The Scarlet Letter Rhetorical Analysis

The Scarlet Letter submerses the reader in the Puritan’s culture. The story involves the Puritans portrayal of the sins of a young woman. Although a difficult read, the book stirs the reader to obtain a high moral compass. Throughout the novel, Hawthorne uses the symbols of light and dark to depict good and evil among the characters, Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth.

Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the greatest American authors of the nineteenth century. He published his first novel Fanshawe, in 1828. However, he is widely known for his novels The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables. His novel, The Scarlet Letter, can be analyzed from historical, psychological and feminist critical perspectives by examining his life from the past, as well as his reflections while writing The Scarlet Letter. In order to understand the book properly, it’s necessary to use these three perspectives.

Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays the ideology of Puritan society in the novel the Scarlet Letter; however reader also get to witness his characters being an illustration of hypocrisy and victims to their own guilt. In the Scarlet Letter, as in many of Hawthorne’s shorter works, he makes profuse use of the Puritan past: its odd exclusionary belief, its harsh code of ruling, its concern with sex and witchcraft. The Scarlet Letter is a story that is embellished but yet simple. Many readers may view this novel as a soap opera due to the way Hawthorne conveys this Puritan society’s sense of strictness and inability to express true emotion along with the secrecy and how deceiving the characters are being. As the story unfolds the main character Hester Prynne is bounded in marriage at an early age. She engages in an adulterous affair with an unknown member of their small village. Hester soon becomes pregnant and with her husband’s absence the chances of this child belonging to her husband are slim. The towns’ people know that she has committed a sin and imprisons her for her crime.

In his essay “On the Scarlet Letter,” D.H. Lawrence criticizes Hester’s immoral behavior for her adulterous actions. Lawrence views her as a shameful member of Puritan society and centers his argument on her sin and its effects on the story’s plot. D.H. Lawrence’s use of different literary techniques strengthens his claim that Hester is not the heroine through his sarcastic tone, abrupt syntax, and biblical allusions.

During the 17th century, a Puritan commonwealth presided over Boston and was known for its strict adherence to religious, moral and social codes. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes rhetorical strategies in order to denounce the Puritan system of beliefs and bring to light the hypocrisy of the Puritan community as he tells the agonizing story of a young woman who was condemned by society.

In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne often demonstrates the frailty of humans. Nature is often described as beautiful, while the Puritan society and human nature are viewed in a harsh light. Hawthorne illustrates that human nature is flawed and judgmental through use of figurative language, critical diction, and symbolism.

Chapter 10 is called “The Leech and His Patient.” This title is a perfect symbol for what happens in the chapter. Roger Chillingsworth continues to work on his patient, Dimmesdale, to try to figure out what is wrong with him. At the same time though Chillingsworth, the leech, is growing obsessed with his patient. Chillingworth has connected Dimmesdale's spiritual sickness to his physical sickness. At the end of the chapter, he finds something on Dimmesdale’s chest while he is sleeping, which he is overjoyed by. This mark is a permanent mark, Dimmesdale’s own scarlet letter, except it is part of his skin, not a detachable letter. While leech can be used to represent physicians as physicians commonly used leeches, the idea of the leech

Nathaniel Hawthorne's bold novel, The Scarlet Letter, revolves around sin and punishment.  The main characters of the novel sharply contrast each other in the way they react to the sin that has been committed

Influenced by his Puritan background, Hawthorne focused on individuals and their relationships within their community. Works by Nathaniel Hawthorne such as The Scarlet Letter and Young Goodman Brown focus on the issues and hypocrisies of a Puritan society. Hawthorne explores the view that many fundamentalist religious groups have in regard to the alienation of members of a society who have been judged as sinful, while also uncovering the hidden evil in everyone, including the most honorable of preachers. He accomplishes this by developing plot lines, which focus on interactions of ignorant but wicked religious characters with sinful but relatable protagonists.

Hawthorne’s work takes America’s Puritan past as its subject, but The Scarlet Letter uses the material to the greatest effect. The Puritans were

In the world today, themes and symbolisms have played a major role in the development and presentation of past and present novels. These themes and symbolisms within a novel shape the overall story and often work hand in hand to convey its purpose and meaning. One such novel would include The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne; in this story, along with all his others, he has incorporated his three predominant, driving themes: sin, hypocrisy, and corruption. In The Scarlet Letter,

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a man who was both plagued and absorbed by the legacy of the Puritans in New England. He was related to John Hathorne, a Puritan judge during the infamous Salem Witch trials of 1692. In The Scarlet Letter, his fictional account of mid-17th century Boston presents an opportunity to examine different themes commonly associated with Puritans. Particularly the nature of sin, personal identity and the repression of natural urges are themes that appear repeatedly through the novel. While his account of this time period may not be completely historically accurate, it is indicative of the persistent thematic influence of Puritan culture on American and New England society.

Written in 1850, The Scarlet Letter stood as a very progressive book. With new ideas about women, main characters’ stories intertwined, and many different themes, The Scarlet Letter remains today as a extremely popular novel about 17th century Boston, Massachusetts. Not only was the 19th century a time for the abolition of slavery movement but it was also the beginning of the first wave of feminism. Women such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucretia Mott catalyzed the women’s rights movement. These prominent women believed that a woman’s role was no longer in the house and that women should be afforded the same opportunity as men. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s sympathy for women is evident in a feminist reading of his novel

Frederick William Robertson once said, “There are three things in the world that deserve -- no mercy, hypocrisy, fraud, and tyranny.” Ushering in the Romantic era in literature, this quote stood as the foundation for many transcendental pessimists; Nathaniel Hawthorne was no exception. As described in The Custom House, the introduction to The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne heavily disapproves of his own extreme Puritan past and, in fact, heavily critiques it throughout the entire novel. However, while not directly, Hawthorne criticizes Puritan culture and ideals by exposing their sin in the community. He does this in a number of ways, but readers can plainly see that he chastises the Puritans by portraying them as religious extremists, intelligently

In the Puritan society the outlandish mindset of the leaders caused more harm than good with the witch trials in Salem to the events mentioned in The Scarlet Letter. Sin and evil the new world cloud the vision of the citizens, yet they are two separate actions and have different definitions. Hawthorne explains the difference between the two in the novel and also shows off his famous skill of questioning a society’s rules, regulations, and social structure. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses his writing style of ambiguity, and ornate word choice to relay his opinion of the puritan society. Characters, quotes, and symbols give us a snapshot of the time and thoughts on events and ideas during the era. Hawthorne’s characters are a