forbidden acts of drunkenness‚ blasphemy‚ and adultery. In The Scarlet Letter‚ the church enacts harsh sentences of incarceration and public shaming in order to discipline the presumed sinners. Even though these punishments seek to inflict harm and cause suffering to their victims‚ Hawthorne uses their cruelty to elicit the truth. Presenting a major symbol of Puritan punishment‚ Hawthorne employs the harshness of the scarlet letter to allow Hester to discover her own strength and beauty. Under
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of Public Humiliation The scaffold in the Scarlet Letter is symbolizes a place where the entire town can gather and important events occur. In the novel‚ anytime that the scaffolding is mentioned‚ the main characters are brought together by a matter of circumstance. The scaffold is used by the characters throughout the book to either project their emotions or have emotions projected upon themselves. Each time the focus is on Hester Prynne’s scarlet letter and the events surrounding her. The first
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Misogyny‚ Conformity‚ and Obsession: A Feminist Criticism of The Scarlet Letter “And do you not know that you are Eve? God’s sentence hangs still over all your sex and His punishment weighs down upon you‚ she who first violated the forbidden tree and broke the law of God… Woman‚ you are the gate to hell!” (Tarico). If even Quintus Tertullian‚ the “Founding Father of Latin Christianity” (Tarico)‚ vehemently preached and ingrained the concept of womankind’s inferiority in society‚ how could Puritan
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the observer. Colors are able to change how things look and also sometimes feel‚ which makes it good for a writer to use. Hawthorne makes many choices about the way color is viewed and compared to the physical and mental qualities of people in society. There is more than just a color behind everyone’s appearance including the main characters Hester and Pearl and the rest of society. All of these characters appear with or are symbolized by different colors and all of these colors intentionally convey
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The Scarlett Letter as a whole is more focused on the ambiguity of issues such as sin in this case. Upon taking a deep dive into the what is really behind the story‚ one would say that the focus here is on the effects of the sin rather than the sin itself. Despite all the ambiguity Hawthorne portrays throughout the novel‚ he is one to believe that one can only free themselves from the sin they might have committed through forgiveness and benevolence of a good heart. During a lifetime‚ forgiving
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The Scarlet Letter – Guilt We would love to live in a world where all of us are perfect but the reality is that we are not perfect. All of us make mistakes or do something wrong but some of us are never caught‚ then that few have a choice to make; either to turn themselves in or live their life as if it never happened. The emotion one has when one either commits an act not accepted by the society or when he fails to do something required or expected is called Guilt. This emotion can be seen quite
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December 7‚ 2012 Revenge: A Leech’s Worth Revenge can take a person’s life over. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter‚ Roger Chillingworth begins seeking revenge and becomes completely obsessed with getting what he wants. Roger Chillingworth seeks his revenge on Arthur Dimmesdale. Roger Chillingworth is taken over by revenge; ultimately resulting in the physical and mental decay of his body and soul. In the opening of the novel Roger Chillingworth deformities are not as noticeable‚ but
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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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Nathaniel Hawthorne chose such a controversial topic as adultery for The Scarlet Letter‚ his nineteenth century novel of "seventeenth century sexual repression and hypocrisy"‚ demonstrates a delicate yet changing climate with regard to infidelity. Historically‚ carrying on an adulterous affair back in such an era of Puritanism and traditional values was not taken lightly; in fact‚ by today’s standards‚ such horrific treatment for what is now considered an everyday occurrence was harsher than murders
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in the time period the novel was written. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne‚ Puritan hypocrisy is a theme that prominently seen throughout the novel through actions and beliefs of the Puritan community. One of the best examples of Puritan hypocrisy occurs in the very last line of the novel‚ the message engraved into Hester and Dimmesdale’s gravestone‚ “On a field‚ sable‚ the letter A‚ gules‚” (Hawthorne 203). On a black field‚ the letter “A” is boldly red. The irony is in the fact that
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