Scarlet Letter
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is an epic tale of sin and inner conflict with morality. The novel is based in the 1600's in the puritan settlement of Boston. The story revolves around four main characters: Hester Prynne, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, Roger Chillingworth, and Hester's young daughter, Pearl. All four characters play a key role in developing and highlighting the novel's theme of inner conflict of morality. The story is of two lovers' sin together and its eventual destruction of them both. Dimmesdale and Hester are both living symbols of inner conflict although they each have their own separate ways of dealing with it. The young clergyman, Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale, sticks out like a soar thumb when I think of the ways the characters in this novel deal with their inner-conflict. It is obvious throughout the story that Dimmesdale is a good man at heart and is truly sorry for his sin. It is his inability to bring himself to admit publicly his sin and accept his punishment that he experiences inner torment that eats away and agonizes his health. Despite his failing health, he is able to turn his experience and torment into inspired preaching. This makes him very popular as a clergyman.
ffering under bodily disease, and gnawed and tortured by some black trouble of the soul, and given over to the machinations of his deadliest enemy, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale had achieved a brilliant popularity in his sacred office." (Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 11, Page 137) " 'Mother,' said little Pearl, 'the sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom... It will not flee from me, for I wear nothing on my bosom yet!'" (Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 16, Page 180) Pearl rarely asks straight out about the scarlet letter. She seems to understand that it is a part of her mother and that it is not a good thing. One man who corrupts do to inner conflict as the story goes along is Roger Chillingworth. He is unforgiving to his wife, Hester, and is bent on finding out who Pearl's father is and getting revenge. From the very beginning Chillingworth is suspicious of Dimmesdale. After some time, Chillingworth even moves in with Dimmesdale to keep a closer eye on him. This is part of Chillingworth's plan for revenge. "To make himself the one trusted friend to whom should be confided all the fear, the remorse, the agony, the ineffectual repentance, the backward rush of sinful thoughts, expelled in vain! All that guilty sorrow hidden from the world, whose great heart would have pitied and forgiven, to be revealed to him, the pitiless, to him, the unforgiving!" (Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 11, Page 136) Hester Prynne is the one who is known to the town to have sinned. They know this because she has a child but has not seen her husband in years. She wears a scarlet 'A
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1158
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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