The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter

The novel The Scarlet Letter was written in the late 1840's by the American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. The majority of Hawthorne’s work contains themes of the America’s Puritan past and in The Scarlet Letter these themes show the greatest effect. The genre, that the book falls into, is a historical fiction, romance and semi-allegorical genre. The themes of the society, sin and the nature of evil runs through this novel. The plot contains many symbols of which the two most important are the scarlet letter and Pearl, the daughter of the protagonist Hester Prynne. The plot, narrated by omniscient narrator, takes place in the middle of the seventeenth century in an American town Boston, Massachusetts. The story of a young woman who was harshly punished by the people of Puritan beliefs, because she committed adultery, brought many unsettling thoughts to my mind. My reactions in this essay will refer to different aspects of the novel: the characters Hester Prynne, Pearl, Reverend Dimmensdale, the malevolent figure Roger Chillingworth and the Puritan lifestyle.

Hester Prynne, a young woman, who is send ahead alone to America by her elderly husband, appealed to me as a very strong and passionate character. Her affair with a minister, named Dimmesdale, indicates that her passion does not allow her to deprive herself from the pleasure of satisfaction just because the Puritan society around her dictates that way. The consequences of her sin are so dramatic that she has to endure years of shame. But the scorn of carrying the letter 'A' on her breast and the disrespect of the local people around her does not break her spirit. I believe that her admission of a martyr's lifestyle shows how strong-willed she is. Nevertheless, through the years even the women in the Puritan community recognize that her punishment is an act of sexism, and they come to Hester seeking shelter from troubles from which they themselves suffer.

Pearl is a little girl, the daughter of Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmensdale. I think that she is a kind of symbol in the novel that signifies the physical consequence of the sin her parents made. On the one side she is her mother's punishment, but on the other a gift, because she helps her to stay strong and makes her feel that she is not completely alone in the exile. It seems to me that she is also very clever, because at the very young age Pearl already takes in the role of Reverend Dimmensdale in her and her mother's life.

The Reverend Arthur Dimmensdale is a minister and is the character I am the least fond of. He has dedicated his life to God and appears very pious man. But after a moment of weakness, when he and Hester had an affair, he does not take the consequences of his actions. I see him as a negative character

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