The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter is a novel set in Puritan Boston. Narrator of the novel is custom house surveyors who found this story. And then he narrates the story of a Adulteress Hester Prynne.

In the begining of the novel Hester was standing on scaffold because  of commiting Adultery. Dimmesdale and other priests ask her to reveal name of father of Pearl but Hester refuses to give name of her fellow sinner. So she has to wear Scarlet A on her bosom- symbol of Adulteress Hester. During this Roger chillingworth comes, who, we later come to know is the husband of Hester. But somehow not able to come to Boston. After punishment She lives with her daughter Pearl on the outskirt of the town. The novel is full of suffering of Hester.When she passes through market people follows her, beats drum that Hester has came and abuses her.And Dimmesdale who is the real father of Pearl watches all these from window.

Roger chillingworth - a newly arrived physician in Boston lives with Dimmesdale. Any how he came to know that actual reason behind illness is unconfessed sin, so Dimmesdale is the father of Pearl.

Later on, Dimmesdale meets Hester in forest and both plan to settle somewhere else. Dimmesdale confeses his sin publically and dies. Chillingworth also dies because now there is no object to take revenge. Pearl marries and went to Europe. Hester also dies and she was buried near grave of Dimmesdale.

And we can see the transformation of Hester from Adulteress to Able to Angle Hester.

Literature always stands for humans.

The Scarlet Letter: A Romance is an 1850 work of fiction in a historical setting, written by

Nathaniel Hawthorne, and is considered to be his magnum opus.Set in 17th-century

Puritan Boston , Massachusetts, during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of Hester

Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an affair and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity . Throughout the book, Hawthorne explores themes of legalism , sin , and guilt .

 Quotations

“Mother,” said little Pearl, “the sunshine does

not love you. It runs away and hides itself,

because it is afraid of something on your bosom.

. . . It will not flee from me, for I wear

nothing on my bosom yet!”

“Nor ever will, my child, I hope,” said Hester.

“And why not, mother?” asked Pearl, stopping

short. . . . “Will it not come of its own accord,

when I am a woman grown?

“Mother,” said [Pearl], “was that the same

minister that kissed me by the brook?”

“Hold thy peace, dear little Pearl!” whispered

her mother. “We must not always talk in the

market-place of what happens to us in the

forest.”

Her real importance lies in her ability to provoke the adult characters in the book. She asks them pointed questions and draws their attention, and the reader’s, to the denied or overlooked truths of the adult world. In general, children in The

Scarlet Letter are portrayed as more perceptive and more honest than adults, and Pearl is the most perceptive of them all.

• "Pearl makes us constantly aware of her mother’s scarlet letter and of the society that produced it. From an early age, she fixates on the emblem. Pearl’s innocent, or perhaps intuitive, comments about the letter raise crucial questionsabout its meaning. Similarly, she inquires about the relationships between those around her— most important, the relationship between Hester and Dimmesdale—and offers perceptive critiques of them. Pearl provides the text’s harshest, and most penetrating, judgment of Dimmesdale's failure to admit to his adultery. Once her father’s identity is revealed, Pearl is no longer needed in this symbolic capacity; at Dimmesdales death she becomes fully “human,” leaving behind her other worldliness and herpreternatural vision."