Both of them carry on the Scarlet Letter on their chests because of committing adultery. Pearl is the flourish of their affection and emotion while she is scarlet letter herself. " And there stood the minister, with his hand over his heart; and Hester Prynne with the embroidered letter glimmering on her bosom; and little Pearl herself a symbol, and the connecting link between those two"(151). Although she didn`t know anything about her father, she had a strong attraction towards him which proves the connection of this family. "The young minister, on ceasing to speak, had withdrawn a few steps from the group and stood with his face partially concealed in the heavy folds of the window curtain, while the shadow of his figure, which the sunlight cast upon the floor, was tremulous with the vehemence of his appeal.
We contend that this startling and unpleasant introduction is the writer’s way, of letting the reader know; we are to hate and despise this character. As Chillingworth comes into town and sees his wife being punished for the crime of adultery, by having to wear a scarlet A for the rest of her life. He asks a bystander in the crowed why this woman was being punished. He is told, and his immediate reaction is that the man should also be punished. Hester is then taken back to prison where she was being held,
The analysis of the main characters, Hester, Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, and Holden of The Scarlet Letter and The Catcher in the Rye show that they’re impostures and the main theme of the books’ is hypocrisy. Hester Prynne, the woman in The Scarlet Letter who commits adultery, is mostly the reason why everyone else suffers and the reason of the hypocrisy in the story. During the first scene, she exits the prison with a scarlet letter sewed on her clothing, “in fine red cloth surrounded with elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread" (Hawthorne 46). From the start, it is shown that Hester
Thinking that he is dead, she starts having a relationship with a local minister named Dimmesdale. Together they have a kid, much to the despair of the town who looks down upon Hester for “cheating” upon her husband. Although the town breaks Hester down to the core for her sins, she keeps her integrity by refusing to revel who the father is, which would surely doom him to the same fate as her.
Nathaniel Hawthorne goes into depth about sins that most people don’t want to hear about. During the time period of The Scarlet Letter, adultery was extremely frowned upon, and was punishable by death. Dimmesdale kept the guilt and the pain of what he had done bundled up inside; Hester`s sin was brought to light she stood on a scaffold alone as people watched; Chillingworth was letting his anger and hatred control his very being. Hester along with her baby had nothing else to do, but stand and watch as her lover stood by. As she was tried for the very thing he should be tried for.
The initial wrong committed in The Scarlet Letter was adultery, a sin very easily condemned by the Puritans in the mid 1600’s. It is agreeable that Hester should not have cheated on her husband. Even though, he had been missing for two years and was thought dead, it was still a crime and against their religious beliefs. Hester and Dimmesdale’s sin was a sin based off of pure love for each other. Why else would a preacher long to be with a married woman?
A small crime was considered to be as terrible as the worst of crime, and criminals were punished strictly. For example, a child will be beaten in the town square as a punishment for being ungrateful to his parents. The punishment to Hester Prynne for adultery is the scarlet letter "A" on the front of her dress after seven years prison life. Therefore,at first, the scarlet letter "A" symbolizes "adultery" here and means AD which is short for Arthur Dimmesdale, who is Hester's lover. With the development of plot,the scarlet letter"A" represents "amazon".
John Procter and Abigail Williams’ sin was the same adulterous sin as Hester’s in The Scarlet Letter. Both sins of adultery, both in a puritan society, but the outcome of redemption turned out very different. In “The Crucible” the strive for redemption was more between John and Abigail, not John and the town, or Abigail and the town. John Procter, a married man, committed adultery with Abigail Williams, a young woman. Abigail Lusted for
Momentarily afterwards, Chillingworth, Hester’s husband, is seen in the crowd, and introduced. After the public display of Hester, Chillingworth and Hester make a deal, in which her crime of adultery would be forgiven by Chillingworth if she would keep his identity a secret, since he rabidly seeks revenge toward the father of the baby. The rest of the story tells of the interactions between the three. In the end, Dimmesdale dies after confessing his sin, Chillingworth dies in a short period of time after Dimmesdale, and Hester lives on alone helping out the less fortunate of the town. Although Hester made the decision of committing adultery, the reason she lives on is her dealing with the scarlet letter that she is given to exhibit to the town.
What was once considered a mistake is now seen as a mischievous child named Pearl. After her extramarital affair, Hester has to go through the humiliation of standing in front of the entire town wearing her scarlet letter and holding her illegitimate child. She feels remorse for her action: “Thus the young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast, --at her, the child of honorable parents, --at her, the mother of a babe, that would hereafter be a woman, --at her, who had once been innocent, --as the figure of the body, the reality of sin” (Hawthorne 73). Society sees Hester in various roles but they judge her according to unforgiving rules. While Hester’s “sins” are out in public where all could see, Dimmesdale and Chillingworth hide their debaucheries from public view.