Rhetorical Strategies In The Scarlet Letter

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Kumail Hasan The story of The Scarlet Letter is about a very abhorrent sin that was conducted by two members of the Puritan Society in Boston, Reverend Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne. Though those characters play a large role in the story, the characters of Hester Prynne and Roger Chillingworth have a history together from the past. The couple is married but yet contains two different personalities that are visible throughout the story. The scarlet letter, the sin, and a variety of factors lead the lives of both the characters and easily display the characters true faces. The author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, uses a variety of rhetorical strategies to display his attitude toward these two characters. The strategies tone, diction, pathos, syntax,…show more content…
But when Prynne was brought upon the scaffold, the author used the rhetorical strategies of tone and imagery to explain the character visually during that moment. The tone words used were, “…beautiful...black eyes…dignity….lady like.” The author also uses imagery in this certain part of the story to explain how she looked. “She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes.” But the diction used in this certain part of the story, showed that the author is explaining that despite knowing and having grief from this sin, she stood in confidence and brought upon an appearance that showed no such problem. “Her attire, which, indeed, she had wrought for the occasion, in prison, and had modelled much after her spirit, the recklessness of her mood, by its wild and picturesque peculiarity. “ The syntax of this part of the story shows that the author is trying to explain the character of Prynne and then compare it to what people believe she would look like. This is important because what it shows is that Prynne is not what the people seem to believe. The sin committed by Prynne, had an effect on her that was very different then the effect of the sin on Dimmesdale and Chillingworth. The effect of the sin on Prynne was very hurtful but the way she took the pain was by doing well in society again and by working and proving that the Scarlett Letter was nothing more than a letter. For a large majority of the story, the Scarlett Letter meant Adultery, but as time changed the letter a meant able. Hawthorne’s attitude toward Prynne can be understood by looking how Prynne was able to change her adversities into

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