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The Scarlet Letter
Hester's sin causes her to be singled out and ostracized--physically and emotionally--from the rest of her community. However, Hester seems to find peace in this outcasting, which was certainly...
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The Scarlet Letter
Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter contains a tense episode in chapter 17, when Hester decides to meet Dimmesdale in the forest and reveals her relationship to Chillingworth. While the question does...
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The Scarlet Letter
Many in number, rhetorical devices are techniques used in order to persuade the reader to consider a character or an object or a topic from a different perspective. Among the most prevalent...
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The Scarlet Letter
In Chapter VII of "Scarlet Letter," Hawthorne develops his symbolic "A" with imagination: The scarlet A, unimaginative symbol of itself is magnified in the breastplate as well as in Pearl, the...
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The Scarlet Letter
Hester, shunned by the Puritan community, comes to transcend it, and by the novel's end, is a source of comfort for the afflicted in that community, as one who had suffered "A mighty...
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The Scarlet Letter
As a Romantic author, Hawthorne ascribed to the idea that nature is a positive entity that stands in contrast with the corruption of society. Hawthorne introduces nature to the plot of his famous...
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The Scarlet Letter
As an ideaology that supports equal political, economic, and social rights for women, Feminism was certainly not in existence in the setting of Hawthorne's narrative, nor was it supported in 1850...
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The Scarlet Letter
As Hester stands on the scaffold with all the puritans looking up at her, she thinks back to a simpler life in what she calls "Old England." Before she arrived in America she used to live in a...
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The Scarlet Letter
In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne presents the Puritan belief system as oppressive and based in fear. More specifically, Hawthorne is significantly critical of the intolerance inherent in Puritan...
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The Scarlet Letter
A hook, or an opening sentence at the start of an essay, has a specific purpose, which is to draw the reader in and to give the reader reason to be interested in reading the essay. Some teachers...
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The Scarlet Letter
In chapter XIII, entitled "Another View of Hester," we learn that many people in Boston have begun to think of Hester's scarlet "A" as a symbol for the world "Able" instead of "Adultery," its...
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The Scarlet Letter
It is consistent with Hester's strong sense of honor that having promised Chillingworth she would not reveal his identity as her husband, she sticks to her word. However, I would say she is not...
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The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne begins his great novel, The Scarlet Letter, with a description of his experiences as an employee at a Customs House. Although Hawthorne is not a particularly humorous author,...
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The Scarlet Letter
This quote pertains most completely to Chillingworth. Chillingworth is a secretive individual who has evil intentions. Chillingworth gets Hester to agree not to let anyone know he is her husband...
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The Scarlet Letter
This quotation applies to Chillingworth because he attempts, with great success for a while, to convince both the town and Reverend Dimmesdale that he is simply a caring doctor who has been...
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The Scarlet Letter
Dimmesdale finds it difficult to discharge his duties as a minister because he is almost constantly wracked by guilt. He is supposed to be a man of God yet he engaged in an adulterous liaison with...
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The Scarlet Letter
Dimmesdale, a clergyman and the father of Pearl with Hester, is a victim of a society that he knows will react harshly and punitively to his sin of adultery. Because he knows how judgmental Puritan...
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The Scarlet Letter
In the beginning, Hawthorne goes into great detail to describe the elaborate, intense, beautiful letter A that Hester makes. This type of ornate decor was highly unusual, even looked down upon, in...
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The Scarlet Letter
The townspeople’s opinions about Chillingworth change greatly within Chapter 9 of The Scarlet Letter. First, all of the townspeople seem to be thrilled with Chillingworth’s appearance because...
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The Scarlet Letter
Pearl and the brook in Chapter 16 are very similar. Pearl notices the brook when sent off so her mother and Dimmesdale can have some privacy to talk about Chillingworth. Pearl feels that the brook...
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The Scarlet Letter
One could argue that the crowd are silent because, as Puritans, law and God's word are synonymous. Their silence, therefore, can be interpreted as awestruck reverence for what they regard as the...
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The Scarlet Letter
The town beadle must enforce all of the laws of the Puritan society. He is the one who has kept Hester imprisoned during her pregnancy; he is the one who makes her stand on the scaffold and he is...
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The Scarlet Letter
Sadly, I don't believe this novel illustrates the idea that love, compassion, and forgiveness have the power to overcome evil and sinful deeds. Despite Hester's love for Arthur Dimmesdale, the...
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The Scarlet Letter
There is an antagonist in The Scarlet Letter. His name is Roger Chillingworth, Hester's husband. Once he resurfaces after a long period of absence, Chillingworth finds out about his wife's adultery...
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The Scarlet Letter
Dimmesdale confesses in public because of his cowardice and unwillingness to confess to his sin with Hester Prynne and being Pearl's father, Dimmesdale is consumed with guilt. He continually fights...
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The Scarlet Letter
Chillingsworth will not take vengeance upon Hester because he can think of no better punishment than that she wear the scarlet "A" for the rest of her life. Also, he takes a little of...
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The Scarlet Letter
As underpinning to his theme of "Be true! Be true!" Nathaniel Hawthorne, as instructive narrator also observes in Chapter XX of The Scarlet Letter," No man, for any considerable period, can wear...
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The Scarlet Letter
A metaphor is a comparison of two unalike things where one thing is said to be the other. In chapter 13, the narrator describes the spiritual connection created by Hester Prynne and Reverend...
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The Scarlet Letter
Hester finds freedom in her ability to think critically and question authority, at least internally. It is ultimately her choice to remain in Boston and then, later, to return, wearing the scarlet...
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The Scarlet Letter
Roger Chillingworth, Hester's husband, is the chief villain who orchestrates the largest amount of trouble for the main characters: Hester and Dimmesdale. Chillingworth arrives in Boston after a...
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The Scarlet Letter
Hawthorne uses two different similes to describe how the stranger reacts upon seeing Hester. Both are in the third paragraph. At first the man pays little attention to her: like a man chiefly...
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The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter slowly escalates to the climax beginning in Chapter 16. I'll identify each of the significant events leading up to this point with a brief touch of...
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The Scarlet Letter
Hawthorne entitles Chapter 9 "The Leech" because he explains throughout the chapter what Roger Chillingworth (formerly Roger Prynne, Hester's husband) is doing to torture the man who committed...
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The Scarlet Letter
Poor Dimmesdale! :) This quote means that you can't pretend to act one way with all of your friends and family (the multitudes) all the while knowing that the way you are acting is NOT who you...
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The Scarlet Letter
A glance at the first few sentences of chapter one shows us that Hawthorne's sentences in this novel will be long and contain a great many dependent clauses. The first sentence reads, "A throng...
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The Scarlet Letter
Roger Chillingworth has to change his name because he does not want the town of Boston to know that he is Hester Prynne's husband. Hester has not been sentenced to death for her crime of adultery...
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The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter explores the Puritanical world and the woman who defies the preconceived notions of womanly behavior and love. Chapter two introduces a throng of women...
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The Scarlet Letter
Though modern-day America has evolved from the Puritanistic New England colonies of our forefathers, many themes that are present in The Scarlet Letter are still relevant to today's society:...
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The Scarlet Letter
Heralded as one of the greatest works of American literature, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is replete with figurative language. Here are some examples: Chapter XIX "Had she gathered...
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The Scarlet Letter
Simply put, he intends to worm his way into Arthur Dimmesdale's life and ruin it for taking Hester away from him. Chillingworth is a great reader of people. By careful observation, he is able to...
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The Scarlet Letter
Most of the women (or gossips as Hawthorne refers to theme) believe that Hester Prynne has received too lenient of a punishment. They believe that the magistrates went to light on her because of...
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The Scarlet Letter
Let's look at the context here. Chillingworth has come to visit Hester in prison. He takes her some medicine, which he tells the jailer will make her easier to control. The jailer doesn't know that...
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The Scarlet Letter
The imagery and diction of the first three paragraphs of chapter 3 reveal a sinister quality in the stranger who appears at the start of the chapter. Imagery is description using the five senses of...
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The Scarlet Letter
Chillingworth seems not to really feel any guilt for pursuing the soul of his wife's one-time lover and the father of her child, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. He feels that he is perfectly justified...
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The Scarlet Letter
Hester's naming her child Pearl is significant for a variety of reasons. They mainly deal with the themes of The Scarlet Letter as a whole. The name Pearl also reflects the complicated way Hester...
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The Scarlet Letter
The opening scene paints a dark picture of Puritanism as the prison door is placed in a dominant position of the setting, acting as a symbolic reminder of the retributive power of Puritanism and...
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The Scarlet Letter
The Scarlet Letter is the title of a book by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It tells the story of Hester Prynne and her daughter Pearl. Hester had an affair with the minister Arthur Dimmesdale. Her husband,...
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The Scarlet Letter
At the end of The Scarlet Letter, Hester takes Pearl with her to Europe, where they spend Pearl's adolescence together. Eventually, however, Hester returns, without Pearl, back to Boston from...
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The Scarlet Letter
I assume you're referring to Dr. Chillingworth (Dr. Prynne). He's Hester's husband who was to join her after taking care of some business. We must assume he was educated in Europe since that is...
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The Scarlet Letter
There is a line of guilt/sin that connects Hester and the Reverend Dimmesdale. Hester, guilty of adultery, holds the secret of her lover's sin in her heart while Rev. Dimmesdale holds his secret...
