... . Hester is shunned by society at the beginning of the novel. The sin that she committed is considered to be irredeemable to the Puritan society. Although she committed adultery, Hawthorne's diction suggests that Hester is somewhat innocent. After she moves into the forest with Pearl and starts a new life, the scarlet letter on her chest has a new significance: The letter was a symbol of her calling. Such helpfulness was found in her, - so much power ... to do, and power to sympathize, - that many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original ... ...

• Word Count: 904
• Approx Pages: 4

... wore- Hester emerges from her confinement in the prison proud and defiant. Her fabrication of the Scarlet Letter evokes indignation and resentment from the townspeople. "She hath good skill at her needle, that's certain," remarked one of the female spectators; "but did ever a woman, before this brazen hussy, contrive such a way of showing it!- The Scarlet Letter served to separate Hester from the rest of the Puritan society in which she lived and had formerly ... been a part. Nathaniel Hawthorne states, "it had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanit...

• Word Count: 1295
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... and believed in the dark side of man, hence his dark romantic novel The Scarlet Letter. This allegorical novel depends heavily on symbol and character. The novel is chock full of symbolic dimension of images, characters, and descriptions. The Scarlet Letter defines the American Romanticist movement while using symbolic characters and places that give the book seemingly two different stories. The first story denotes the story going on in the book, including the characters. The other story ... that Hester made the letter beautiful implies that she was not guilty of a crime. The act she co...

• Word Count: 1687
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... a woman of pride and inner beauty. Not long after this story was published, did women start rebelling against their so-called "position" in society. Hester would have been very proud. The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is an amazing story of Hester's strength in exposing and accepting her sin, choosing to wear bold apparel, and helping Dimmesdale deal with his inner conflict. She is truly a model ... and "fanciful" which helped to define her developing personality, strong and mysterious (87). In this way she represents Pearl as an individual much like her own self. The way she ...

• Word Count: 1678
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... that ruled New England two hundred years prior. At the same time, The Scarlet Letter, tells the story of one woman's struggle to find meaning in living after disobeying the highly regarded word of God. When dialogue is used in the novel, which is quite frequently, Hawthorne conveys formal and proper language which assists the reader in understanding the Puritan culture and the ancestry of the Boston inhabitants. In chapter 23, Roger Chillingworth kneels down toward ... her heavenly actions and independence separate her from the other characters. The scaffold scenes are most important, a...

• Word Count: 1296
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... sin, is usually dressed in red clothing, representing sin. Pearl is also called the names "Ruby", "Coral", or "red Rose," and "a little bird of scarlet plumage," further extending Pearl as a red representation of Hester's sin. Hawthorne also uses black and darkness as symbols throughout The Scarlet Letter. Black is used to represent evil and hiding. Hawthorne calls the prison the "black flower of civilized society," meaning it is evil ... as a state of hiding where the person will not accept life's experiences and holds back. Pearl's eyes are called a "small black mirror," meaning they ar...

• Word Count: 1044
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast as the figure, the body, the reality of sin" (83). The mothers of the children in the community would point her out and tell their children not to be like her. They would use her as an example of the consequences of being an individual and going against society's rules. "Children to young to comprehend wherefore this ... then a town that accepted her for her good works. The society was able to look past their hatred for her and see that in fact they needed her. And finally she was able to stay, where she wante...

• Word Count: 1521
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... modern value. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's work The Scarlet Letter the main character, Hester Prynne, is outcast from a puritan society and forced to wear a scarlet "A" on her chest. This punishment is intended to imprison Hester in cage of criticism and general bad feeling from the townspeople. Although this is accomplished for a short time, because of Hester's strength the scarlet letter she wears makes her more independent and eventually just as liked as the average person ... who shunned her in the first ... ...

• Word Count: 513
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... the center of Hester's life. In the forest scene, Pearl becomes the enforcer of the letter during the one and only time that Hester throws the letter away. Oblivious to her mother's new charge of youth, beauty, and happiness, Pearl refuses to join her until the letter is returned to its usual place. She makes the readers constantly aware of her mother's scarlet letter and of the society that produced it. Pearl has been the letter's messenger and the letter ... cloud-shapes of gloom and despondency that had brooded in her heart" (91). More particularly, she reflects the mother's deed tha...

• Word Count: 549
• Approx Pages: 2

In The Scarlet Letter Hester is convicted for a crime she never committed. The only "crime" she commits is one that is based on the laws and morals of the Puritan society. Although adultery, in the eyes of Puritans, is seen as a horrendous crime, if it is out of love it contradicts the actual crime, which is to go against one's spouse as an act of spite. Hester follows her heart and so is ... each other!" Her love is immortalized in a contrasted way that just the scarlet letter "A" as a representation of sin in this situation. She sees their actions in a different perspective than the communi...

• Word Count: 694
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

Scarlet Letter 1.Setting: Where and When does the action of the story take place? The story begins in seventeenth-century Boston, during a Puritan settlement. It takes place in Salem and Concord, Massachusetts; late 1840. A young woman, Hester Pryne, is led from the town prison with her infant daughter, Pearl, in her arms and the scarlet letter "A" on her breast. A man in the crowd tells an elderly onlooker that Hester is being punished for adultery. Hester's ... that earn her this reprieve? Would she have behaved this way is she did not have something to prove? Hester has become more active ...

• Word Count: 1337
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel, The Scarlet Letter is based on the puritanical custom of affixing a giant red, letter "A" to anybody that committed adultery. The novel centers on the adulterous Puritan Hester Prynne. Throughout the novel, she loyally refuses to reveal the name of her partner. The novel is generally regarded as Hawthorne's masterpiece and as one of the classics of American literature. However, it also reflects the typical, partriarchical attitude of both puritan society and of contemporary ... society. For instance, even the definition of the word, "Scarlet" carries with it sexis...

• Word Count: 1505
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... her way of steeling herself against her inner wounds inflicted by her reputation and plague by the scarlet letter. Her weakness revealed in her private vent of her grief through tears. Her silent suffering eventually wins the sympathy of others but still fails to gain her complete acceptance by the Puritan society that surrounds her. Committing adultery with Hester was Dimmesdale sin, it more and internal rather than ... external. His own weakness and lack of courage, he fails to confess and suffers constantly. He continually places his hand over his heart, covering the scarlet letter t...

• Word Count: 1594
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School