The Scarlet Letter Intro Essay Example for Free

The Scarlet Letter Intro Essay In the 16th century, Puritans immigrated to America from Great Britain in order to escape religious persecution, and by the mid 17th century they had erected a well established society based on their theological beliefs. The Puritan religion was one of austerity and geared towards spiritual devotion rather than worldly possessions. Puritans followed rigid laws which rarely changed with time. They also had little tolerance for anyone who broke these laws. Individuals who did violate these laws however, faced punishment on various levels and would have to prove their repentance to themselves and society. The Scarlet Letter, set in mid 17th century Boston, portrays such forms of repentance from two perspectives. The author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, constructs the plot to revolve around the journey of repentance of two characters: Hester Prynne and Rev. Dimmesdale. Both characters have committed the blasphemous sin of adultery together, but only Hester has been punished for it, whereas Dimmesdale has yet to be discovered for his involvement in the misdeed. Hester’s severe punishment is to carry the eternal burden of the scarlet letter A, a symbol that apprises everyone of her status as an adulterer, and outcasts her from the rest of society. Even though she is shunned by society, Hester still manages to perpetrate acts of penance to atone for her sin. However, Hester is not the only character who seeks repentance; Rev. Dimmesdale self-inflicts punishment as a form of penance. Throughout the novel, both characters strive to achieve true repentance, a feeling of remorse which comes from the soul. As committed as they are to atoning for their sin, neither Hester nor Dimmesdale truly ever reach the state of repentance. Their failure to achieve true repentance can be perceived through their similar goals of penitence and their different forms of punishment. Through the course of the novel, Hawthorne constantly evinces parallels and similiarities between the journeys of penance of both Hester and Dimmesdale. Both journeys for repentance end in the same place; failure to feel remorse for their sin. In chapter 17, Hawthorne finally brings Hester and Dimmesdale together in an intimate setting since their committing of adultery. A literal and metaphorical symbol of their parallel journey. The lovers meet up in the forest, a dark place symbolic of evil, to speak privately for the first time in years about their plans for the future. Throughout the novel the reader has been able to track the acts of penance, however, it has never been plainly stated that these acts of penance have been in vain and no true repentance has come from them. Hawthorne decides that in this chapter both characters will blatantly state their failure to repent. In this chapter, Hester states to Dimmesdale, â€Å"What we did had a consecration of its own† (203). Hester has not only failed to repent at this point, but she has also stated that their adultery has had a valid purpose. Due to the fact that Pearl has come out of their fornication, she has not wronged in stating this but, any individual who has truly repented for their action would be too remorseful to justify their misdeed. Literary critic, Samuel Chase Coale, summarizes Hester’s vain journey for repentance by writing that â€Å"her public show of sorrow and repentance†¦ is in reality a hollow rite, not genuine penitence† (Coale 37). In parallel, Dimmesdale admits his lack of regret for his adultery with Hester. Of the two, Dimmesdale journey has been the most rigorous in penance, yet, like Hester, his journey of penance has ended in failure. He openly admits, â€Å"Of penance, I have had enough! Of penitence, there has been none!† (200). Dimmesdale does not feel the least bit sorry for his sin with Hester. Hawthorne parallels their journey for the goal of repentance for 17 chapters, until he finally brings about their ultimate failure. This length of time allowed the reader to view two similar, simultaneous journeys which ultimately ends literally and metaphorically in one place, failure in the forest, a place of evil, sin, and insincere penance. Although both Hester and Dimmesdale have had a similiar goal of true repentance, the details of their journey are entirely different. Hawthorne structures the novel like this for various reason, the most obvious being redundancy. If Hawthorne had made Dimmesdale’s and Hester’s journey exactly alike, the story would seem extremely redundant and would lose the interest of the reader. On the other hand, Hawthorne creates this contrast in their journeys in order to establish some social commentary. He establishes a journey of penance through two different conflicts, person vs. society and person vs. self. Hester penance, of course, is established through person vs. society. â€Å"Spatial relationships, those based on the placement of images within the text, reveal a set of structures and codes that embody the social organization of a community, both in terms of its ideology and its culture. How one is seen and for what reasonsand what is being seensuggest the nature of soc ial powers at work in early Boston. Thus when Hester emerges from the prison to stand fully revealed (52) before the crowd, she is moving from enclosed darkness to open sunshine, from the present enclosure of her crime into the public gaze that has branded her a criminal. Hawthorne has made so much of the prison to begin with, however, that no matter how precious the open air now seems, to step from that prison and mount the scaffold is to move from one enclosed space to another, each underscored by the whole dismal severity of the Puritanic code of law (52) as embodied in the people and the magistrates who fasten their thousand unrelenting eyes (57) upon her. Their eyes become our eyes, for we as readers are as interested in observing the spectacle, in order to understand exactly what is going on, as they are, although unlike us they do so assured of justice in their gaze.† In contrast, Dimmesdale, faces internal conflict in the form of person vs. self. He self inflicts torture as a form of his penance in an att empt to repent. Both protagonist, Hester and Dimmesdale have failed to reach a similar goal of true repentance through very distinct journeys.