Summary Of The Scarlet Letter - 1266 Words

The Power of Guilt At some point in life, everyone makes an unintelligent decision. Oftentimes, these decisions leave people feeling guilty and with nobody to blame but themselves. In the Puritan society presented in The Scarlet Letter, sin is not taken lightly. Sinners are publicly presented on the town scaffold and have to endure embarrassing gossip. Dimmesdale, a church minister, commits adultery with Hester Prynne, and she has a child. Dimmesdale does not confess his sin for several years after Hester is publicly shamed on the scaffold. Dimmesdale gets what he deserves because he chooses to commit the sin and brings the guilt upon himself. Dimmesdale’s guilt deteriorates his mental and physical health as seen by many events,†¦show more content†¦The shame Dimmesdale feels only gets stronger as time goes on. The text states, â€Å"‘Crime is for the iron-nerved’†(Hawthorne 134). At a certain point, it becomes too much for him to handle and he returns to the sc affold. His mental state of mind was unstable, therefore explaining why his behavior becomes so erratic. He screams in pain and thinks he sees Wilson, one of his fellow church elders. He also commonly has visions of Pearl and the scarlet letter. Hester and Pearl join Dimmesdale on the scaffold, united in sin and as a family for the first time. It represents a purgation of sin, however, it was not a true purgation because nobody is there to witness it. Dimmesdale refuses to join Hester and Pearl publicly, therefore neglecting another opportunity to release his body and soul from the guilt and shame that is physically and mentally killing him. Dimmesdale is a minister in a Puritan society. This means that he should be free of sin and respect marriage rights. However, Dimmesdale is the opposite. He is looked up to by many people in society and they all think that he is a saintly man. As a holy man, Dimmesdale knows that he is corrupting the church, making whatever guilt that was already present even more prominent within his thoughts. He is now responsible for corrupting the religious experience and beliefs of all of the townspeople attending the church, not only his own. He knows that he will also be responsible for theShow MoreRelatedSummary Of The Scarlet Letter 1633 Words   |  7 PagesMahanoor Khan AP English, Block 5 Mrs. Schuet 26 September 2014 1. Title and Author: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorn 2. Summary: A women named Hester, one of the protagonists in the novel, has committed adultery, and has a child. The townspeople believe that her punishment should be to wear the letter A on her clothing so she and the town can remember her sin. Her daughter name is Pearl. Hester will not reveal with whom she had the affair with. The reverend named Dimmesdale is the fatherRead MoreSummary Of The Scarlet Letter 1337 Words   |  6 PagesHokstad ENG 3UC 17 May 2016 Nature of Good and Evil in The Scarlet Letter There is a nature of good and evil in every person. Whether a person tries to push away the evil and be as good as they can be or let the evil consume their well- being. The nature of good and evil can be seen on a day to day basis in the way people act towards others, the crimes they have committed or the lies they do or do not tell. In the book, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, there is a recurring theme of theRead MoreSummary Of The Scarlet Letter 1436 Words   |  6 PagesThe Scarlet Letter Journal 1 I empathize most with Reverend Dimmesdale. He had to live with the secret of his sin for many years. He also was a reverend and had to preach about sins every Sunday and so was reminded constantly of what he did. In fact he felt so guilty about receiving no punishment while Hester was cursed with the letter that he â€Å"inflicted a hideous torture on himself† by carving the letter A into his own chest (Hawthorne 176). He has also had to endure much from Roger ChillingsworthRead MoreSummary Of The Scarlet Letter 935 Words   |  4 PagesThe Scarlet Letter is about a woman, Hester Prynne, who has had an affair with a man who she would not name. During the affair Hester became pregnant, so the affair became known to the town. She had the child but would still not reveal who the father was she was then forced to wear a red A representing adulterer on her chest for the rest of her life. The movie Easy A is about Olive Pendergast is an average high school student who is not one of the super-popular girls, but not a loser eitherRead MoreSummary Of The Scarlet Letter 1329 Words   |  6 PagesMelanie Showers Mrs. Voshell Honors English 10 8 January 2016 Morality in The Scarlet Letter In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne describes many defining instances of different characters’ morality. Some of the characters’ opinions are very different, but the people of the town have a general morality that leads Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale to deal with their sins differently in public, than in private. First, Hester’s morality, is not very defined at the beginning. She seems as though sheRead MoreSummary Of The Scarlet Letter 1136 Words   |  5 PagesNicholas Halford Greene American Lit 7th 18 Mar 2015 Final Draft The Puritan society, seen in The Scarlet Letter, traps many women in the confines of patriarchal gender role with its rituals and beliefs. These common beliefs caused many of the women in the community to feel oppressed and silenced. Amongst these silenced women, only a few chose to stand against these unfair and unjust beliefs. This minute group includes Hester Prynne, the adulteress whose scandalous life is at the center of theRead MoreSummary Of The Scarlet Letter 2535 Words   |  11 Pageswritten down to tell those later what is right and wrong; evil and good in the world. Sin is very relevant in The Scarlet Letter, it is shown throughout the novel.The novel started and ended with a sin. Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, the main characters in The Scarlet Letter, is the cause of this debacle. Hester and Arthur’s inability to control their emotions gave Hester the scarlet letter, and only Hester can redeem herself out of it. Arthur Dimmesdale, Hester’s lover a nd also one of the churchRead MoreA Summary of The Scarlet Letter771 Words   |  3 PagesChillingworth sent her to Boston to wait for his arrival, but she ended up by having a child with Authur Dimmesdale, who was a minister of the town. So she was sent to the prison as she had committed adultery. One day, she was emerged from the prison with the letter â€Å"A† on her breast, which is a sign of punishment for her adultery commitment. She and her three-month old daughter, Pearl were led to the scaffold of pillory. At there, she was asked to tell who Pearl’s father is, but she refused to tell. AlthoughRead MoreSummary Of The Scarlet Letter- 1641 Words   |  7 PagesStephanie Nicolino Mrs. Sarich English 11H 10 October 2014 The Scarlet Letter- Chapters 9-12 (Passage Analyzer) Chapters 9 and 10 investigate the relationship in the middle of Chillingworth and Dimmesdale. On one level, Chillingworth speaks to science and Dimmesdale speaks to deep sense of being. Like Chillingworth s disfigured shoulders, Dimmesdale s disease is an outward sign of an internal condition, and not medication or religion suffices to cure it. What hampers his recuperation is hisRead MoreSummary Of The Scarlet Letter 1485 Words   |  6 Pages The Scarlet Letter Reading Journal Chapters 2-3 Hester Prynne is first introduced by an angry crowd of people calling for her death. It seems as Hester has done something terribly wrong, something unforgivable. It gave me mixed thoughts, because I had no idea what she had done that made these people so furious, she could be innocent for all I, or any of the characters, know. Hester’s babe was compared/contrasted to the Scarlet Letter on herself, showing that her babe, not the Letter, was the