suffering. Nathaniel Hawthorne's renowned novel, The Scarlet Letter, is a story about a girl named Hester Prynne who makes the terrible sin of adultery with Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, who is Salem’s town minister. Once Hester becomes pregnant it becomes clear to the whole town what she has done. Typically, when a Puritan committed the sin of adultery they would be killed, but because some of the townspeople believe her husband is dead Hester is able to live. This novel shows how Dimmesdale and Hester
In this chapter in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne stands on the scaffold for the second time. Reverend Dimmesdale wonders to the scaffold in the middle of the night as a way to confess his guilt of adultery.Hawthorne depicts an ironic difference in this scaffold scene to the first scaffold scene. In the first scaffold scene, Hester holds Pearl in her arms as she is revealed to the community.She is asked to reveal the name of the man who she committed adultery with
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, a romantic work of historical fiction published in 1860, explores the costs of duplicity and disguised guilt among the lives of individuals who struggle to embrace their self-awareness within a stern society. Set in the mid-seventeenth century in Puritan Boston, Massachusetts, the protagonist Hester Prynne bears the scarlet letter upon her chest. The letter A serves as an unceasing public shaming for her adulterous actions with the highly regarded Reverend
the Forest Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850) is set in 17th century puritan Boston. Puritans are very strict when concerning religious matters and try to live a life absent of sin. They believe that anyone who stray from the normal puritan way, like not going church, of life is or in the process of becoming a minion of the devil. Throughout the novel the author perceives the forest as the home of sin and where witches and Native Americans meet with the black man. Hawthorne’s narrator
Reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, “The Scarlett Letter”, a very grave question pops up into the conscience of the readers: “What character in the story has committed the most sinful acts?”. One reader can propose that Hester Prynne was sinful for not only she committed adultery behind her husband’s back, but to yet entice a Christian Clergy. A few would argue that Roger Chillingworth would be hold responsible for planning to act on cold revenge against the adulterer. Despite that all two characters
One of the most well-known pieces of literature was Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story of adultery and betrayal in colonial America was published on March 16, 1850. The Scarlet Letter showed the terrible impact a single, passionate act had on the lives of three members of the community: the defiant Hester Prynne; the fiery, tortured Reverend Dimmesdale; and the obsessed, vengeful Chillingworth. This novel was constructed around a scaffold, which provided the story
rage or an endless depression, it stimulates a response. For Nathaniel Hawthorne a mid 19th century author, the emotions of guilt and shame triggered two actions. Primarily he cut the ties to his family by adding a “w” to his last name, due to the shame of being related to his great grandfather, John Hathorne, a judge at the Salem Witch Trials. These emotions arguably resulted in the creation of his best-known work, The Scarlet Letter, which vividly tells the story of a mother, Hester, and her struggle
to avoid disappointing the one that gave them life. All forms of sin, adultery and all crimes were viewed by the Puritan people as a direct violation of the covenant, and unforgivably against God’s will. It can be suggested that Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter as a cautionary tale of future guilt, grief and suffering to those who have contemplated the idea of sinning, and therefore violating God’s will. The bleak result of guilt and sin can be seen primarily within
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, tells the story of Hester Prynne’s love triangle. Living in a Puritan community cannot be easy, especially if you have committed one of the worst sins, adultery. Hester, and her child Pearl, publically deal with her sin. The Puritan community forces Hester to wear a scarlet “A” on her chest for all to see. While her lover, reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, keeps his part of the sin a secret. Hester is able to deal with her sin and overcome it, while Dimmesdale
Identity in a Moral Wilderness Nathaniel Hawthorne illustrates the idea of a moral wilderness and the consequences of sin in his novel The Scarlet Letter. Set in colonial Boston, Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale experience the solitude of a moral wilderness as a result of their sin. Through Hester and Reverend Dimmesdale, Hawthorne shows that triumph over pride and a remorseful heart are needed to escape the loss of identity and the impending moral wilderness that comes as a result of sin