Scarlet Letter
A beautiful puritan woman full of strong passions, Hester Prynne is the main character in the story. Employed as the village seamstress, she is strong and caring, helping anyone she can when he or she is in need. With a penitent heart, Hester travels through the story becoming only a shadow of her former passionate loving self. The letter that Hester was forced to wear upon her bosom, the scarlet letter was not only a symbol of her adulterous sin, but of the women herself. The letter masks her beauty and passion as the story goes until it is what she is known. Other than the scarlet letter, she was a very moral woman whose only joy in life was her daughter Pearl. Also, a rose bush that grew outside the prison was a symbol of survival, that there is life after the prison where Hester spent the beginning of the story. Secrecy, concealment, and deception almost always lead to suffering in The Scarlet Letter. The characters of Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth illustrate the negative effects of secrecy. Chillingworth?s secret revenge changes him from a decent, scholarly man into a jealous monster. Dimmesdale?s secret guilt corrupts the basic goodness of his nature and ultimatel
* When asked who she is, Pearl says ?I am Hester?s child?. This is especially significant because it demonstrates how much responsibility Hester has taken on, and how completely she has isolated both she and her daughter from Arthur Dimmesdale. Pearl sees herself as being entirely a product of her mother, and therefore is a lesson only for her mother. * When thinking about Dimmesdale?s opposite public and private reactions to her and Hester, Pearl calls Dimmesdale ?a strange, sad man.? Wild Rose Bush: Located just outside the prison door, it is the only sign of life near the prison, and has a single red blossom on it. ?The rose may serve, let us hope, to symbolise some sweet moral blossom that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow?.p.46 The Forest:The forest has two main symbolic functions. It is the home of the Black Man but also a place of freedom. First, the forest can symbolize darkness and evil. It is a place where witches gather, and souls are signed away to the devil, and Dimmesdale can ?yield himself with deliberate choice...to what he knew was deadly sin.? It is where Mistress Hibbens goes to meet the Black Man. Hester feels that the forest symbolizes the ?moral wilderness? through which she has wandered for seven years. ?Aren?t you scared of the black man in the forest mommy?.
Some topics in this essay:
Hester Prynne,
Roger Chillingworth,
SCARLET LETTER,
Bush Located,
Hester Dimmesdale,
Ch8 Light,
Mistress Hibbens,
Black Hester,
Infant Pearl,
Black Manwho,
scarlet letter,
hester prynne,
mistress hibbens,
* pearl,
pearl reaches,
arthur dimmesdale,
meet dark,
outside prison,
rose bush,
heavenly father,
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Approximate Word count = 1015
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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