Scarlet Letter Good Vs Evil

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Proverbs 5:22 proclaims that “The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare them; the chords of their sins hold them fast” (Old Testament). The Puritan Code was based on the Bible, and dictated unrealistic and destructive beliefs about sin. This led Puritans to hold an unforgiving set of morals that restricted their actions under the categories of only “good,” or only “evil.” Puritan minds were therefore convinced that the act of sin, and the sinner, exclusively fell under “evil.” Nathaniel Hawthorne creates a strong opposition to this ideology in The Scarlet Letter. He believed that sin should not be subjected to just good or evil, rather a combination of both. He toys with the Puritans unattainable standards, and provides a more realistic view of their “utopia.” In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s …show more content…
As a “law,” Puritan Society was obligated to view Pearl as “wicked” and a “devil child,” when in actuality she was the cultivation of beauty and light. As a result of Pearls birth, Hester Prynne, her mother, was branded with a Scarlet Letter “A” on her chest. The reader discovers that Pearl was the embodiment of the Scarlet “A,” because they had many of the same characteristics. The Puritans viewed the letter, and therefore Pearl, as a symbol of sin, dishonor, and malevolence. Contradicting this perspective, Hawthorne perceived the letter as being “artistically done… so fantastically embroidered and illuminated” (Hawthorne 51-52). The letter was to be viewed as a beautiful piece of art that shone bright towards the world. Pearl was much like the letter in this way: she had a “rich and luxuriant beauty; a beauty that shone with deep and vivid tints” (Hawthorne 97). She was meant to be perceived as magnificent and bright, but the Puritans viewed her instead as a “devil child,” likely sent from hell. Simply because of her birth, Pearl was cast aside from society as a stain

Scarlet Letter Good Vs Evil Quotes

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, published May 16, 1850, is about a Puritan society in the 1600’s. Puritans are against all forms of earthly pleasure, such as, sex, music, dancing, flowers, etc. Hawthorne is obsessed with puritanism because his uncle, John Hathorne, was a judge during the Salem Witch Trials, which took place in another puritan society. The Scarlet Letter is about a woman named Hester Prynne, who had a baby named Pearl after committing adultery against her husband Roger…

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Scarlet Letter Good Vs Evil

When the differences between the “good” protagonist and the “evil” antagonist are clear, the reader feels strong support for the good characters and a sense of disgust and disapproval towards the evil. However, when this distinction is vague and the narrator offers his own view of the 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…

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Sin is clearly a matter of great importance in the mid-17th century Puritan Community of The Scarlet Letter, as religious sin is associated with breaking the law. In this novel, we see a hierarchy of sins. Roger Chillingworth's Pursuit of revenge is deemed a "worse sin" than the passion that led Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale to commit adultery. No character in the book questions the idea that sin should be punished, and all recognize that sin will be punished, if not here on earth by man, than…

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