Scarlet Letter Secondary Source Paper

Can you grade this? and be as honest as possible. And any corrections or tip would help! Also where there are stars are where i need lead ins...so any help with those would be VERY appreciated!

Literary Analysis Paper

Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of The Scarlet Letter, wrote in the Romantic period and remains one of the greatest writers of his time. The Scarlet Letter describes a woman, Hester Prynne, coping with her new life. Hester gets caught up with a married man, Dimmesdale, and gets shunned from the rest of the town. Also, she must wear a scarlet “A” on her chest. As the reader progresses throughout the book; they see how Hester suffers publicly, while Dimmesdale suffers privately. Hester must cope with double the amount of pain rather than Dimmesdale because hers shines upon the public persona.

Because this book takes place in the Puritan time, Hester’s situation appears worse than before; the town’s people ostracize her from the entire town. She became a pariah in this town, and no one really cared. No one in the town speaks to her, they only speak about her. She becomes set apart from the rest of the crowd. She began “being the object of severe and universal observation” (57). Hester soon became the object of everyone’s attention, every moment that the town’s people visualized her anywhere they immediately began to imagine what she must think about all the new changes. They had nothing better to do, than watch her. In the Puritan time period, everything was an enormous deal. Now of days, it seems like they over reacted, but they did not know any better. As the world grew and modernized we all became more accepting of things like this. They, the town, believed that Hester acted scared, unsure, and embarrassed about all the new attention. She felt that way, but she knew that her act of sin stood as an act of passion and Hester never felt sorry for it. Hester knew…“But this had been a sin of passion, not of principle, nor even purpose” (196). Hester and “the mystery man” knew that their sin could not be explained by anything but a passionate moment. Dimmesdale can run and hide from this sin, while Hester must be upfront about it. Dimmesdale, “…can preach one thing and be another; he can commit adultery in the heat of passion and continue as a minister” (Pimple). Hester never got the choice or option between hiding it or coming clean, she was always out in the open for everyone to poke and make fun of.

In addition, the town displays her on the scaffold because they want to make an example of her. An example: “…Hester Prynne-yes, at herself- who stood on the scaffold of the pillory, an infant on her arm, and the letter ‘A’ in scarlet, fantastically embroidered with gold thread, upon her bosom! (57)” They, made that her punishment, the town, plus some wandering visitors, looked at her and noticed the crying infant which she used to cover up the “A”. When those visitors noticed this, it showed them that if they wanted to stay in that town, they just had to act better than Hester. When she covered herself with the child, it did not cover up the sin because Pearl, the constant reminder of the sin, showed the sin as much as the “A” did. Pearl, “… whose innocent life had sprung… a lovely and immortal flower, out of the rank of luxuriance of a guilty passion” (85). As little Pearl grows up Hester always looks over at Pearl as the mistake that happened over love. Dimmesdale also suffers but in the contradictory way to Hester’s.

Even though Dimmesdale suffers terribly on the inside, Hester must also suffer internally. They both have tribulation to endure but he got a choice, she did not. *“Dimmesdale is caught in a dilemma: he values both his social face and his immortal soul, but he cannot save one without losing the other”. She needs to help herself emotionally of her sinful ways, before she can feel and look better externally. *“But under the leaden infliction which it was her doom to endure, she felt, at moments, as if she must needs shriek out with the full power if her lungs and cast herself from the scaffold down upon the ground, or else go mad at once” (55). Hester became the person that everyone laughed at and picked on. That takes a large physical and emotional toll on someone. Dimmesdale thought that everything could work out if he just lied about it. *“Arthur Dimmesdale most of all, is pious hypocrisy: they naively imagine that sin” or “human frailty and sorrow, can be avoided through denial and pretense” (Pearl). As the guilt eats at Dimmesdale day by day, Hester also deals with the guilt from looking at Pearl day by day. As she goes through these seven years, she watches the man she loves not stick up for her.

Finally, the man she loves does not stand up for her, and lets her go through this hard time alone. Although, he intervenes one time for Hester’s sake;*“At one point, Hester nearly loses custody of her daughter, however, Dimmesdale intervenes and persuades the authorities that the mother and daughter belong together” (Bomarito, Whitaker). He explains the reason he keeps everything to himself is because he ensures it is for everyone else, but her. When he confessed, he felt better about it and felt uncorrupt anymore; “… feebly- and there was a sweet and gentle smile over his face, as of a spirit sinking into deep repose; nay, now that the burden was removed, it seemed almost as if he would be sportive with the child” (251). Even though he dies, he feels better after he confesses his sin, but Hester still feels like she sees it every day.

Although Hester somehow deals with all the mess she got, she also overcame all of the many obstacles. Dimmesdale died from his guilt while Hester became strong and independent. Through those seven years, as Pearl grew, she realized that no matter what happened she always would be marked and known as an adulterer, and that Pearl became her blessing rather than her sin. As this book progresses, Hester Prynne feels better emotionally and physically as she deals with the changes that life threw at her.