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 main conflicting scene which acted as a narrative tool to help the story move on was the rape scene in chapter 7. Amir is finally in realisation of the extent of how cowardly he is “I just watched. Paralyzed.” This being significant as it even the rape consisted of only men which emphasises the inequity of gender in Afghanistan and in this novel. However some would disagree - For Amir's mother Sofia - Even though she was a well-known literature professor, her death almost completely eliminates her influence from Amir's life. Baba never discusses her with Amir, and he doesn’t appreciate the qualities she passed down to her son “That was how I escaped my father's aloofness, in my dead mother's books” this being a disgrace to baba as he wished for a masculine son "Real men didn't read poetry-and God forbid they should ever write it!” this effectively showing baba’s disinterest in Amir as Baba believes a real man is interested in sports.
Dimmesdale as the Reverend of the Puritan society broke his sacred promise with the Lord and church. Many sins occurred, but the greater sin was committed by Roger Chillingworth, known as Hester’s husband, for keeping the Reverend alive and watching him suffer. Hester Prynne is known as the beautiful woman who was sent to Boston by her husband. As she waited for his arrival from Europe, she committed the sin of adultery, and after, gave birth to her child, Pearl. The Puritan society and women looked at this sin in antipathy.
Priestly presents Mr Birling and the Inspector in two different lights. Mr Birling right from the very start showed no empathy towards Eva smith and doesn't start to either throughout the play. He is more interested in his knighthood and doesn't want to admit he has done wrong. “I can’t accept any responsibility. If we were all responsible for everything that happened to everybody we’d had anything to do with, it would be very awkward” this further emphasises Birlings ignorance and cowardice attitude towards responsibility within society.
Effect: Throughout the novel, Nathaniel Hawthorne repeatedly focuses on a recurring idea in the story—the contrast between light and dark, and sunshine and shadow. In many cultures across the globe, darkness and dark colors represent shame, sin, and disgrace. Hawthorne takes advantage of this universal concept and applies it to the novel’s sequence of events. Hester is a sinner. She has committed crimes that defy the wishes of god himself, and she has been ridiculed and outcast from her community.
The Scarlet Letter In the passage of the scarlet letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, we see the narrator doesn’t have the same attitude or views of the community. The harsh judgment Hester Prynne receives from the wives is predictable. Hawthorne’s diction in the narration reveals a tone of sympathy, while the words of the women scorn Mistress Prynne. The women who stood outside the prison door commenting on Hester Prynne punishment are described to be goodwives of a puritan community. The first woman to speak is a “hard featured dame of fifty”, she believes the good mature women of the church should have a say in the sentence of the mistress for they are wives, and will punish correctly.
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.
When the oracle said that her son would kill his father and sleep with his mother she quickly abandoned her son to avoid that horrible fate and thanked the oracle for that. However, when Oedipus heard that Polybus was dead and realized he didn’t kill his father Jocasta said the oracle was useless. Jocasta is the type of person that chooses to be blind and accept the lies but only when they help her. If the truths help her then she will accept the truths. Jocasta is also trying to blind Oedipus in this quote.
The letter's meaning in Puritan society banishes her from her normal life. The Puritans view this letter as a symbol of the devil. Because of her alienation from the puritan society, Hester has become fiercely independent from her isolation from the community. This indicates that Hester does not consider her “sin” to be really wrong but yet, she has still not truly come in terms with this letter. Later on in the novel, we see that the letter “A” symbolizes Hester’s atonement for her sin.
A victim is one who does not take a stand for him or herself, and is forced into doing things. Hester Prynne is presented as a victim of society rather than a rebel because she was shunned out of society while having the scarlet letter on her bosom, was forced to adapt to society’s ways, and could not be with her true love, Dimmesdale. The first instance in which Hester Prynne was presented as a victim was when she was isolated by society while having the scarlet letter on her bosom. Before her public humiliation, people were already talking about how bad of a person Hester Prynne was. They said things such as, “This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die” (36) and “At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne’s forehead” (36).