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    Scarlet Letter Character Descriptions Essay

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    Kristof Weakley
    an essay I wrote in 10th grade that got a 96% score. This essay is about characters in Scarlet Letter

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    Scarlet Letter Character Descriptions Essay

    Uploaded by

    Kristof Weakley
    209 views1 page
    an essay I wrote in 10th grade that got a 96% score. This essay is about characters in Scarlet Letter

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    © Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)

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    DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

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    an essay I wrote in 10th grade that got a 96% score. This essay is about characters in Scarlet Letter

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    209 views1 page

    Scarlet Letter Character Descriptions Essay

    Uploaded by

    Kristof Weakley
    an essay I wrote in 10th grade that got a 96% score. This essay is about characters in Scarlet Letter

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    of 1

    The Scarlet Letter Characters essay

    Hawthornes Scarlet Letter is a piece of romantic literature, and conforms to the characteristics of this literary style. Due to this style, each character has unique and exaggerated characteristics. These characteristics are reflected in appearance, action and speech. The baby Pearl is perhaps the most perplexing character in the book. Her mothers only treasure Pearl grows up surrounded by hostility. The wild child attribute may rightfully be given to Pearl, for nothing was more remarkable than the instinct, with which the child comprehended her loneliness (pg84; ch6). Because of her loneliness, she develops a remarkable personality and a unique way of thinking. She stands strong against the puritan children who bully her with all this enmity and passion Pearl inherited out of Hesters heart (pg85; ch6). Pearls description contradicts, on one side her name and some of descriptions portray her as her mothers only treasure. On the other side she is a little imp, whose next freak might be to fly out the chimney (pg87; ch6). The reverend Arthur Dimmesdale is a young clergyman, who had come from one of the great English universities (pg61; ch3). He is a genuine coward, and Hawthorne displays the two faced puritan society through him. He fears to step down from a high place (pg62; ch3) and face up to the deed, that he committed. He chooses to get eaten up from the inside by his guilt to keep his respected position in society. His character is at first very appealing to the reader, as was the puritan society appealing to the colonists, but as the reader progresses through the book, this personality becomes shadier and shadier, until it is distorted into an ill two-faced personality. In knowledge of Hawthornes opinion of puritan New England, Dimmesdale may be an allusion Hawthorne makes to history. If we accept this allusion, then the romantic characteristics of this book become more enhanced through this symbolism. Roger Chillingsworth, to whom external matters are of little value (pg56; ch2) is a queer looking, well-educated man, whose one shoulder is higher than the other. He bent his eyes on Hester Prynne (pg56; ch2), the adjective bent describes Chillingsworths personality perfectly. He keeps his identity a secret, for he wants to find out who Pearls father is. He suspects Dimmesdale from early on in the story and shares quarters with him, where he tries to force him to confess. He is described as the diabolical agent [who] had the divine permission, for a season, to burrow into the clergymans intimacy, and plot against his soul (pg112; ch9). While this description may be exaggerated it is somewhat true, for Chillingsworth brought misery upon the ill reverend Dimmesdale. Hester Prynne is the protagonist of the story. She is a young, strong, proud woman who doesnt hide from her punishment but bears it through thick and thin. She moves out of society to live on the edge of the woods, but she doesnt move away from Boston. She shows courage in defending her fellow sinner and in not moving away from the people who despise her. She is a loyal person, and this is shown through her defense of Dimmesdale, and her loyalty to Pearl. In conclusion the exaggerated characters of Hawthornes Scarlet Letter set an example for the many exaggerated characters we see in todays television and pulp fiction. Kristof Weakley

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