Before Dimmesdale kills himself, he admits his sin to the whole town. Also, Dimmesdale receives treatment from Hester’s husband, Chillingworth, who knows their secret, and is trying to get revenge on them both. Chillingworth ends up realizing that he is going insane with trying to get revenge and believes that he has sinned more than both of them. The novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne uses satire to poke fun of the Puritan attitude toward sinning and the punishments of sinning. The reader learns from the text that the Puritan religion looked down on the idea of sin and punishes sinners harshly.
The scarlet letter is one of the main symbols Hawthorne uses in the novel. The scarlet letter is an A, which stands for “adultery.” Hester wears this letter on her breast as a reminder of her sin. The letter is mentioned numerous times throughout the novel because it is a constant reminder to all the characters of what Hester had done. Hester feels guilty while she wears the scarlet letter because she knows she committed an immoral sin, and the townspeople scorn her for it. Reverend Dimmesdale also wears in A on his chest, since he too was a part of this sin.
In Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, he focuses on the conflicting views of society and nature in the Puritan society and uses contrast, symbolism, and imagery to convey his beliefs. From the beginning of the novel, color was used symbolically, representing everything from life to death; punishment to freedom. The color red was used throughout the novel, most notably as the scarlet letter. A letter “A” was forced upon Hester’s chest by the Puritan society as punishment for her sin of adultery in the beginning of the novel, with gold lining surrounding a vibrant, red cloth. It felt to Hester as though the red cloth emanated a “burning heat; and as if the letter were not of red cloth, but red-hot iron” (30).
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a gothic romance of two prohibited lovers who face the consequences of their shared adultery. In the last chapter which serves as an epilogue; informs the reader of the events following Dimmesdale’s death and reports on the fates of the major characters. Hawthorn uses a series of Rhetorical Devices – such as Irony, symbolism, and imagery- to explain that the admission of sin leads to redemption and forgiveness. Irony is a major role in this last chapter; it helps the reader understand the point Hawthorne is trying to deliver. He uses Chillingworth actions as an irony act, as an example, that even the evilest person can still reach redemption and forgiveness; as long as they accept their sin and the consequences.
“Wherefore not; since all the powers of nature call so earnestly for the confession of sin, that these black weeds have sprung up out of a buried heart, to make manifest an unspoken crime?” This quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter, represents the truth upheld by a person, and how it carries with them through eternity. Hawthorne captures the truth of reality and sin in The Scarlet Letter. By using many literary devices, he reveals the truth of the Scarlet Letter and the characters in his novel. Being a novel during the romantic period, Hawthorne makes many symbolic and archetypical references to the power of nature, and the supernatural. Hawthorne uses these archetypes and symbols in addition to light motifs to demonstrate
The Scarlet Letter In a time where evil was believed to lurk amongst the puritan colonies, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Author of “The Scarlet Letter” discusses religious mind sets and prosecutions of the convicted sinners. The depth and complexities discussed in this historical fiction fulfills William Faulkner’s definition of a writer’s purpose. The writer has a responsibility which through Hester he shows the intensity of her experiences that she endeavored. William Faulkner delivered a classic speech upon receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature. Faulkner’s perspective on a writer’s responsibility should portray “love and honor and pity and pride and sacrifice”.
He, in fact, faced a constant inward struggle with his immense guilt of having sinned with Hester. Hawthorne uses Dimmesdale to represent the conflict love versus hate in that Dimmesdale does both. He has a great deal of love for Hester and Pearl, and even the people he preaches to. However, due to his overactive conscience and his desperate struggle for salvation in the afterlife "above all things else, he loathed his miserable self," for committing what the Puritan community believed to be a terrible sin (Hawthorne 141). Throughout the novel, Dimmesdale self- inflicts suffering in the form of extreme fasting and whipping on his shoulders and back.
English 1108 The Masque of Red Death For my literary analysis I’ve chose the story The Masque of Red Death, by Edgar Allan Poe. I really like this story; I’ve read it before in my classes and researched about it. The Masque of Red Death teaches a moral, that no matter who you are, you can’t escape your fate. The Masque of Red Death is a story about this somewhat of a plague coming over Europe in the early 1700’s. The Red Death is everywhere, it’s killing people by the hundreds daily.
Most commonly, a symbol will present itself in the form of a word, or a figure of speech, or an event, or the total action, or a character. The Scarlet Letter"A" The Scarlet Letter"A" is meant to be a symbol of shame,but instead it becomes a powerful symbol of identity to Hester. The letter's meaning shifts as time passes. Originally, it intended to mark Hester as an adulterer, the "A" eventually comes to stand for"Able". Furthermore, for the Native Americans who come to watch the Election Day Pageant thinks it marks her as a person of importance and status.
Without the strong emotions all humans feel, we would not be driven to sin. The Scarlet Letter is a tale of sin, human condition, and the nature of evil. Once again, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses this story to reveal the true hypocrisy of the Puritan lifestyle. In this book, sin seems to come natural to the people in the Puritan Settlement of seventeenth century Boston. Hester Prynne, the main character of the book, was a constant example of sin and human passion.