The Scarlet Letter Complete Essay On Every Topic Term paper
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To: From: Date: December 14, 1998Subject: Take-Home Test : The Scarlet Letter: CharacterizationHester Prynne Hester Prynne is one of the most ambiguous characters in all literature. As the wearer of the scarlet letter, she may be expected to possess some definitive insight available to no one else. Yet her final word on the subject is "I know not. I know not." Hester is a magnificent woman fighting for her natural rights to love and freedom. With her flashing eyes, her rich complexion, and her abundant hair, she stands for what a real woman should be beside a crowd of tight-mouthed Puritans. But she can't do it. One breath of fresh air, one ray of sunlight, one moment alone with her lover in the forest, and she is herself again, reaching passionately for a life of freedom and fulfillment. However, Hester Prynne, if not the out-and-out criminal the Puritans believe her to be, is still a woman who has deeply sinned. She is, after all, guilty of adultery, and Hester herself admits, she has irreparably wronged her husband. And so she bears some responsibility for the corruption of Chillingworth's soul. She has also shattered Dimmesdale's peace. She has lured the minister, with his full cooperation, from the straight and narrow path of orthodoxy, where it was surely in his interest to stay. Hester is, indeed, a sinner. But her sin is a cause not of evil but of good. Suffering disciplines Hester, so that she grows strong. Sorrow awakens her sympathies, so that she becomes a nurse. In fact, the best deeds of Hester's life come about through her fall from grace. Her charity to the poor, her comfort to the broken-hearted, her unquestioned presence in times of trouble are the direct result of her search for repentance. If Hester had not sinned, she would never have discovered the true depths of tenderness within herself. Hester is neither a heroine nor a sinner, but something in between. She is a flesh-and-blood woman in tragic circumstances, trapped in a loveless marriage and in love with another man. Whichever way she moves, there is bound to be a sacrifice of some vital part of herself, either her honor or her deepest need. Arthur DimmesdaleDimmesdale is a coward and a hypocrite. Worse, he is a self-confessed coward and hypocrite. He knows what he has to do to still the voice of his conscience and make his peace with God. He simply cannot bring himself to do it. Dimmesdale is somewhat pale and weak from the first moment he appears. And he grows paler and weaker by the minute, as he lives ridden with guilt, a guilt monger by his side. By the time the minister comes to the forest, he barely has the strength to throw himself down on the leaves in the hope that he can lie there forever. He lacks the will even to wish to live or die. Were Dimmesdale just a little stronger, a little more energetic, we would say he has charisma. And probably, in his own time and place, he did. Ministers were the Puritan culture's heroes. To some extent, Dimmesdale's story is the story of any sensitive young man's initiation into sexuality, especially in a society that treats sexuality with ill grace. But his problem is enormously complicated by the fact of Hester's marriage and by his own image of himself as a clergyman devoted to higher things. Unlike other young men, Dimmesdale cannot accept his loss of innocence and go on from there. The split in the man's nature is deepened by his situation. If he wishes to continue in his ministerial role, he must bury terminate sensuality and wrap himself up in a cloak of holiness. If the minister is a brilliant study in guilt, it is because he believes with all his soul that his sin is terrible, and that a concerned, personal God is watching every move he makes. Torn between the desire to confess and atone and the cowardice which holds him back, Dimmesdale goes a little mad. By the time the minister meets Hester in the forest, he is prepared for an invitation to leaving. Perhaps leaving was the only way out. Dimmesdale nearly buys the shining vision of a new life that Hester holds out to him in the woods. And yet, with his last ounce of strength, he rejects it. He crawls to the scaffold and confesses instead. PearlPearl is Hester's treasure, the pearl of great price, purchased with her mother's peace of mind and position in society. Pearl is a fascinating experiment, an attempt by Hawthorne to turn a symbol to a human being and make them live comfortably together in one body. Sometimes the experiment is successful. Sometimes it's a flop. Pearl works particularly well in the forest scene in the chapter called "The Child at the Brook-Side." If you look at Pearl's actions here, they are perfectly understandable without any symbolic interpretation. She cries, she stamps her feet in the resentment any child would feel at seeing a proper and decorous mother suddenly blossom into sexuality. Little girls don't like sexy mothers suddenly thrust upon them. Nor do they welcome brand-new and unexpected fathers. Pearl is saying what any petted, spoiled child would say under the circumstances, either you love him(that strange, sad man over there), or you love me. In the forest scene, the real child can carry the symbol, because Pearl's narrative meaning and her symbolic meaning so neatly coincide. The child points an accusing finger at Hester, and so does fate. Pearl tells her mother to, go and pick your own letter up. And fate echoes, the scarlet letter is your burden to carry and yours alone. Pearl's first appearance in her tunic of crimson and gold was a moving scene. She is the daughter of an outcast, a renegade. But whatever Hester is, she loves her daughter and wants to keep her. And in order to keep Pearl, Hester has to prove her conformity to the cruelest and sternest of Puritan magistrates. It is hardly proof of conformity to arrive at the Governor's mansion, where everyone will be dressed in black, with a little girl outrageously decked out in scarlet. There is a tug-of-war going on here between Pearl's symbolic function and the psychological demands of the story. Symbolism The Scarlet Letter is a book of much symbolism. One of the most complex and misunderstood symbols in the book is Pearl, the daughter of Hester Prynne. Pearl, throughout the story, develops into a dynamic symbol; one that is always changing. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester, for her sins, received a scarlet letter, "A" which she had to wear upon her chest. This was the Puritan way of treating her as a criminal, for the crime of adultery. The Puritan treatment continued, because as Hester would walk through the streets, she would be looked down upon as if she were some sort of demon from Hell, that committed a terrible crime. This would give her much mental anguish and grief. On the other hand, God s treatment of Hester for her sin was quite different than just a physical token: he gave Hester the punishment of a very unique child which she named Pearl. This punishment handed down from God was a constant mental and physical reminder to Hester of what she had done wrong, and she could not escape it. In this aspect, Pearl symbolized God s way of punishing Hester for adultery. The way Hester s life was ruined for so long was the ultimate price that Hester paid for Pearl. With Pearl, Hester s life was one almost never filled with joy, but instead a constant nagging. Pearl would harass her mother over the scarlet "A" which she wore. Pearl would also make her own "A" to wear, and sometimes she played games with her mother s, trying to hit it with rocks. When Hester would go into the town with Pearl, the other children would make fun of her, and Pearl would yell and throw dirt at them. So, in this case, Pearl symbolized the decimation of Hester s life and mental state.
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