The Scarlet Letter, By Nathaniel Hawthorne Essay

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.

Thomas Hobbs and John Locke have two very opposing viewpoints on human nature. Locke believes that human nature is innately good; Hobbs thinks that human nature knows right from wrong, but is naturally evil and that no man is entirely “good”. Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of the classic novel The Scarlet Letter, believes that every man is innately good and Hawthorne shows that everyone has a natural good side by Hester’s complex character, Chillingworth’s actions and Dimmesdale’s selfless personality.

You’re free. Calmly sitting in a chair reading a book. One moment later, your tied up. Unable to move, unable to escape the ropes that tie you down. There is a tray of food in arms reach and you seem to be comfortably placed. You seek a way to get get out and run from whoever trapped you, yet part of you wants to stay. The pros and cons of the situation seem to be swirling around clouding your judgement. Equivalently, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays the same clouded judgement with Hester’s exile. Throughout the novel Hester’s exile has the reader to believe that she has experiences that both enlighten and alienate her as a character. Even though experience with exile may seem to lead us down only one path, the one of despair and solitude, Hester’s experience with exile taught her that solitude gives strength, proving a rift teaches us more about our character.

““There was witchcraft in little Pearl’s eyes, and her face, as she glanced upward at the minister, wore that naughty smile which made its expression frequently so elvish.” (Hawthorne 145) This, is a misleading description that Nathaniel Hawthorne depicts of Pearl, the daughter of Hester Prynne, in his classic novel The Scarlet Letter. Pearl is the living product of sin for her mother. Born out of wedlock, Pearl is a unique child that tends to be very moody and unpredictable. However, Pearl, at such a young age, demonstrates outstanding knowledge and exhibits curiosity to her mother’s scarlet letter, and the hypocrisy of Puritan society. Although Pearl portrays devilish characteristics and performs mischievous behaviour, she

Nathaniel Hawthorne was in his mid-twenties when he published Mrs. Hutchinson in 1830. He referenced this story and its main character in his famous novel The Scarlet Letter, which was published two decades later.

Why are human beings tempted to conceal their transgressions? Is it for the fear of punishment or the loss of one’s standing with the public? In the insightful novel The Scarlet Letter, a seventeenth-century Boston minister named Arthur Dimmesdale committed, in the eyes of the townsfolk, the most evil of sins: adultery. Unlike his partner in this offense, Hester Prynne, he did not accept responsibility for his crime; instead he veiled his infraction of the Puritan law from the populace of Boston. As a consequence of his attempt to hide the truth, Minister Dimmesdale felt the guilt course through him, and that inner feeling of remorse caused his health to decline, his speeches to feel hypocritical, and his belief in the Lord’s mercy to

“let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart.” (Hawthorne 92)

Throughout history, one reoccurring theme has been the harsh judgement of society against those who stand out. Although in certain periods and different societies, public shaming seems to have been more severe, it is, in all actuality, equally cruel today, yet in different forms. Despite this, keeping one 's sins a secret and away from societal judgement seems to have more of a negative affect on oneself, often causing poor mental and physical health, than confessing and facing consequences. In The Scarlet Letter, author, Nathaniel Hawthorne explores how one is affected, both physically and mentally, when his/her appearance doesn 't match his/her reality through the main characters of the novel, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale. In their 1600 's Puritan society, Hawthorne depicts the differences between Hester and Dimmesdale’s public versus private shaming for their committed sin of adultery, reflected through how both forms of ignominy affect their characters mental and physical health. Although Hester and Dimmesdale are the main characters that struggle with the difficulty of their appearance matching their reality, there are others that contribute to their conflicts. These characters are known as Pearl, Hester’s daughter who is being portrayed as “God’s messenger” to teach her to be her true self, and Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s long lost husband who torments Dimmesdale, also teaching him to be his true self by challenging him confess his sin throughout the novel. In

In The Scarlet Letter, author Nathaniel Hawthorne examines the moral consequences of sin, or an offense against religious or moral law, and poses the question to his readers; can individuals be redeemed for their sins? The two central characters in the novel, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, both commit the sin of adultery. However, each character deals with their wrongdoing in opposite ways. Initially it seems that Hester Prynne’s sin is worse than that of Reverend Dimmesdale due to her sin being visible to all of society. Even though Hester’s sin causes her alienation from society, she is able to find independence while living on her own that gives her strength. On the other hand, town reverend Arthur

In Isaiah 30:15 it says, “This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.” Hester would have none of it. Hester never repented for committing adultery with Dimmesdale, even after Dimmesdale repented for his sins. Therefore, she never had the salvation that was offered by the Lord. The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, who is well known for his other works such as, The House of Seven Gables and, Young Goodman Brown. He was also a Romantic and an Anti-Transcendentalist. The Scarlet Letter is about a woman named Hester Prynne, who is living in Boston during the 1640’s. She is publicly shamed in front

And now the story of a woman; a woman whose story is repeated so often - it ingrained on our collective imagination. She 's an archetype. She is Eve. She 's Juno. She the good woman gone bad. She is Hester Prynne.

Not everything in life has just one meaning. Symbolism occurs in everyday ordinary life. One of the most recognizable stories that contain symbolism in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter”. Symbolism is when an object is used in place of a different object. Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the most symbolic writers in all of American history. In “The Scarlet Letter”, the letter “A” is used to symbolize a variety of different concepts. The three major symbolistic ideas that the letter “A” represents in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” are; shame, guilt, and ability.

Nathaniel Hawthorne resisted the idea that humanity had divine potential and acknowledged the reality of evil. Hawthorne believed that every society needed to have a jail and grave yard, “ The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison” (2331). He thought that people are naturally evil and sin so a jail was needed to keep evil people and influence away from society. Hawthorne’s beliefs are seen in The Scarlet Letter. The reoccurring theme of “the power of blackness” and the uneven balance of transcendental and

struggles with her sin and subsequent isolation from Puritan society, while Walt Whitman’s Oh Captain! My Captain! chronicles a ship’s bittersweet journey towards a port without its captain. Both texts are products of the American Romantic era, which lasted from the 1830s to 1860s, and characterized a time period of particularly emotional and contemplative literature. Hawthorne and Whitman display a sense of nostalgia for the past by juxtaposing the structural rigidity of history with the dynamic fragility of the future, in order to highlight that with progressive change comes at the loss of strength and safety, which ultimately lessens the traction of forward thinking.

How should society react to sin? With The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne takes us back to our roots, back to Puritan New England, “a land where iniquity is searched out, and punished in the sight of rulers and people” (58), and through this skillfully crafted novel, gives us an answer. According to Hawthorne, it is in the best interest of society to openly punish sin, for eventually the transgressor is reaccepted into society, while those who have sinned and receive no absolution from society suffer terribly.