The Scarlet Letter :: essays papers

The Scarlet LetterNathaniel Hawthorne uses several different themes in his novel, The Scarlet Letter one of the themes Hawthorne uses is ugliness. The Bible teaches that sinning is bad and hated by God. The Bible also teaches that the greater the sin is, the greater the punishment is deserved. The characters deal with the sin of adultery. Hester Prynne, the adulteress while still beingness in wedlock with Roger Chillingworth Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, the adulterer while still being a Reverend and Roger Chillingworth, a man who lives only to seek revenge atomic number 18 the three characters that deal with this sin the most. Who commits the greater sin?Hester Prynne seems to be a person who can be trusted. Her husband, Roger Chillingworth Prynne, sent her to New England to make a floor for Rogers return. Hester did get a home together. She lets her passion for Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, however, get in the way of what she really needed to be doing. Hester never lies a bout her sin with Dimmesdale, but she never fully comes out with the whole truth. The letter is too deeply branded. Ye cannot take it off. And would that I might endure his agony, as well as exploit (51) Hester does not want to put Dimmesdale in a worse situation than he already is in, so she never gives his name as her fellow-sinner. Instead, she carries the shame for the some(prenominal) of them.Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, a man of the cloth, lets his passion for Hester get in the way of his relationship with God. Dimmesdale wants to tell the towns tribe that he is Hesters fellow-sinner. Hester does not want him to because she does not want him to be shunned by his people. Not confessing causes his guilt to eat away at him. He tries to confess his sin to God, but never does.He is kept tacit by the very constitution of his nature...Guilty is as he may be, retaining, nevertheless, a zeal for Gods glory and mans welfare, he shrinks from displaying himself black and filthy in the view of men...he goes about among his fellow-creatures looking pure as new-fallen snow while his heart is all speckled and spotted with iniquity of which he cannot rid himself. (101)Dimmesdale wants to reveal to his people his sin, but when he finally does, he dies shortly afterwards.