The Scarlet Letter Essays

College

The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter and Beloved, despite their vastly different settings, both emphasize the effect of community on an individual. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, set in Boston in 1642, the rigidly Puritan society criminalizes a young...

11th Grade

The Scarlet Letter

“In all great works of fiction, regardless of the grim reality they present, there is an affirmation of life against the transience of that life, an essential defiance. [...] Every great work of art [...] is a celebration, an act of...

The Scarlet Letter

In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, many of the characters suffer from the tolls of sin, but none as horribly as Hester's daughter Pearl. She alone suffers from sin that is not her own, but rather that of her mother. From the day she is...

The Scarlet Letter

In the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester and Dimmesdale are entangled in self-delusion because they are both caught up in a false interpretation of their respective sins and in an opaque vision of a better life. Hester is confused by...

The Scarlet Letter

In Hawthorne's intricately woven tale The Scarlet Letter, his characters create a parallel theme with the Biblical story of Original Sin. By examining the characters and their interactions and insights about each other, one can examine the...

The Scarlet Letter

A few moments before Reverend Dimmsdale professes his sin to the crowd of onlookers, Hester's hopes of escape are dashed by the knowledge that Roger Chillingworth also booked a passage on the departing shipa ship that she prayed would give her and...

The Scarlet Letter

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us," stated Oliver Wendell Holmes. This eventually proves to be especially true for Hester Prynne, the main character in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet...

The Scarlet Letter

In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne writes the consequences of one sinful act in a Puritan community. This sinful act involves three main characters, Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingsworth. As The Scarlet Letter progresses, each...

The Scarlet Letter

Evolution is defined as "a process of change"(Webster's Dictionary), and it has been proved many times in the past that sin is a direct process that leads to change in one's spiritual as well as fleshly life. The three main characters, Hester,...

The Scarlet Letter

The entity of Nature acts as a double-edged sword in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. In the novel, Nature shows its ability to both harm and heal through its effects on the characters. The novel highlights Nature's complexity by showing...

The Scarlet Letter

In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne has committed adultery, and her subsequent bearing of an illegitimate child has cast her beyond the pale of polite society. It is difficult for us, in the late twentieth century, to...

The Scarlet Letter

"This child hath come from the hand of the almighty, to work in many ways upon her heart. It was meant for a blessing, for the one blessing of her life! It was meant, doubtless, for a retribution too, a torture to be felt at many an unthought of...

The Scarlet Letter

Threads are rather insignificant by themselves. It is when a weaver connects them together that they form a beautiful tapestry. Each thread now contributes to the quality of the tapestry and are bound together by the common picture that form. In a...

The Scarlet Letter

In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne demonstrates the need for humans to abide by the laws of nature and conscience, rather than the laws of man, to achieve happiness.

The laws of nature, enforced only by the human conscience, govern every...

The Scarlet Letter

In the first chapter of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, a solitary rosebush stands in front of a gloomy prison to symbolize "some sweet moral blossom, that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human...

The Scarlet Letter

"Don't judge a book by its cover." Everyone knows this hackneyed quote, but people still judge others based on outer appearance. By doing so, these people ignore the possible inner greatness of those they so quickly set aside. The character Hester...