Essay On The Scarlett Letter: The Ugly Truth About Society

The scaffold shows how the punishment imposed on us by others may not be as destructive as the guilt we impose on ourselves. When Hester was standing on the scaffold she is not thinking about being punished. She is having flashbacks to earlier times and feeling guilty for what she had done. The scaffold is a platform used for redemption and a symbol of the harsh Puritan code.

The scaffold appears early in the when Hester Prynne is forced to climb up to the scaffold where her punishment will be carried out. The mother and child are gawked at and humiliated, as they are forced to stand there on display for the town. Hawthorne writes:

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter, the author uses three scaffold scenes to mark the development of Hester Prynne. The image of Hester atop the scaffolding is a metaphor for her forced solitude; for her banishment from society; and for the futility of her punishment. In the first scene, Hawthorne uses the scaffold to explain how Hester can not believe that the “A'; and the baby are real. In the second scaffold scene, Hawthorne tries to convey to the reader that Hester has fully repented for her sin, however this is not true. In the final scaffold scene, Hester does not yet fully repent for her sin because her love for Dimmesdale is still strong. Through Hester, Hawthorne is trying to communicate to the

The Scarlet Letter Introduction The Scarlet Letter is a classic tale of sin, punishment, and revenge. It was written in 1850 by the famous American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. It documents the lives of three tragic characters, each of whom suffer greatly because of his or her sins. Shot Plot The story begins with Hester Prynne, a resident of a small Puritan community, being led from the town jailhouse to a public scaffold where she must stand for three hours as punishment for adultery. She must also wear a scarlet A on her dress for the rest of her life as part of her punishment. As she is led to the scaffold, many of the women in the crowd complain that

In the first scaffold scene Hester Prynne is depicted standing alone while clutching her baby. She has been sentenced to the scaffold for three hours to face public condemnation. In the Puritan society, where this novel is set, public shame is a source of entertainment. On this occasion the townspeople are present to watch the judgment of Hester.

‘Honesty is the best policy’; ‘Always be yourself”, are common phrases many parents tell their children and as common as they may be, being honest and being true yourself contributes to individual happiness and contentness. ‘The Scarlet Letter’ by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a novel that dives deep into these key themes of honesty and integrity and the consequences of doing the opposite action. One of the main characters, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale is a minister in 17th century Puritan New England who has deteriorating health because of his lies and guilt. Dimmesdale commits adultery with a beautiful woman in the town, Hester Prynne, whose husband, Roger Chillingworth, returns from Europe later on. Pearl, who is a product of Hester and

As the book opens, Hester is brought forth from the jail and walked to the scaffold. For the first time being seen in public named an adulterer, Hester shies from the public as they mock her. However, "She never battled with the public, but submitted uncomplainingly to its worst usage; she made no claim upon it, in requital for what she suffered; she did not weight upon its sympathies." (Hawthorne 140). Soon, it did not matter what other people thought of Hester because of her sin. She chose not to live with the humiliation, but she did have to live with herself.

The scaffold represents Hester’s love for Dimmesdale, his cowardice, and his increase in courage to explain the reasons behind the scaffold remaining a constant symbol throughout the novel. Hester and Dimmesdale both undergo different experiences on the scaffold, due to their difference in reasoning, as Hester love for Dimmesdale obscures her thoughts, and Dimmesdale first remains a coward and then gathers the courage to confess. The scaffold is not just a public punishment, but it is also a place for one to confess and free themselves of their

The scaffold acts as a location of judgement multiple times during the novel. The first scene depicts the judgement of Hester by the puritan community. Evidence is found on page 30 of The Scarlet Letter, with the statement “If the hussy stood up for judgement before us…”. This brief quote shows that Hester indeed is being

Now that we see what happens when you don’t fit the mold of what society wants you to be and what rights you get striped away from you we go into the over kill and abuse they end up going through while being picked out of a group. For Hester it was more of an emotional abuse knowing every single turn she made she was being looked at and talked about. People would go around her to make sure they didn’t touch her, Hester's child was left out at school and shunned as the outcast because her mom loved someone else and couldn’t divorce her husband that was pure evil. Her mistress was also abused with the guilt that he felt for not having the courage to stand up and show he loved her and the child. He was to scared to show himself to his people,

The Scarlet Letter has many characters that go through several changes during the story. For example, the young minister Dimmesdale, who commits the sin of adultery with Hester, greatly changes. He is the character that makes the most progress in the story. Dimmesdale, being a minister, acts as a role model to the townspeople. He is the last person who should commit a crime and lie about it, but in the end, he confesses to the town. The fact that he did confess illustrates his courage and morality.

The harsh townspeople force her up on the scaffold to be humiliated in front of the whole town. Not only is she sent up on the scaffold with her sin revealed by the “A” for everyone to see, Hester becomes an example of what a woman should not come to be. The author is talking about Hesters experience on the scaffold and her pregnancy, “Throughout them all, giving up her individuality, she would become the general symbol at which the preacher and moralist might point, and in which they might vivify and embody their images of woman's frailty and sinful passion”(32). Hester looses her individuality and is labeled by the townspeople and known for the Scarlet Letter. Further, the townspeople singled her out as an alien or outcast of the town forcing her to live an abnormal live. She was ridiculed and known for her one sin, unable to have acceptance back into society. Although the townspeople feel as if Hester has brought sin upon there lives, she clearly have not harmed any of the townspeople physically, and they have no grounds to punish Hester. The cause of the townspeople's harsh disciplinary acts on Hester originates from a strict, unrealistic standards of puritan society and the zero tolerance of any ungodly behavior observed in the town. Due to the absence of proper justice, Hester's sentencing is left up to the harsh townspeople in which they show no mercy or

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s purpose for Hester Prynne is to show that even when the weight of sin and guilt is bearing down on your shoulders, just put it all behind you and do whatever you can to live a normal life. Hester lived the most normal life she could manage, yet she walked around the colony a living testimony. She was the contradiction in the so called “perfect” world the Puritans created. They told her that she was

Scarlett wanted to confirm the news about Ashley's engagement. She waited for her father's coming back hoping he could give her a good news to push aside the suspicion cloud. However, she got neither the good news nor the support from old O'Hara.

The scaffold first makes an appearance in the second chapter. Here, it is used as a form of punishment. After Hester Prynne's damnation of committing adultery, she is bound to a scarlet letter “A” that is sewn to her clothing. On top of that, she is chastised by having to stand on the scaffold in front of the public. Up there, she holds her daughter, Pearl, who symbolizes the sin that now haunts her (52-53). This plays on with the punishment that the scaffold represents. Standing here, the people judge Hester, and “were stern enough to look upon her death, had that been the sentence” (54). By beginning the novel with the punishment and mockery that the scaffold brings to