmesdale explains the moral of the story‚ and helps the reader understand what the novel is about. First‚ Dimmesdale encountered many problems throughout the story. These problems were very
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every sin they committed. For example‚ religious conflict takes place in literature such as “Sinner in the Hands of an Angry God” and The Scarlet Letter. Real historical figures include Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams. Religious conflict has shaped American society. In The Scarlet Letter Hester Prynne is publically shamed by being branded with the scarlet A for committing adultery for as long as she lives. However‚ many people think that she deserves a bigger consequence such as being sentenced
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Written in 1850’s‚The Scarlet Letter made Nathaniel Hawthorne even more acknowledged than he was and making other famous authors like James Henry place him on a higher pedestal than ever in stating in his Hawthorne about him that “He was a beautiful‚ natural ‚original genius and his life had been singularly exempt from worldly preoccupations and vulgar efforts .It had been as pure ‚as simple ‚as unsophisticated ‚ as his work .He had lived primarily in his domestic affections ‚which were of the
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In the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne a young lady by the name of Hester becomes the focus of the town after committing adultery. Throughout the novel the scaffold scene becomes repeated‚ making it clear to the reader that it is of great importance. Each scaffold scene foreshadows what will happen later in the novel. With the scaffold scenes‚ Nathaniel Hawthorne conveys the theme and helps the reader to have a better understanding of the novel. In chapter five-“The point which
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“The motherchild relationship...requires the most intense love on the mother’s side‚” according to Erich Fromm‚ a German psychologist. The love that Hester expresses toward her daughter Pearl in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter‚ and the lessons that she teaches her are what makes Hester a great mother. In return‚ Pearl improves Hester’s public image with her beauty and keeps Hester’s emotions and actions in check. The way these two characters subconsciously complement each other forms a
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The Outcome of the Choices Made “You can make bad choices and find yourself in a downward spiral or you can find something that gets you out of it.”-Ray LaMontagne The main characters in The Crucible‚ Easy A and The Scarlet Letter all had to deal with particular situations that got them into quite a bit of trouble along with other relating topics‚ such as public shaming‚ sin‚ secrecy and gender roles. The Crucible by Arthur Miller takes place in a Puritan New England town of Salem‚ Massachusetts
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