The child is closely associated with the original sin and the symbol of it. The scarlet letter was, in fact, one of the first items that caught her eye. "One day, as her mother stooped over the cradle, the infant's eyes had been caught by the glimmering of the gold embroidery about the letter; and, putting up her little hand, she grasped at it, smiling, not doubtfully, but with a decided gleam that gave her face the look of a much older child" (95). Such duality of sin and its symbols foreshadows Hester's eventual empowerment as a result of her punishment and ostracism by the Puritan community. Her life with Pearl is indeed lonely and filled with the challenges of single parenthood, but Hester transcends her misery by employing her own mix of pride, humility, and dignity. As seven years pass and Pearl becomes a little girl instead of a clutching baby, the daily life of Hester alters, too. Although Hester, "with the scarlet letter on her breast glittering in its fantastic embroidery, had long been a familiar object to the townspeople" (156), the sting of her sin had been assuaged by the fact that "she never battled with the public, but submitted, uncomplainingly, to its worst usage; she made no claim upon it in requital for what she suffered; she did not weigh upon its sympathies" (156). The fact that she had not been...
She was also quick to help others in the time of material need or desperate illness. Her hands made clothing for the indigent and tended to her fellow man in the sick room where "there glimmered the embroidered letter, with comfort in its unearthly ray. Elsewhere the token of sin, it was the taper of the sick-chamber" (157). The very word for which the 'A' had originally stood, adultery, had even altered with the passage of time. Because Hester Prynne was so helpful, "many people refused to interpret the scarlet a by its original signification. They said that it meant Able, so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman's strength"(157).
Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter and the Minister's Black Veil Born in Salem, Massachusetts, Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1804-1864, is considered one of the great masters of American fiction, with tales and novels that reflect deep explorations of moral and spiritual conflicts (Hawthorne pp). He descended from a prominent Puritan family, and when he was fourteen years old, he and his widowed mother moved to a remote farm in Maine (Hawthorne pp). Hawthorne attended
Nathaniel Hawthorne The objective of this work is to examine Nathaniel Hawthorne's works and to conduct a comparison of the life of Hawthorne to his short stories and to examine how his life and his works paralleled one another. The life of Nathaniel Hawthorne many times was played out in his stories as his life events and experiences bled forth into his works demonstrating the struggles that the writer faced within himself
Nathaniel Hawthorne Life Imitates Were all the literary works of Nathaniel Hawthorne compiled into a single manuscript, then appropriately filtered to include only works of prose and fiction, and if an attempt were then made to uncover a single motif spanning through the vast majority of the remaining text, it would read something like the following. A protagonist is haunted by a vague, strangely preternatural feeling of foreboding and doom that eventually
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an Eighteenth Century American author who through his works explored the subject of human sin, punishment and guilt. In fact, themes of pride, guilt, sin, punishment and evil is evident in all of his works, and the wrongs committed by his ancestors played a particular dominant force in Hawthorne's literary career, such as his most famous piece, "The Scarlet Letter" (Nathaniel Pp). Hawthorne and other writers of
Lastly, Roger as the former and unknown husband of Hester has also shown depth in character by assuming the role of both a vengeful and still-caring husband for Hester. In addition to these personalities, Roger has also risen from anonymity to prominence as a physician in the town of Salem. Although Roger was consistently driven by revenge and ill feelings against the lover of Hester, he showed wisdom and righteousness
Hester refers to her label as a "passport" revealing that it is freeing for her, and Dimmesdale is able to preach and understand humanity better because of his relationship. True sin is not understood by the other preachers, but evil is found in the closeness of love and hate in the society. Another major theme in the Scarlet Letter is identity. Hester embraces her "A" identity and refuses to leave
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