The Crucible When one commits a sin, they must first forgive or accept themselves before they expect others to forgive or accept them. This is a concept that had to be accepted by the characters Hester and John. Hester Prynne, from The Scarlet Letter, committed adultery with the town’s minister and had a child. John Proctor, from The Crucible, also committed adultery with a woman, Abigail Williams, while his wife was pregnant. While the differences between John Proctor and Hester Prynne are countless, there are still several striking similarities between the two.
Her clothes being of the “coarsest material” and “sombre hue” (80) are evidence of the miserable feeling taking over her. As a result of her deception, Hester no longer obtains her former beauty. Instead, it is replaced with a dreary plainness. Hester is also affected emotionally. Before Hester was ever shunned by society due to the lies brought about by the scarlet letter, Hester was known to be a passionate woman.
Emma Patrick Mrs. Reitz Honors English II 22 November 2010 (Critical Analysis Final Draft) The Unbearable Guilt Guilt is a mental obsession with the idea of having done wrong. Guilt has more control over some people, than it does to others. In the novel, The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, an infinite amount of guilt is expressed. Both Arthur and Hester are forced to cope with their living guilt in different, yet interesting ways. Within Arthur’s coward self lies his guilt, and openly, lies Hester’s guilt.
One of the Puritan ladies in the crowd suggests that Hestor has “brought shame upon us all, and ought to die. Is there no law for it? Truly there is, both in scripture and statute book.” The Puritans wish further torture on Hestor, even though they themselves too have committed similar crimes. But in looking for a reason to bring more harm to Hestor, they break a commandment worse than Hestor’s; using the Lord’s name in vain. Just for their own satisfaction they look to manipulate the writings of their
And if that’s sinful, then let me be damned for it!”(Scene Nine).She seems enraged that her reality is unraveled, that everyone now sees her fantasy for what it is, fantasy. Her lies about her purity, her age, her background, everything is now out in the open to be judged and scrutinized by the public. Blanche DuBois is a tragic figure. She is out of place both geographically and temporally (Scene One). She appears to be trying to remain a ‘young women’ when in fact she is getting old, this results in an unappealing persona.
Hawthorne uses the imaginative and symbolic form of the romance to veil the impression of the serious themes in his novel. The young woman Hester Prynne is the main character in The Scarlet Letter. She is accused of adultery, and because she does not confess who the father of her illegitimate child is, she gets sentenced to wearing a scarlet letter on her breast as a sign and reminder for her and the Puritan community she lives in. Expelled from the community, she lives on the edge of the village as an outcast and has to find her own way. Other important characters in the novel are Hester´s daughter Pearl, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth.
The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter share many themes that are still present in today’s society, such as the use of public humiliation as a punishment. Because of their sins, both John Proctor and Hester Prynne were alienated and punished by their peers and town leaders. The public humiliation that they faced helped shape the characters in the eyes of the reader and affected the way that they behaved and acted. The most obvious theme contained in both texts is sin. In The Scarlet Letter, the sin that has been committed is adultery where Hester Prynne and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale conceive an illegitimate child, a daughter named Pearl.
Double standards resonate deeply in “The Scarlet Letter.” Nathaniel Hawthorne uses specific characters to represent many different evils in society. One of these evils, hypocrisy, exists as one of the most important themes in the novel. At very specific and timely points in the book Hawthorne and the Narrator are able to portray fraudulence as the root of why the world seems to fall apart for Dimmesdale. Because of his hypocritical tendencies, Dimmesdale pains the people closest to him; including himself. Even though Pearl was willing to have a relationship with her father, Dimmesdale's heart was not strong enough to fully reveal himself to his own daughter until much too late.
Guilt is a very powerful force that can overwhelm even the strongest of men. Sometimes the guilt that one feels when no one else is aware of what he or she has done can be worse than the punishment that person might receive if he or she owned up. This happens to be the case in The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. In this novel Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynn commit one of the worst sins possible according to puritan law when Arthur commits adultery with, the married, Hester Prynn. Their sin not only affects their own lives, but the lives of Hester’s child, Pearl, and husband Roger Chillingworth.
His life is a web of lies and deceit in some form or another and the reader is set up to view Amir negatively. 1. * Amir’s inability to accept accountability or own up to his ‘past’ reaffirms his weakness in character. * Spends most of his life escaping the sins of his past which leads him to shame himself and with hold secrets. * Ultimate sin was the betrayal of Hassan, letting him get raped, then displacing Ali and Hassan from their home with Baba.