In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses many different objects and people as symbols to express his message throughout the book. He begins using a plant, then the ... complex symbol in the book is the most obvious and prevalent one, the books namesake, The Scarlet Letter itself. At its first entrance, the letter is used as a symbol of shame, or grief. The magistrates of the town have placed the letter on Hester's breast as a way to let everyone in the town know of her adulterous ... able. For Hester, being called able amongst the townsfolk is beyond a regular compliment. After being a...

• Word Count: 777
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... Analysis - Roger Chillingworth In Nathaniel Hawthorne"s The Scarlet Letter, a character by the name of Roger Chillingworth had committed the worst sin of all; he basically killed another character, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. Everyone has been in a position where they have ... on Dimmesdale. Once Chillingworth had reached Dimmesdale's body, he swiftly removed Dimmesdale's church robe and saw the scarlet letter on the chest before him, which ended Chillingworth's search for the father of Pearl. Now that Chillingworth knew Hester and Dimmesdale's secret, his change to evil was complete. ...

• Word Count: 576
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... feel man has good intentions but those intentions can be overrun by the devil. Nathaniel Hawthorne points out that the former is true of all people in the novel The Scarlet Letter. In this novel, there are three main characters who commit evil and sinful acts, but each act is at a different degree of sinfulness. For example the sins get worse as ... of man but that there are different magnitudes of evil; some choose to fight it, like Hester, and some choose to give in, like Chillingworth. In the novel, Hester received a scarlet letter, "A," for her sins, which she had to wear upon her c...

• Word Count: 1211
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... number of outside conflicts may force this balance towards evil, yet anger and revenge are the most powerful. In the gothic novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorn carefully interlaces the theme of good and evil throughout the complex characters of Chillingworth, Hester, and Pearl. Both the potential ... cannot abandon her evil behavior until recognized by Dimmesdale as his daughter. Pearl, from birth has a keen sense of the pain that the scarlet letter brings Hester. After Hester asks Pearl who her heavenly father is, Pearl, "whether moved by her normal freakishness, or because an...

• Word Count: 1073
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

"He is the complete type of man of the world, the social ideal,--courteous, quiet, well informed, imperturbably. Nevertheless, his moral nature is a poisonous and irreclaimable wilderness, in which blooms not a single flower of ... my folly, and they weakness. I--a man of thought, the bookworm of great libraries...men call me wise...I might have foreseen all this...I might have beheld the bale-fire of that scarlet letter blazing at the end of our path!" (71-72) He believed they were evenly balanced in their wrong doing and sought no vengeance against her. Chillingworth then decided his new ....

• Word Count: 1089
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

"He is the complete type of man of the world, the social ideal,--courteous, quiet, well informed, imperturbably. Nevertheless, his moral nature is a poisonous and irreclaimable wilderness, in which blooms not a single flower of ... my folly, and they weakness. I--a man of thought, the bookworm of great libraries...men call me wise...I might have foreseen all this...I might have beheld the bale-fire of that scarlet letter blazing at the end of our path!" (71-72) He believed they were evenly balanced in their wrong doing and sought no vengeance against her. Chillingworth then decided his new ....

• Word Count: 1075
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School