Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth all committed their own type of sins, which all altered their lives drastically for better or for worse. Hester’s commitment of adultery made her an outcast in the community, but eventually changing her into a wiser soul. The townspeople neglected Hester and Pearl, as the quote, “...the little Puritans..., had got a vague idea of something outlandish, unearthly, or at variance with ordinary fashions, in the mother and child, and therefore scorned them in their…
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From the moment Roger Chillingworth first appears in the novel, Nathaniel Hawthorne characterizes him as a villain. He appears as Hester stands on the scaffold, accepting her punishment for being unfaithful. As soon as Hawthorne introduces Chillingworth, he is meant to make the audience uncomfortable. He is deformed, ugly, and above all, vengeful. Chillingworth’s outer appearance physically represents the man he is on the inside. The most important aspects of Chillingworth’s development as a character…
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Symbolism, involving elements of dark and light have been widely used in literature, due to their contrasting nature. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne employs this symbolism to progress one of the novel’s central themes. Hawthorne develops this theme, acknowledgement of sin, using dark and light symbolism to claim that confessing sin is preferable to overlooking sin. Hawthorne quickly establishes dark as having committed sin, and light as being without sin. Hawthorne does this by comparing…
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sea. He asks what she is being punished for and a man tells him adultery. Hester’s husband decides to find the man and changes his name to Roger Chillingworth to help his plan. Hester returns to the prison to finish her sentence. However, both she and the child are very uneasy, and the jailer brings in Roger Chillingworth to treat them. Chillingworth asks the name of the child’s father, and after Hester refuses to admit it, he makes her promise him to never tell anyone that he is her husband. He…
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situations in the plot line, the novel becomes ambiguous and many questions cannot be answered objectively. This is the case with Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. The subjective narration presented on certain characters, notably Hester, Chillingworth, Dimmesdale, and Pearl, demonstrates dualities and contrasting realities within their moralities. The narrator thus is unable to provide the reader with a straightforward moral “good” or “bad” in these characters,…
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to the society’s ideals; this is shown through the interpretations of the multiple symbols such as Pearl who symbolized the light that brings the happiness to all the people involved, Chillingworth symbolized the dark that emphasized the light, Hester’s scarlet letter symbolizes individuality, and also Dimmesdale’s scarlet letter, that he wears on the interior, symbolizes conformity to the reader. The theme of identity versus society in The Scarlet Letter can be seen in Pearl because she is…
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obvious and subtle, it shows the danger of creating and maintaining illusions by forcing people to comply with the rules and laws in order to reach the society’s expectations. In the book The Scarlet Letter the main characters Hester, Dimmesdale and Chillingworth are full of hypocrisy in many different ways. One way the book shows hypocrisy is through the character Hester Prynne. Hester Prynne is committing hypocrisy by not revealing the true identity of the father of Pearl and her lover, Dimmesdale. She…
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appearance may not necessarily be physical, but the townspeople detect that there is evil, and possibly the Devil, being embodied into Chillingworth and his work. In brief, rather than Chillingworth literally having a fire from Hell dwell in his laboratory, this event serves to be symbolic for his apparent sinfulness. A third example of an astonishing event is Arthur Dimmesdale’s mark on his breast. The explanation offered for this phenomenon is “that the awful symbol was the effect of the ever active tooth…
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Allison Beranek Mrs. Moeller English 11 18 March 2016 Color and name symbolism In The Scarlet Letter, the author Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes many colors and names to symbolize moods. In The Scarlet Letter Hawthorne uses the color black to symbolize evil and sin. Hawthorne uses black to show the pain that Arthur Dimmesdale endured because of the sin that he had committed. Hawthorne also uses the color black to show a similarity between the black man and sin. The black man in the forest represents…
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“sweet moral blossom” in this passage. She was born into the situation she is in, and had no say in the matter. She is, unfortunately, the product of Hester and Dimmesdale’s sinful act. The torture and eventual death of Dimmesdale is the “tale of human frailty and sorrow.” Roger Chillingworth’s long-term goal is to make Dimmesdale’s life as miserable as possible without actually killing him. The result is a rapidly declining bill of health for Dimmesdale. Pearl is the result of Hester and her…
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