The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne Essay

Throughout, “The Scarlet Letter,” Hawthorne is able to enhance the plot by intricately incorporating symbols which represent a deeper meaning. One of which, is the infamous, and ambiguous, scarlet letter that lays upon the bosom of Hester Prynne. In the beginning of the book, the audience is immediately introduced to the scarlet letter as a symbol of shame and adultery. The narrator describes the Puritan society as very judgemental and harsh. Comments like, “This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die,” creates this negative and unwelcoming atmosphere which surrounds Hester for a majority of the book. From then on, the Puritans constantly refer to the

Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter in an era commonly referred to as “The Transcendentalist Movement” (“The Scarlet Letter”). “Transcendentalism a reaction against the rationalism of the previous century and the religious orthodoxy of Calvinist New England, it stressed the romantic tenets of mysticism, idealism, and individualism” (“The Scarlet Letter”). It sees God as an important part of a person and the world, God was not a “harsh distant figure” (“The Scarlet Letter”). Simultaneously, Puritan values and ideas also played a major role in shaping The Scarlet Letter. “The Puritans are all alike and, taking themselves for the standard, see all difference and variety as unnatural, bad” (Baym 53). That is, anything out of the norm, Puritans will instantaneously oppose it and disassociate themselves from it. “Because they are dedicated to forms, rules, laws, [and] structures, the Puritans have no tolerance for secrets: they take people as purely public beings, and they hate and fear anything

The Scarlet Letter tells the tale of a woman named Hester Prynne who has an illegitimate child, Pearl, with one of Boston’s well-known ministers, Arthur Dimmesdale. Set in Puritan New England in the 1700s, the environment encircles the Puritan beliefs as well as the Puritan government. Caught by the town when she starts to show, Hester is sentenced to prison time and public humiliation for her adultery. As she raises Pearl she encounters her eccentric behavior and wild actions in stride as she has difficulties establishing just punishments for her. Over the course of the novel, Pearl develops into a main character, daringly questions the townspeople, and leads Hester away from evil, which increases her significance in the novel.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a brilliant writer of the 19th century. Hawthorne created a novel that reflected the time period of the Puritans in New England. The Scarlet Letter contains a representation of the people during that time period but can also be related to the reader’s time period. Originally, God created the world with complete perfection until man fell, and sin entered the world. In the eyes of God, a sin is a sin. There is no worse sin that one can commit. Man is the one that decided that one sin could be more harshly judged than another. Hawthorne uses the theme of sin to show the importance of one’s faith and conviction and how those principles relate to fallen sinners.

In Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, the theme of sin viewed through the prism of many colors is the essence of the novel. The protagonist, Hester, her child, Pearl, and the Reverend Dimmesdale all live in a Puritanical society in Boston, and are subject to the Puritans' strict religious beliefs and rigid attitudes. Exposed to sin and the temptation of its concealment in varying degrees, these characters evolve through the novel in different ways. Hawthorne brilliantly displays these differences by juxtaposing extreme and vivid colors—concealment is shown in dark, drab, and gloomy shades, while openness has a bright and colorful sheen. In this way, Hawthorne establishes a dichotomy between lack of color and color in order to show

Everything in life comes with a cost, be it a cost that can be paid with money or a cost that cannot be remedied in the physical world. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne illustrates the high cost of identity and selfhood in society. Through the protagonist Hester Prynne, Hawthorne reveals the societal standards regarding chastity and sin that drive the high cost of identity and selfhood in society and their relation to the physical and metaphysical worlds. In addition, Hawthorne uses the townspeople of Boston, such as the old women in the town, high ranking officials, such as Governor Bellingham, Hester’s former husband, Roger Chillingworth, and her daughter, Pearl to further illustrate the high cost that Hester pays for her identity and selfhood.

The Scarlet Letter Introduction The Scarlet Letter is a classic tale of sin, punishment, and revenge. It was written in 1850 by the famous American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. It documents the lives of three tragic characters, each of whom suffer greatly because of his or her sins. Shot Plot The story begins with Hester Prynne, a resident of a small Puritan community, being led from the town jailhouse to a public scaffold where she must stand for three hours as punishment for adultery. She must also wear a scarlet A on her dress for the rest of her life as part of her punishment. As she is led to the scaffold, many of the women in the crowd complain that

The blinds on the windows are shut, it feels like a prison cell as I sit under the spotlight. The darkness outside makes me feel somber and alone. I stare at the glowing screen and think to myself, “It’s just me and this paper.” In December of my junior year in high school, I was assigned a persuasive essay on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter; it was my first academic essay of the year. My previous experiences with academic writing were both stressful and unfulfilling; when the essay topic was announced, I felt only resentment and anger, I remembered my past tribulations. With my mother’s help, this essay was different; after I submitted it to the teacher, I possessed a new perspective on academic writing. From my experience, I learned that strong writing skills are vital to communication, critical thinking, and life outside of the classroom.

Though never forced to don a branding like the letter “A” in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, people in modern society are always remembered along with their act of wrongdoing. However, the subjects of the public judgement may not see their choices as immoral. People shame for a difference in beliefs and morals. For instance, Kim Kardashian, a popular reality TV star attained her own personal fame by making a sex tape with rapper Ray J, and, consequently, was shamed in the headlines. Despite the bashing, Kim did not see why her act was deemed shameful. Kim acts as a modern day Hester Prynne because she underwent the same humiliation from her society.

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne was written in 1849. This novel won him much fame and a good reputation as a writer. In writing The Scarlet Letter, Hawethorne was creating a form of fiction he called the psychological romance. A psychological romance is a story that contains all of the conventional trappings of a typical romance, but deeply portrays humans in conflict with themselves. The Scarlet Letter won Hawthorne great critical acclaim, and even today the book remains on the best seller list. The Scarlet Letter is so popular maybe because generations of readers can interpret it and see subtle meanings that somewhat reflect their own lives. Each of us, has

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is biblical in notion that there is sin in everyone, but it is up to God to judge. The theme of The Scarlet Letter is that revenge gets you nowhere and guilt is not the way. A determined woman refuses to speak out, but the secret is told and it costs two men their lives. Adam and Eve are guilty of sin and God punished them so perhaps that is the way it should stay.

In a surface examination of the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne, it is quickly evident that no good things come from the wilderness. Therein, the wilderness is often associated with the savages and the devil. In his work The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne finds herself exiled by society for having an adulterous affair with the town reverend which brought forth the child known as Pearl. Pearl is quickly established as the child of the wilderness: wild, capricious, and thought by the town to be a demon-child. She represents several entities in the novel just by her being, but when her morality is delved into, much more of the nature of the story can be revealed. Pearl’s role is often overlooked as a formative force in the novel. Some scholars have gone as far as to denounce her as unnecessary to the story’s makeup. Upon close examination, it can be determined that Pearl is indeed a necessary element. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Pearl presents themes of morality, both personal and cultural, as well as the divide between society and nature, through her interactions with Hester, Reverend Dimmesdale, and the scarlet letter itself.

In the stories of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, the antagonist characters display parallel story lines through their searches for the enemy. Roger Chillingworth, the former husband of Hester Prynne and the antagonist of The Scarlet Letter, works against his wife in order to find her untold second lover. Frankenstein is a contrasting story in which an unnamed monster is the antagonist towards his human creator, Dr. Frankenstein. Yet despite quite different story lines, the two characters possess traits that exibit parallels between them. In the novel The Scarlet Letter, Roger Chillingworth displays the startling passionate characteristics of an unwavering drive to seek out his foe, madness as his focus on his search takes over his entire being, and terrible anguish when his task is unexpectedly over, all of which are reflected in the daemon created at the hand of Dr. Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley 's novel Frankenstein.

American literature begins with the Romantic era. In this era, authors begin to focus on other aspects of life besides politics. Romanticism values intuition over reason, believes imagination could discover truths the rational mind could not, and contemplates nature’s beauty as a path to spiritual and moral development. Dark romanticism is a subgenre that has a dark view of human life. The most famous Dark Romantic writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne, emphasizes human proneness to sin and self-destruction, uses symbols that are considered dark, and believes that evil can overtake good. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne employs elements of Romanticism and symbolism to communicate the idea that sin and guilt have psychological effects which can turn into physical and mental manifestations.

Hester Prynne, Pearl, the townspeople, and Nathaniel Hawthorne each have different views of the “Scarlet Letter” that change throughout the story. Hester begins to feel proud of her letter but then soon humbles herself when she wears it and ends up feeling the guilt of her sin towards the conclusion of the story. The letter for Hester begins to shape her life along with pearl for it is an everyday thing for her. Pearl, as a young child, is aware of her mother’s letter but doesn’t fully understand its meaning. Pearl later on begins to only see and recognize her mother with the letter on. The townspeople, in the beginning of the story, hate Hester and her letter believing her punishment should have been more harsh, but later on they find a new meaning for it. Nathaniel Hawthorne varies with his opinions and view of the letter just as each character does. Each view represents a different side to the story.