Character Analysis Hester Prynne is the character I have chosen to accomplish this character analysis. I chose to analyze Hester Prynne, because she plays a major role in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hester Prynne is a young rebellious lady who succumbed to temptation. This caused her many problems, because in her religion adultery is the worst sin you can perform. This caused her to be humiliated and punished in front of the whole town.
With the same purpose in mind, both Prynne and Proctor, endured their punishment with courage and strength. Hester Prynne was cut off from society, imprisoned, forced to live in shame, and deprived of fair judgment. But she bravely stood at the market among the society, her symbols of shame present out in the bright day light, one glowing upon her bosom, the other sleeping in her arms. For seven years she suffered the consequences of a sin committed by two, while the man she loved was adored and idolized by many. Hester’s actions were motivated by two elements, Freedom of her soul, and the right to raise her child.
The Mother is a static character who remains unchanged throughout the story. Olsen paints an image of herself as that of a strong and caring Mother with a lot of guilt. The conflict for the Mother is the remorse for neglecting her first born child even though the neglect could not be helped. Olsen states, “I will become engulfed with all I did or did not do, with what should have been and cannot be helped” (290). Emily is a minor character in the story and is the Mother’s first born child.
“… How I wish I might see him and his bride in utter ruin, house and all, for the wrongs they dare inflict on me who never did them harm!” (55) Medea resolves to avenge her self and make her husband Jason suffer more then she has in order to punish him. While Medea speaks to the Chorus of the role of women in their society and their great disadvantages she is seen as a heroine willing to avenge the wrongs done to women, which is a rarity during the given time period “Of all creatures that have life and reason we women are the most miserable of specimens! In the first place, at great expense we must buy a husband, taking a master to play the tyrant with our bodies…” (56) Medea is undoubtedly a feminist which emphasizes her strong and independent character. Her tendency to violence and ruthlessness however is evident at the start of the play when the nurse is prompted to predict that Medea may do harm to Jason’s new bride out of jealousy and harm her children because they remind her of Jason “I’ve already seen her glaring at them like a bull, as if she wanted to do something awful. I’m sure of one thing, that anger of hers won’t die down until someone’s felt the force of her thunderbolt.
Because she lived in such a God driven and puritan town, the judicial system of the settlement had decided for her to acknowledge her sin by embroidering a vibrant scarlet letter “A” onto her dress to symbolize adultery. She was often ostracized from the rest of the town since she was forced to wear the crimson “A” everywhere she went. As well as the letter to remind her of the wrong she had done, the affair had left her with a fatherless daughter named Pearl. Later in the novel we discover the father is the Reverend of the town, the admirable Arthur Dimmesdale. Through pain, remorse and agony the novel reveals that it is better to tell a harmless lie then to confess a hurtful truth.
The poet remains reader of how understandable Grendel's mother's response is. Another describes the loss of her son as that female horror, reminding us that the loss of a child is the worst thing imaginable for most mothers. She may not be a more terrible
Hester Prynne is the poster child of Puritan ideology gone wrong. Before she was condemned for a crime that in today’s society wouldn’t even be given a second thought, she was was probably a great girl. In fact she was an accomplished seamstress before she was branded with the Scarlet Letter (Hawthorne 86). What the Puritan society did to her was horrible and destroyed her as a person. She was forced to wear a public symbol of shame and was shunned to the outskirts of society.
Her “journals,” in other words her autobiographical narratives such as Killing Chickens, “Shunned” and “Without a map” all reveal specific different bitter portions of her life that she has faced and overcame and reassures readers like me, that we can too. Ha Hall writes about overcoming many daunting situations, the earliest hardship that she writes about encountering is getting pregnant at sixteen. In “Shunned” Hall shares her experience of receiving rejection from everywhere she turned including school, church and even family when she accidentally got pregnant. A reader can see how unfairly she was punished how nobody should be treated that way. Hall uses emotional appeal to show how much it hurt her for example.
The protagonist, Hester Prynne, decided to pursue a forbidden courtship, committing adultery and ultimately having a child out of wedlock with the once esteemed Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. The community leader requires Hester to wear the Scarlett Letter “A” to remind her of the sin she had committed. Pearl, Hester Prynne’s daughter, realized the turpitude that her mother committed. Again, while a parent is generally someone who a child admires and respects, Pearl learns immensely her mother’s flaws. In fact, it is Pearl who provides the harshest and most penetrating judgment of her mother.
Zachary Holland ENGL 2328 Dr. Wilson March 18, 2014 A Rose for Miss Emily This story really threw me for a loop. I really loved it and when I read the ending it was like holy crap did that just happen? Mrs. Grierson lives in her own little world of entrapment. She has been hurt so many times before by people talking bad about her behind her back and with her father leaving her so early by dying and leaving her with knowing basically nothing about life since he trapped her from the world that she feels the need to trap the last true love of her life Mr. Barron. So the true causes of evil are her father trapping her and keeping her away from people and men so long that she literally ends up crazy.