The Scarlet Letter

By

Nathaniel Hawthorne

     In the novel "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne there is one central theme which is committing a sin is wrong, but committing a sin and not confessing about it is worse. Hester Prynne commits adultery and now has to deal with the consequences by wearing the letter A on her gown at all times. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale is the man that fathered Hester's daughter and he deals with this guilt by tormenting himself. The author uses setting, plot, character, and style to develop the theme about committing sins and how it can ruin your life if you don't confess.

     The setting helps develop the theme because it shows us how the places that Hester lived in effected her life. This story takes place in the seventeenth century in Boston Massachusetts. It starts off with Hester holding her baby and standing in the scaffold so she could be humiliated in front of the whole town. These are some of the consequences she has to face forcommitting adultery. Hester lives in the outskirts of the town with her daughter Pearl. Most of the story takes place in Boston. This is where she has committed her sin and where the minister Arthur Dimmsdale has to live with the guilt.

    The plot develops the theme because it shows how it has effected Hester's life and the people around her. The story is about Hester Prynne who lives in a Puritan society and is given a scarlet letter to wear as a symbol of her adultery. Hester has given up on her husband who has been lost for two years at sea. She committed adultery with Arthur Dimmsdale but swore not to give up his identity. The day she was humiliated on the scaffold with her baby, she saw her husband who now goes by the name Roger Chillingworth and has strangely showed up on the day of her humiliation. Dimmsdale was also there standing in silence as he sees Hester suffering for the sin that he helped commit. Chillingworth does his best to find out the person that fathered Pearl so he can get revenge. He eventually finds out it was Arthur Dimmsdale who tries to hide his sins but now is tormented by Chillingworth. Dimmsdale tries many times to confess but never seems to be able to do it. He torments himself physically and psychologically and suffers from heart problems and guilt. Hester and Pearl are living in a small cottage outside of the town. She helps out the poor a lot during the years after her humiliation. When Dimmsdale finds out that Chillingworth knows he fathered Pearl, Hester, Pearl, and Dimmsdale plan to run away together. At the end of the novel Arthur Dimmsdale can't take it anymore and decides to free himself from this guilt and at daytime he, Hester, and Pearl stand on the scaffold and in front of the crowd, Dimmsdale confesses his sin. When the minister says "Thy power is not what it was! With God's help, I shall escape thee now!", this tells me that Dimmsdale was ready to confess his sin and get rid of the guilt he had to live for many years. He also shows everyone the letter A on his chest. He then falls down and dies as a guilt free man. Chillingworth dies a year later and Hester and Pearl leave Boston. Hester comes back many years later by her self. Pearl is married and living with her husband. Hester never removes her scarlet letter because she has overcome it and doesn't see it as a sin anymore. When she dies, she and Dimmsdale are buried in the same tombstone that has the scarlet letter A on it.

     The characters help develop the theme by there actions. Hester Prynne is the main character of the story and she is the story's protagonist. She is young, beautiful, and a proud woman. She wears a scarlet letter A on her gown as a symbol of the sin she has committed which is adultery. She has decorated the letter with gold threads around it showing us that she is not going to let this incident bring her down. Hester does suffer emotionally and cries often in her cottage. Even though she suffers, this whole ordeal has made her a better and stronger person. She takes good care of Pearl and donates to charity. She is also loyal and trustworthy like when she promises the minister not to reveal his identity. Hester is a good person because she never argued about her punishment and never blamed Arthur Dimmsdale for not confessing. Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays Hester as a person with a kind heart that doesn't let her sin turn her into a bad person. Arthur Dimmsdale is the young puritan minister that the people dearly love but the more they love him, the more his guilt grows. He fears about what the Puritan society would think of him that is why his attempts to confess fails many times. His sin is slowly killing him by giving him health problems like a bad heart. He eventually confessed and I couldn't help but feel sorry for him. The other character is Roger Chillingworth who is the husband of Hester. He is a old man and very cruel. I think he is a coward because after being missing for two years he ironically shows up in time to see Hester humiliated. He is a revengeful person and did all he can to find out who was the other sinner. When he found out that it was the minister, he became his physician and kept tormenting him. He plays the villain of the story. The last main character is Pearl. She is the daughter of Hester and the constant reminder of the sins her parents had committed. Pearl is rebellious and happy most of the time. She is the example of romanticism in the story. She is wild, free, and loves nature since she is secluded from everyone but her mother. When Pearl says "the sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom...Will it not come of its own accord, when I am a woman grown?" This tells me that Pearl doesn't understand why her mother wears the scarlet letter. Pearl is also a symbol in this story. Even though she represents "sin", she is also the reason for why her mother lives because she cheers her up. She is always aware of her mother's letter and the society that produced it.

     The style of this novel helps develop the theme also. There is repetition of the word scarlet letter to show the importance of this to the story. It was meant to be a symbol of sin but becomes the identity of Hester. Pearl didn't even recognize her own mother when she toke the gown off. The tone of this story is straightforward. It's a little confusing because the narrator shifts from 200 years ago when he's talking about events and then comes back to the present time when he is talking to the readers. The diction was somewhat hard to understand because of the vocabulary. When the narrator says "they particularly criticize her for the ornateness of the embroidered badge on her chest--a letter "A" stitched in gold and scarlet." this is an example of figurative language that was used a lot in this novel.

    Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the readers how unconfused sin can destroy your life like it did to Arthur Dimmsdale. He also shows us how one can overcome sin and become a better person because of it like what happened to Hester. Hawthorne tells us that the adultery that Hester has committed is not the importance of this novel, but how she lives her life by her own standards.

Sources:

•  Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Reed Ticknor, March 1850

•  Nathaniel Hawthorne, Wikipedia.org, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Hawthorne