Essays on The Scarlet Letter

“Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly upon your bosom! Mine burns in secret!” (Hawthorne) In The Scarlett Letter Arthur Dimmesdale expresses great spiritual torment and shame from the secret he holds inside him, he expresses his agony by inflicting pain on...

The Scarlet letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne at its core, is a story of two supernatural forces battling each other to gain control. Every culture has a name for these forces: Ying and Yang, Good and Evil, but in the novel, they are known as sin...

The Scarlet Letter was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. His vision was to help the readers know and analyze the main attraction of sin and redemption. They are all humans and subject to temptations in society. In other words, they can fall from grace at any given...

The Scarlet Letter is a novel that requires the reader to look deep into its’ extensive characters in order to find all of the different themes and messages hidden inside. One of these topics, however, is incredibly prominent – this being the search and personal...

Would you punish someone for life for something they were sorry for? In the book, The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne which was set at Boston in the 1850s. Hester Prynne, who is the main character committed adultery which gave her a baby girl. The...

The Scarlet Letter is perceived as an old book with old values, but that could not be further from the truth. It contains forward-thinking ideas that challenge the setting of the novel (a Puritan colony). The main character of The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne,...

In the sixteenth century, the Puritans followed John Withrop to Mass Bay Colony for religious freedom away from the Church of England. This religious freedom quickly turned into religious tyranny as Puritan punishments were made to humiliate “sinners”. The main protagonist in The Scarlet Letter,...

One of the main purposes of The Scarlet Letter is to distinguish the difference between public shaming and allowing one to suffer their unjust acts in private. Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale are the main examples of this in the text. Hester’s private guilt affects...

During the time of the events that the book states that the story is set is the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony during the years 1642 to 1649, the novel tells the story of Hester Prynne, who gives birth to a daughter through an affair and...

Heroes are often thought as the superior and perfect people in society. However, The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible illustrates that everyone, including sinners, can be a hero in certain situations. The Scarlet Letter, a book about the consequence and change of identity after committing...