The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the great authors of the U.S., his major work; "The Scarlet Letter" was one of the first publishing phenomena in the country.

The protagonist of the novel is Hester Prynne, a woman sentenced to load in chest the letter 'A' sewn into a fabric and preached in all clothes that wear, after being accused of adultery. By refusing to reveal the identity of who seduced her, Hester takes upon himself all the guilt for sin. The plot develops in New England of the seventeenth century, the height of the witch hunts in cities governed by the Puritan administration.

This adultery, Hester gives birth to Pearl, a child who is the stain of sin from the mother more than his own scarlet letter. Isolated from society, Hester and Pearl become accomplices, partners in shame and embarrassment.

The first turning point of the story occurs when the doctor Roger Chillingworth appears against of Hester. Actually, Chillingworth is the outraged husband of Hester who decides to avenge the father of Pearl, Arthur Dimmesdale (lover), discovering who he is and revealing his identity to the public scorn. To be more specific, what happens is that Hester no news from her husband for two years long imagined dead. I imagine that a woman much younger than her husband and living alone in an unfamiliar place feel more fragile, more prone to a passion, or even love.

These are the two major conflicts of the novel: the repentance of Hester and craving for revenge of Roger, which turns against the Reverend Arthur, the spiritual master of the community, whose morality is unquestionable.

Nathaniel's writing is powerful, intricate and well articulated. The reading it flows, messing with our feelings all the time, we imbuing a constant revolt, by the evil of the people, by misplaced Puritanism of the era and of the ignorance of people.

"The Scarlet Letter" is a pinprick of the writer all this puritanical moral, the extremes that radicalism or religious fanaticism may lead. The author does not spare Hester of the necessary atonement for adultery, but he seems to sympathize with the protagonist, wants to argue that, beyond reason, the man is also formed by instincts and passions.

Analysis of Major Characters

Hester Prynne

Although The Scarlet Letter is about Hester Prynne, the book is not so much a consideration of her innate character as it is an examination of the forces that shape her and the transformations those forces effect. We know very little about Hester prior to her affair with Dimmesdale and her resultant public shaming. We read that she married Chillingworth although she did not love him, but we never fully understand why. The early chapters of the book suggest that, prior to her marriage, Hester was a strong-willed and impetuous young woman—she remembers her parents as loving guides who frequently had to restrain her incautious behavior. The fact that she has an affair also suggests that she once had a passionate nature.

Shamed and alienated from the rest of the community, Hester becomes contemplative. She speculates on human nature, social organization, and larger moral questions.

Hester also becomes a kind of compassionate maternal figure as a result of her experiences. Hester moderates her tendency to be rash, for she knows that such behavior could cause her to lose her daughter, Pearl. Hester is also maternal with respect to society: she cares for the poor and brings them food and clothing. By the novel’s end, Hester has become a protofeminist mother figure to the women of the community. The shame attached to her scarlet letter is long gone. Women recognize that her punishment stemmed in part from the town fathers’ sexism, and they come to Hester seeking shelter from the sexist forces under which they themselves suffer. Throughout The Scarlet Letter Hester is portrayed as an intelligent, capable, but not necessarily extraordinary woman. It is the extraordinary circumstances shaping her that make her such an important figure.

Roger Chillingworth

As his name suggests, Roger Chillingworth is a man deficient in human warmth. His twisted, stooped, deformed shoulders mirror his distorted soul. From what the reader is told of his early years with Hester, he was a difficult husband. He ignored his wife for much of the time, yet expected her to nourish his soul with affection when he did condescend to spend time with her. Chillingworth’s decision to assume the identity of a “leech,” or doctor, is fitting. Unable to engage in equitable relationships with those around him, he feeds on the vitality of others as a way of energizing his own projects. Chillingworth’s death is a result of the nature of his character. After Dimmesdale dies, Chillingworth no longer has a victim. Similarly, Dimmesdale’s revelation that he is Pearl’s father removes Hester from the old man’s clutches. Having lost the objects of his revenge, the leech has no choice but to die.

Ultimately, Chillingworth represents true evil. He is associated with secular and sometimes illicit forms of knowledge, as his chemical experiments and medical practices occasionally verge on witchcraft and murder. He is interested in revenge, not justice, and he seeks the deliberate destruction of others rather than a redress of wrongs. His desire to hurt others stands in contrast to Hester and Dimmesdale’s sin, which had love, not hate, as its intent.

Arthur Dimmesdale

Arthur Dimmesdale, like Hester Prynne, is an individual whose identity owes more to external circumstances than to his innate nature. The reader is told that Dimmesdale was a scholar of some renown at Oxford University. His past suggests that he is probably somewhat aloof, the kind of man who would not have much natural sympathy for ordinary men and women. However, Dimmesdale has an unusually active conscience. The fact that Hester takes all of the blame for their shared sin goads his conscience, and his resultant mental anguish and physical weakness open up his mind and allow him to empathize with others. Consequently, he becomes an eloquent and emotionally powerful speaker and a compassionate leader, and his congregation is able to receive meaningful spiritual guidance from him.

Ironically, the townspeople do not believe Dimmesdale’s protestations of sinfulness. Given his background and his penchant for rhetorical speech, Dimmesdale’s congregation generally interprets his sermons allegorically rather than as expressions of any personal guilt. This drives Dimmesdale to further internalize