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    The Starlet Letter

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    Ujang Minang
    The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the story of Hester Prynne, who is punished in Puritan Boston for committing adultery. She must wear a scarlet "A" on her clothes and is scorned by the town. The father of her child is never revealed. Hawthorne uses the strict Puritan society to examine human nature under pressure and universal human experiences like guilt, shame, and identity. Though set in colonial America, the novel addresses broader themes that have ensured its status as an important work of literature.

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    The Starlet Letter

    Uploaded by

    Ujang Minang
    161 views4 pages
    The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the story of Hester Prynne, who is punished in Puritan Boston for committing adultery. She must wear a scarlet "A" on her clothes and is scorned by the town. The father of her child is never revealed. Hawthorne uses the strict Puritan society to examine human nature under pressure and universal human experiences like guilt, shame, and identity. Though set in colonial America, the novel addresses broader themes that have ensured its status as an important work of literature.

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    The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the story of Hester Prynne, who is punished in Puritan Boston for committing adultery. She must wear a scarlet "A" on her clothes and is scorned by the town. The father of her child is never revealed. Hawthorne uses the strict Puritan society to examine human nature under pressure and universal human experiences like guilt, shame, and identity. Though set in colonial America, the novel addresses broader themes that have ensured its status as an important work of literature.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    161 views4 pages

    The Starlet Letter

    Uploaded by

    Ujang Minang
    The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the story of Hester Prynne, who is punished in Puritan Boston for committing adultery. She must wear a scarlet "A" on her clothes and is scorned by the town. The father of her child is never revealed. Hawthorne uses the strict Puritan society to examine human nature under pressure and universal human experiences like guilt, shame, and identity. Though set in colonial America, the novel addresses broader themes that have ensured its status as an important work of literature.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 4

    The Scarlet Letter

    The Scarlet Letter is story about life struggle of Hester Prynne for saving her daughter Pearl. Because she is breaking the rules called scarlet letter. The scarlet letter is meant to be a symbol of shame, but instead it becomes a powerful symbol of identity to Hester. The story begins in seventeenth-century Boston, then a Puritan settlement. A young woman, Hester Prynne, is led from the town prison with her infant daughter, Pearl, in her arms and the scarlet letter A on her breast. A man in the crowd tells an elderly onlooker that Hester is being punished for adultery. Hesters husband, a scholar much older than she is, sent her ahead to America, but he never arrived in Boston. The consensus is that he has been lost at sea. While waiting for her husband, Hester has apparently had an affair, as she has given birth to a child. She will not reveal her lovers identity, however, and the scarlet letter, along with her public shaming, is her punishment for her sin and her secrecy. On this day Hester is led to the town scaffold and harangued by the town fathers, but she again refuses to identify her childs father.

    Critics of this story : by Dawm, August 19, 2012

    I think that is should also be mentioned how the rule of law was based on thier religion. They did not seperate the church and state as they do now.

    by ilovironman, September 3, 2012 at 11:49 pm I dont really think the separation of church and state was the issue. just because it was illeagal to break a marriage vow, doesnt mean it had anything to do with their religion. i understand that it wasnt compleatly separate but u cant base that opinion on their laws.. on their leaders maybe, but not their laws.

    by justinjohnshot, April 15, 2013

    Both Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale faced harsh consequences from committing adultery because of the strict Puritan beliefs at the time. Since Dimmesdale was a reverend, he felt extreme guilt for this sin because he knew how detestable it was in the eyes of God. Also, he realized it did not follow the reputation of being a pure, blameless church leader, which many had attributed to him before the truth was revealed. This guilt slowly killed him on the inside even though it was the main influence behind some of his greatest sermons. He eventually died because he could not bear the shame of his sin any longer. On the other hand, Hester actually grew stronger as she was labeled as an adulterer by so many of the townspeople. It's possible that instead of feeling guilty, Hester realized the magnitude of her sin and chose to change her actions to reflect her own Puritan beliefs. In the end, we can see that she upheld these beliefs and endured as a virtuous, humble, and altruistic woman. In spite of being branded the title of adulterer, Hester brought out her true character, which greatly opposed the reputation she was given.

    Summary of Critic : From above critics is the rules can be Hester found the completely her lifes. Rules and Character of Hester be Importaint Point in this story. Which is a good story associated with the struggle and this story included in the psychology.

    Biography Nathaniel Hawthorne


    Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1804. His family descended from the earliest settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; among his forebears was John Hathorne (Hawthorne added the w to his name when he began to write), one of the judges at the 1692 Salem witch trials. Throughout his life, Hawthorne was both fascinated and disturbed by his kinship with John Hathorne. Raised by a widowed mother, Hawthorne attended Bowdoin College in Maine, where he met two people who were to have great impact upon his life: Henry Wadsworth Long-fellow, who would later become a famous poet, and Franklin Pierce, who would later become president of the United States. After college Hawthorne tried his hand at writing, producing historical sketches and an anonymous novel, Fanshawe, that detailed his college days rather embarrassingly. Hawthorne also held positions as an editor and as a customs surveyor during this period. His growing relationship with the intellectual circle that included Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller led him to abandon his customs post for the utopian experiment at Brook Farm, a commune designed to promote economic self-sufficiency and transcendentalist principles. Transcendentalism was a religious and philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century that was dedicated to the belief that divinity manifests itself everywhere, particularly in the natural world. It also advocated a personalized, direct relationship with the divine in place of formalized, structured religion. This second transcendental idea is privileged in The Scarlet Letter. After marrying fellow transcendentalist Sophia Peabody in 1842, Hawthorne left Brook Farm and moved into the Old Manse, a home in Concord where Emerson had once lived. In 1846 he published Mosses from an Old Manse, a collection of essays and stories, many of which are about early America. Mosses from an Old Manse earned Hawthorne the attention of the literary establishment because America was trying to establish a cultural independence to complement its political independence, and Hawthornes collection of stories displayed both a stylistic freshness and an interest in American subject matter. Herman Melville, among others, hailed Hawthorne as the American Shakespeare. In 1845 Hawthorne again went to work as a customs surveyor, this time, like the narrator of The Scarlet Letter, at a post in Salem. In 1850, after having lost the job, he published The Scarlet Letter to enthusiastic, if not widespread, acclaim. His other major novels include The House of the Seven Gables (1851), The Blithedale Romance (1852), and The Marble Faun (1860). In 1853 Hawthornes college friend Franklin Pierce, for whom he had written a campaign biography and who had since become president, appointed Hawthorne a United States consul. The writer spent the next six years in Europe. He died in 1864, a few years after returning to America. The majority of Hawthornes work takes Americas Puritan past as its subject, but The Scarlet Letter uses the material to greatest effect. The Puritans were a group of religious reformers who arrived in Massachusetts in the 1630s under the leadership of John Winthrop (whose death is recounted in the novel). The religious sect was known for its intolerance of dissenting ideas and lifestyles. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne uses the repressive, authoritarian Puritan society as an analogue for humankind in general. The Puritan setting also enables him to portray the human

    soul under extreme pressures. Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth, while unquestionably part of the Puritan society in which they live, also reflect universal experiences. Hawthorne speaks specifically to American issues, but he circumvents the aesthetic and thematic limitations that might accompany such a focus. His universality and his dramatic flair have ensured his place in the literary canon.

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