Fall Of Man In Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter

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The Story of the Fall of Man in the Scarlet Letter For as long as can be remembered, toddlers are made familiar with biblical stories, and are made to believe there is a heaven and a hell. Famous novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne continues this tradition in his famous novel The Scarlet Letter, where he tells the story of a woman who has committed a heinous sin in her community and is forced to spend the rest of her life in complete isolation from society. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s famed novel The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne creates a parallel theme between the main characters create and the biblical story of the Fall of Man, alludes Puritan Boston to the Garden of Eden and uses Pearl symbolically to represent the consequence of sin. Hawthorne creates…show more content…
The serpent whom is actually Satan, basically derives pleasure from the suffering and downfall of others. In the story, Satan tells God he is going to earth and testing the obedience of Adam and Eve, he then goes to earth as a serpent and convinces Eve to eat the fruit and get Adam to eat the fruit as well. Hester’s husband Roger Chillingworth is portrayed as the serpent in this novel, because unlike Hester and Dimmesdale, Chillingworth feels no remorse for his sin and refuses to acknowledge his wrongs. Chillingworth is transformed by the evil of his sins. The more time he spends getting his revenge, the darker he gets until he is compared to the ‘Black Man’. He does not even notice how evil he has become, “What see you in my face… that you look at it so earnestly?” (Hawthorne 156). When Hester and Pearl are summoned to the governor’s hall and Hester begs Dimmesdale to defend her, Chillingworth notes how earnest Dimmesdale is in defending and bases his suspicions on this. Instead of confronting Dimmesdale on this newly found truth, he continues to taunt Dimmesdale with his knowledge of the preacher’s sin and question him about sinners and hell. When Hester goes to talk to Chillingworth about his revenge on Dimmesdale, she notices how evil he has become, “But what distinguished the physician’s ecstasy from Satan’s was the trait of wonder in it!” (Hawthorne 126). Chillingworth’s findings excite him and make him want to continue torturing Dimmesdale. Chillingworth’s evil also alters his physical appearance. His shoulders becomes twisted and deformed to mirror his soul. This transformation is similar to that of God’s punishment to the serpent for tempting Adam and Eve, “Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed… upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.” (KJV bible, Gen
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