РефератыИностранный языкScScarlet Letter 2 Essay Research Paper Scarlet

Scarlet Letter 2 Essay Research Paper Scarlet

Scarlet Letter 2 Essay, Research Paper


Scarlet Letter – Punishment and Death


Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter deals with many themes, among those


including punishment and death. Utilizing the theme of punishment, the


central character, Hester Prynne, was forced to wear an embroidered scarlet


letter on “her bosom” for the rest of her life as a sign of her sin of


adultery. This object; however, has the opposite affect as a punishment and


as people of the community begin to forget the original significance of the


letter it comes to bear a new meaning, able. In the thirteenth chapter of


this book, Hawthorne comes out and in the third person states “the scarlet


letter had not done its office.”


Hester has gone beyond the letter of the law and done everything asked


of her. She becomes quite a popular seamstress, heralded all over the town


of Boston for her work. She herself wears only drab clothing of ordinary


clothing, punishing herself with humility. There is only one piece of


clothing that she is forbidden to make, the wedding vail, it is assumed


that she can not possibly represent the values of a marriage. It would be


most improper to have one who has committed as sin as she had to be


involved in the marital bonds of another couple. Nevertheless, she does her


work dutifully and completely.


She is emotionately worn out by all the work and penance for her sin.


Midway through the novel she no longer appears as a hidden beauty. Hester


now wears her hair in a cap, and the only effort of considerable worth is


that which she expends in her teachings to Pearl. She has earned the towns


people respect. People now regard the letter as representing the word


“able.”


As the Reverend Dimmesdale refers to Pearl in his argum

ent for


allowing the child to remain with her mother, “God gave Pearl as a blessing


and as a reminder of her sin.” The girl herself is a much more considerable


punishment to Hester then the letter “A” is. Pearl is the living symbol of


her sin. All the evil and hate of this story is embodied in this little


girl. Hawthorne raises the question of how Hester actually sees Pearl by


referring to that “little, laughing image of a fiend” which appears to peep


out of Pearl; “Whether it peeped or no, her mother so imagined it.” She is


a beautiful charismatic little child and thus a blessing, but the stress of


Hester’s environment twists and turns the actions of the girl into evil


things. In that respect she is more of a punishment to Hester then a piece


of cloth she must over her clothing.


On her visit to Governor Bellingham’s house to plead for Pearl’s


custody, Hester passes by a suit of armor in which the breast plate so


magnifies the letter “A” she wore almost consuming her. In later chapters,


after a meteorite appears above Boston, a sexton so wonders if it


represented “Angel” coming from above. Ironically so, it was a fallen one


coming down so. And so the letter “A” takes on a new meaning once again. In


Chapter 13, Hester wonders whether it wouldn’t be better if both she and


Pearl were both dead. The mere fact that Hester can contemplate suicide


indicates that “the scarlet letter had not done it’s office”, because


suicide is an unpardonable sin in the Puritan faith. This fact in


conjunction with what the scarlet letter was meant to be and was not as


well as Pearl herself being quite a punishment in herself, discussed in the


above paragraphs clearly supports my belief in the failure of the scarlet


letter to do its work.

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