Tadji Underwood English 11 Ms. Roberts April 19,2012 The downfall of Tom Walker The story of “The Devil and Tom Walker” is about an husband and wife whom do not like each other. The husband Tom walks home one day and he takes a short- cut but turns out he finds the devil. Tom's wife finds out that Tom did not take the offer from the devil for wealth. Tom's wife goes to meet the devil, and the devil kills her. Tom becomes a hypocritical, betrays the devil, and dies.
Suppose Hester never met Dimmesdale? According to Hawthorne, Chillingworth is the worst sinner in the novel. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is about a young pure woman named Hester Prynne. In the novel, her marriage to Roger Chillingworth led to her wrong doings of the sin adultery. A symbol of a scarlet “A” was placed on her chest as a constant reminder of her mistake.
Dhruv Patel Davis American 16 October 2014 The Death Though Hypocrisy Hypocrisy is the practice of claiming to have moral standards or believes to which one’s own behavior does not conform. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester, a woman from England moved to Boston, sinned and had a baby with someone other than her husband. She has a girl named Pearl. Hester’s punishment for adultery this is stand on the scaffold for a day in with the letter ‘A’ on her chest. After seven years Pearl finds out that her dad is Dimmesdale, a minister, and they plan to leave to go to England three days later.
All people are born sinners. Natural men must be reborn to be saved; “…hell is waiting for them…” (Edwards 46). These views are that of Jonathan Edwards in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Edwards belonged to a religion that was lingering and was close to disappearing due to the growing numbers of Christians, so he used figurative language and imagery in order to scare people back into the Puritan way of life. “Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downward with great weight and pressure toward hell.” (Edwards 47).
Spill the blood!” (174,175) Reasoning: No civil person would repeatedly state this phrase. This definitely represents savagery. It shows how bloodthirsty these boys are and then when they recite this while murdering Simon; it makes it even more gruesome. They’re so consumed in all the blood that they don’t even realize they had killed Simon until it is too late. • “Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.” (235) Reasoning: This quote that was stated at the end of the book shows the reader and myself that the world of savagery only leads to murder and sorrow.
Arthur Dimmesdale committed the greater sin because he was a man of faith. He was not true to his sacred vows. He committed an adultary which is considered to be the worst sin because it is against one of the ten commandments. He told the people of lord to be true and faithful to their religion when he was not himself. He did not tell the people about his sin like Hester Prynne's was told.
Another characteristic that makes John Proctor a tragic hero is his tragic flaw and his final tragic death. All these characteristics make a tragic hero; John Proctor possesses all of them and therefore he is considered one. John Proctor was a tragic hero because he had a tragic flaw. His unfortunate flaw was that he had a physical attraction for someone other than his wife, this person was Abigail Williams. When his wife became sick he began to get emotions for her.
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.
They established a community based on the Bible. They believed that God punished the whole community for the sins of it's people. This is why they did not tolerate sin. Therefore, sinners were publicly humiliated, shamed, and shunned. In the novel, both Hester and Pearl were shunned by the community because of Hester's adultery.
From Shame to Strength: The Scarlet Letter’s Various Meanings Can one’s own sin make them a stronger person? In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne commits adultery with Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, while being married to Roger Chillingworth, and is forced to wear a scarlet letter “A” as punishment. The “A” causes the public to shun Hester because of her sin, while Dimmesdale remains an icon. The scarlet letter that Hester wears is supposed to represent adultery so the town recognizes her sin and affiliates her with shame. Throughout the novel, the Scarlet letter bequeaths new meanings.