Archetypes are specific details such as color or lighting that stand out and have a symbolic meaning in a text. The Scarlet Letter uses many color archetypes. In the novel, Hester Prynne has just emerged from the prison and has fully revealed herself to the public. The narrator describes, “On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A.” The gold thread around her red scarlet letter draw attention to the letter that represents her sin, showing that sin cannot be kept a secret. Yellow, or gold, is an archetype that in a room is commonly the first color to be noticed.
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 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.
'Humiliation. In The Scarlett Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne adeptly employs rhetorical devices such as allusion, syntax, metaphor, irony and imagery. He dares to probe the deleterious nature of revenge and the duplicity of character in the Puritan society circa the late 1600’s. The Biblical allusions found in the Scarlet Letter are so great in number to the point of being obvious. First, Hester and Dimmesdale are comparative to Adam and Eve; after committing the infraction, she is cast out of the Puritan community and both are forced to live under the stress of their guilt and work to ease their consciences (Faira 1).
The Scarlet Letter & “The Crucible” Everyone makes mistakes, it’s the way we handle those mistakes that determines how well we redeem ourselves. Hester Prynne, John Procter, and Abigail Williams all committed horrible sins within their puritan societies, but they did not all achieve the redemption they were looking for. Hester Prynne committed adultery, which nowadays is known as cheating, and within her 1600’s puritan society was a huge sin. As her punishment she had to stand in front of the whole town for three hours, with a scarlet letter “A” on her chest. After the punishment Hester could have taken off the “A”, or ran away from the town, but she didn’t, she kept wearing it in front of the whole town and used it as her redemption.
Through the novel, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the reader learns that the Puritan religion looks down on sinning and punishes sinners harshly. Through several examples throughout the text, the reader can conclude that Hawthorne did not agree with the Puritans’ attitude toward sin. Hawthorne uses satire throughout the novel to make fun of the Puritan views. The main character of the novel is Hester Prynne, who is found cheating on her husband. As a result, she is forced to wear a sewn scarlet “A” on her clothing.
In the story, the narrator expressed during the time that Hester and Pearl were walking to Governor Bellingham, that the red and gold colored clothing that Pearl was wearing, which Hester had made, was undoubtedly a significant reminder of Hester’s scarlet letter. When the narrator said, “But it was a remarkable attribute of this garb, and, indeed, of the child’s whole appearance, that it irresistibly and inevitably reminded the beholder of the token which Hester Prynne was doomed to wear upon her bosom. It was the scarlet letter in another form; the scarlet letter endowed with life!” (Hawthorne 112), he was explaining that anyone who looked at Pearl and her clothing would certainly be reminded of Hester’s scarlet letter and the sin she had committed. Pearl was used in that scene to show that she was the physical product
Lara Olson English 10 Seminar Mrs. Zavacki 20 March 2012 Almost everyone in the world knows about the Holocaust and how it ruined the lives of many. But no one knows the real horror brought upon the survivors until you read their true stories. The rude awakening of the memoir Night and the poem “Aftermath” show that even the kindest people can lose their sense of virtuous direction. Wiesel’s story about his experiences at the concentration camps grew more heartbreaking to read with every word. Wiesel wrote about how horrible it seemed to lose one’s innocence.
Steven Jimenez English Ms. Torres 31, October, 2014 The Scarlett Letter Many people throughout their lives have been in the position of being looked down on by a group of people or society because of something they have done wrong, but overcomes their wrong doings at the end. In the novel “The Scarlett Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the protagonist Hester Prynne has this perpetual fight with proving to the puritan society that she is more than the letter “A” that is attached to her bosom. Nathaniel Hawthorne shows in his novel that people sometimes should receive a second chance. Being in a conflict with a group of people can be extremely stressful and overwhelming but people need to be their own support system and backbone to overcome such a difficult problem in order to move on with their lives. People often when being in a conflict with their society, usually back down because it is on person against a large amount of people but sometimes that is not the case.
The witnesses had different interpretations and explanations of what went on that day on the scaffold. One account for what happened included seeing “on the breast of an unhappy minister, a Scarlet Letter... imprinted in the flesh” and the origin of it was said to be that Dimmesdale had “inflicted a hideous torture on himself” the very day Hester Prynne first wore her badge. (309) Others contended that Roger Chillingworth “caused it to appear, through the agency of magic and poisonous drugs”, sometime after Hester Prynne first wore hers. (309,310) By Hawthorne giving us so many different accounts of what had happened on the scaffold that day, he wants to show how people are going to believe and make up all these accounts of what happened even though they may be false. And also, even if one of them is true, no one will ever know because no one was able to ask Dimmesdale what actually happened.