Scarlet Letter Pride Quotes

Pearl, devil child or human? The Scarlet Letter, is a fictional novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, it takes place in Boston in the 1800’s. It is about a woman named Hester Prynne, who is an adulturist, a clothes designer, and a mother to Pearl. Hester committed the crime of being an adulturist with Arthur Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale doesn’t take the consequences of being Pearl’s father, he is a coward, and a sinner till the end where he finally confesses.

In the beginning, God created a beautiful and perfect world void of darkness and full of light. However, it did not take long for humans to wreck the goodness of the world they lived in. Their decision to sin brought a number of unfortunate consequences, one of which is shame. In his novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne presents the concept of shame as a prevalent idea at work in characters throughout the book. The story follows Hester Prynne’s life after committing adultery, as well as the difficulties she faces and the character of her young daughter, Pearl.

Holding on to sin can lead to isolation and alienation. Hester falls in love with another man and commits adultery.

"But she named the infant 'Pearl,' as being of great price- purchased with all she had- her mother's only pleasure" (Hawthorne 85). Pearl being one of the main characters and symbols in Hawthorne's, The Scarlet Letter, is one of the biggest character because of what she represents. Pearl represents many things in this novel. Although many believe that Pearl is more of just a character to be the realistic symbol of Hester's mistake, Pearl is the main idea in this story. Pearl is a character that represents the complicatedness of love, proudness and pride, and most of all adultery involving Hester and Dimmesdale.

People today can hardly imagine the stigma which once surrounded illegitimate children and the life that they once lived in times that were not as accepting as now. Puritan times were not a safe place for illegitimate. Most were outcasts their entire lives, shunned from society. Many were chastised because of mistakes made before they came. All suffered because of the horrible stigma which surrounded them.

Hester Prynne is constantly thinking negatively about herself, thinking that because she has a visible sign of her sin that she is worse than everyone else. In this passage Hester is beginning to realize that although she may be a sinner, she is no more of a sinner than other people that do not have a reminder on their chest. Hester appears to be more of an optimistic Romantic in this passage rather than a brooding Romantic because even though some of the word usage appears to be negative it is really Hester thinking more positively about herself and her sin.

Many people have contemplated revenge, but what happens to the few that proceed with their plan? Their lives and the lives of those around them change. This is exhibited in “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne when Roger Chillingworth takes revenge upon both Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale for their sins. Chillingworth’s revenge affects both of their laws. Hawthorne explores the idea that revenge changes many of the people who it touches, including the person who is trying to commit revenge, the victim, and the accomplice in different ways.

Reverend Dimmesdale was a renowned, prideful man stricken with sin and extreme guilt.  From the time Hester and Dimmesdale made love, he was grievous of his sin but he also felt a great love towards her.  Dimmesdale's stubborn pride troubled him greatly, and although he tried many times, he could not confess his sin to his religious followers.  Dimmesdale felt guilt so strongly that he scourged himself on his breast and patterned an “A” into his own flesh, yet he could not confess his sin until his grief grew so great it caused him to perish.  Reverend Dimmesdale's sin was greater than Hester's because he let his pride conflict with his repentance, and let his life be ruined by his anguish.

But Hester turns her back on these escape routes.  She stays in the settlement, shackled, as if by an iron chain of guilt, to the scene of her crime and punishment.  As Hester stands on the scaffold, thinking of her husband, he appears before her startled eyes at the edge of the crowd.  And his first gesture is indicative of the man.  Whatever shock or dismay he may feel at seeing his wife on the scaffold he immediately supresses his emotions and makes his face the image of calm.  The glance he bends on Hester is keen and penetrative.  Here is someone used to observing life rather than participating in it.  His is a "furrowed visage" (43).  Chillingworth looks like a man who has cultivated his mind at the "expense of another faculties - a perilous enterprise, in Hawthorne's view" (Loring 187).  Where his overbearing intellect will take him, Hawthorne wants us to think that he could be the catalyst for great conflicts later in the novel.  Chillingworth's finger raised to his lips, commanding Hester's silence, begins a pattern of secrecy that is the mainspring of the novel's plot; a secrecy that Hester must maintain in order to protect both her and her husband from the harshness of the Puritans.  Hawthorne's emphasis on the ability of Chillingworth to analyze the human mind and reasoning foreshadows his treatment of Dimmesdale later in the novel.

Danish author Hans Christian Andersen once said, “Just living is not enough... one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.” A person should be able to find beauty in nature to truly live their life. Nature gives symbols for how life happens. Every spring trees comeback to life and every winter trees “die”. Sunshine gives warmth and life to the plants. By being free to live however they please, plants are given the truth of how life truly is. People have to find nature and believe in the power of nature to explore life. Just as Hans Christian Andersen believes one should find nature, Nathaniel Hawthorne believes nature should be shown in The Scarlet Letter. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, nature uncovers the truth about

“On one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him." Chapter 1, pg. 46

Next, the interaction between Chillingworth and Hester further proves Hester’s strength. Chillingworth orders Hester to tell him the name of Pearl’s father. Hester refuses, “Ask me not! That thou shalt never know!” (Chapter 4). This is surprising now because during the puritan times, husbands had control over their spouses. Women were seen as disobedient if they didn’t follow their husband’s orders. The setting and Hester’s replies to Chilling worth shows Hester’s obvious strength and her

According to Merriam Webster’s dictionary, the definition of sin is an offense against the religious or moral law, an action that is or is felt to be highly reprehensible, and an often-serious shortcoming. In Matthew 19:18 God talks about how being an adulterer is a sin. In Galatians 5:20, God says that witchcraft is an act of the flesh. Many people have experienced sins in their lives; all are different so everyone deals with different sins. In Proverbs 16:18, it says that pride comes before a fall.

“The discipline of the family, in those days, was of a far more rigid kind than now.”(Hawthorne, Pearl was a child of adultery. She was born into a society where she was not welcome because of what her parents did to create her. Although, Pearl had no control over who her parents were she was still judged very much by society. Like the quote said the discipline of family much more intense so Pearl was a very big deal. This explains how even though Pearl didn’t do anything wrong she is being publicly shamed in front of the whole society and it is very hard for her to not feel like an outcast. Pearl often asks her mother, Hester Prynne, why she has to wear a scarlet letter on her chest and Hester is always embarrassed because of all the shame she’s been through. Public shame can also have effects on the people who are close with the victim. The quote about Roger Chillingworth “a man, elderly, travel-worn, who, just emerging from the perilous wilderness, beheld the woman, in whom he hoped to find embodied the warmth and cheerfulness of home, set up as a type of sin before the people." (Hawthorne, chapter 9), displays how when Chillingworth returns home and finds out how Hester has been publicly shamed. He is her husband and should feel sorry for her and want to help but after seeing what has happened to her all he wants is revenge. What should have been a warm and loving homecoming after being apart from

“She had wandered without rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness; as vast, as intricate and shadowy, as the untamed forest, amid the gloom of which they were now holding a colloquy that was to decide her fate” (Hawthorne 183). This quote from the novel, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is one of many in which he utilizes in-depth descriptions of the setting to describe the character’s mental state. Hester, Pearl, and Dimmesdale’s interaction in the forest is a pivotal scene in the novel due to surroundings that are reflective of the ongoing conflict. Hawthorne illumines the inner turmoil of each character through multiple literary devices, especially with the recurring paradox of light and dark. Hawthorne’s use of light and shadows in the forest scene illustrates the recurring tension between purity and sin.