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Character Sketch (Sherrell K.)

In The Scarlet Letter Hester Prynne is the protagonist. Hester is a determined and abrupt young woman, that later puts herself in the place of shame and disgrace of her community. She is the individual that wears the Scarlet Letter. She was married to Chillingworth, in spite of the fact that she was not in love with him. Chillingworth then sends her to America so that he could settle his affairs in Europe. During Hester's time of adjusting to a new surrounding she meets a Puritan minister named Dimmesdale, they get well acquainted and comfortable with each other; soon developing feelings for one another. They have an affair and Pearl, is later brought into world. Once the community is informed about her actions taking place with the minister she endures years of shame and scorn.

"I have thought of death," said she,- "have wished for it,- would even have prayed for it, were it fit that such as I should pray for anything, ere thou beholdest me quaff it. See! It is even now at my lips." ~Hester Prynne (pg.68)

Blibliography

-http://www.answers.com/topic/the-scarlet-letter-novel-5
-http://www.dictionary.com
-The Scarlet Letter by: Nathaniel Hawthorne
-http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/hawthorn.htm
-http://www.notablebiographies.com/Gi-He/index.html
-http://www.xroads.virginia.edu/~ma01/lisle/dial/hawthorne.html

Character Sketch-Chillingsworth (Jessica Lanier)

Roger Chillingworth is/was Hester Prynne's husband. He told her he would follow her to Boston, as soon as he finished up some business. When he finally came, years later, he found Hester upon the town scaffold; he inquired, as a stranger, about why that woman (Hester) was up there. Once he found out, he went to visit her in prison. For the rest of the book, he is determined to find out who the father is of her child. His role in 'The Scarlet Letter' is what some may call the bad guy. Throughout the entire novel he creates for himself a sense of not being able to be trusted. Without Chillingworth in this novel, the entire plot would be unbalanced because, in my point of view, every novel needs something/someone to go against the beliefs of the main character.

"What evil have I done the man?" (p.157)

Character Sketch (Adrienne)

In The Scarlet Letter, Pearl is the daughter of Hester and Reverend Dimmesdale. She is the product of an affair between the two, one which leaves her mother ostracized by their Puritan society. Pearl lives most of her early years isolated, with only her mother to interact with. Hester seems to almost fear little Pearl. Pearl has an impish, close to evil quality about her. She is both a blessing and punishment for Hester. Pearl does not learn that Reverned Dimmesdale is her father until near the end of the story, and then refuses to show any affection for him until he publicly acknowledges she and her mother. When Dimmesdale dies, a change comes over Pearl. Antagonist up until that point, her father's death melts away her black magic.

"'Thou wast not bold!-thou wast not true!'-answered the child. 'Thou wouldst not promise to take my hand, and mother's hand, to-morrow noontide!'" (page 144)

Modern Comparison

Throughout the novel The Scarlet Letter you find yourself traveling through a journey with the protagonist, Hester Prynne, and all of the positive and negative things she seems to face during her younger and older life time period. Within the novel Hester is put to shame because she has an affair with the community minister and the town finds out. Through the rest of the novel Hester is judged because of that one incident and to justify that it never happens again she is forced to wear a scarlet letter. I compare this situation with today's society because recently individuals are quickly to judge anyone based on the things that were done in the past, the present, and things that may happen in the future.

Literary Elements

Author's Purpose: The purpose the author is trying to portray to the reader is the impact of social society. This novel was written around the time of the French Revolution; Hawthorne may have been trying to relate that transition with the change happening/needed to happen in the New World.

Tone: The author wants the reader to feel indignation for the way Hester was treated by the ones around her.

Mood: The mood of this novel is sympathy for Hester because she had a child with a man who does not pay much attention to her. Also, there is anger because of how her husband sent her away with a false promise of shortly following her.

Voice: We believe the voice of this novel to be very detailed and emotional. The author didn't use much punctuation, so that created a sense of frustration toward society.

Syntax: The author's syntax was very confusing in the beginning. He used extreme detail throughout the entire book to describe people's emotions, settings, and the way of people's thinking.

Climax: The climax of this novel is when Dimmesdale, Hester, and Pearl are on the scaffold in the middle of the night and they see a scarlet 'A' meteor fly through the sky. Also, another point of climax is when Hester decides to tell Dimmesdale who Chillingworth is in relation to her.

Foreshadowing: In the scene of when the stranger (Chillingworth) inquires about who and why the woman is on the scaffold foreshadows that the stranger clearly has a relation to her.

Theme

We believe the theme of The Scarlet Letter to be about how society affects a person and their reactions to events in their life. Hester's hardships throughout life contribute to her strong personality. She is a great female role model because she faces her actions with courage, even when she does not have a male by her side to support her. Also, the rigorous and continuous judgment from society affects how one may look at themself; it takes an abundance of perserverance to push through life, ignoring the relentless comments going against how one lives their life.

The Scarlet Letter Vocabulary

1. truculency

(page 5) "...she appears, by the fierceness of her beak and eye, and the general truculency of her attitude, to threaten mischief to the inoffensive community..."

Definiton: the quality of being fierce, cruel, or savagely brutal.



2. venerable

(page 13) "I must plead guilty to the charge of abbreviating the official breath of more than one of these venerable servants of the republic."

Definition: commanding respect because of great age or impressive dignity.



3. foolscap

(page 33) "I have invariably confined myself within the limits of the old Surveyor's half a dozen sheets of foolscap."

Definiton: a type of inexpensive writing paper, esp. legal-size, lined, yellow sheets, bound in tablet form.



4. physiognomy

(page 47) "Amongst any other population, or at a later period in the history of New England, the grim rigidity that petrified the bearded physiognomies of these good people would have augured some awful business in hand."

Definiton: the outward appearance of anything, taken as offering some insight into its character.

5. ignominy

(page 69) "'I might have known that, as I came out of the vast and dismal forest, and entered this settlement of Christian men, the very first object to meet my eyes would be thyself, Hester Prynne, standing up, a statue of ignominy, before the people."

Definition: disgrace; dishonor; public contempt.

6. gorget

(page 96) "There was a steel headpiece, a cuirass, a gorget, and greaves, with a pair of gauntlets and a sword hanging beneath..."

Definition: a piece of armor for the throat.

7. chirugical

(page 109) "Skillful mean, of the medical and chirugical profession, were of rare occurance in the colony."

Definition: relating to surgery.

8. odious

(page 129) "His gestures, his gait, his grizzled beard, his slightest and most indifferent acts, the very fashion of his garments, were odious in the clergyman's sight; a token implicitly to be relied on, of a deeper antipathy in the breast of the latter than he was willing to acknowledge to himself."

Definition: highly offensive; repugnant; disgusting.

9. scurrilous

(page 145) "'Satan dropped it there, I take it, intending a scurrilous jest against your reverence.'"

Definition: characterized by or using low buffoonery; coarsely jocular or derisive.

10. infamy

(page 132) "'But there stood one in the midst of you, at whose brand of sin and infamy ye have not shuddered!'"

Definition: extremely bad reputation, public reproach, or strong condemnation as the result of a shameful, criminal, or outrageous act.

Background Information about Nathaniel Hawthorne

Regardless of Nathaniel Hawthorne calling himself "the obscurest man in American letters," his achievements in fiction, both as short-story writer and novelist, offer models fashioned too well for contemporary and later writers to ignore. For Nathaniel fame came slow and finacially his wallet pretained to stay thin, but throughtout his career as a writter he claimed a central place in American letters. Distinguishing and understanding the sources of humanity 's darker side aspiried his writing which also brought him into the nation's classrooms, where The Scarlet Letter, to name only his most famous work, still holds a firm place: more than eighty editions of it are available in formats ranging from textbooks, casebooks, and paperbacks to audio cassettes and CD-ROMs.

On July 4, 1804, in Salem Massachusetts, Nathaniel Hawthorne was born as the middle child of Nathaniel and Elizabeth Manning Hathorne, who also had two daugther Louisa and Elizabeth. He came from a six generational Salem family of intelligent and successful businessman, judges, and seaman- all Puritans, a strict religous descipline. Nathaniels original last name is "Hathorne" he later added a "w" after the "a" to make it "Hawthorne". At the age of four Nathaniel's father, a sea captain, died in 1808 in Surinam (Dutch Guiana) of yellow feverm leaving his wife and three kids dependent on the there relatives. In his early ages, Nathaniel, an only son, spent majority of his time in Salem and Maine. There he lived the mainstream life of a young boy as he skated, fished, and hunted. Nathaniel's education at home had placed him (because of a leg injury he suffered while playing ball) under the tutelage of Joseph Emerson Worcester. Resulting in his leg injury he was able to fashion his personality by focusing more of his time on thinking and reading. With the finacial help of his wealthy uncles, Hawthorne was able to attended Bowdoin College from 1821 to 1825.

After graduating college Hawthorne took "dreamlike isolation", where he drew sketches, wrote tales and short stories in a "haunted room". Facing the world again Hawthorne returned back to work where he served the position of a surveyor in the Salem Custom House in 1846. In 1848 Nathaniel was relieved of this position because of his political ties. His dissmissal, however, gave him the time to write his greatest success, The Scarlet Letter. Although Nathaniel had always been an exceptionally active man, his health began to fail him. Since he refused to submit to any thorough medical examination, the details of his declining health remain mysterious. Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864.

Historical Context of The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850, but was set in the time period of the mid-seventeenth century. The main characters live in Boston, Massachusetts, in a time when it was controlled by Puritan settlers. Most Puritans left England to gain the religious freedom promised in the colonies, as well as escape from what they viewed as a corrupt government and religious standard in England. They wished to be an ideal community to set an example for all of the Protestant world. Moral regulations were strict, and any violations of these regulations were severely handled. Women, especially, were subject to severity.
Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter during the Transcendentalist movement, but is generally not considered a part of the movement itself. This period also saw much revolution and a spread of abolitionism, which is incorporated into the book. Hawthorne was neither an aboltionist nor a supporter of slavery, but it is likely that the oppression he saw in America played a part in his portrayal of the oppression of Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale. The revolution in France occured in 1848, setting off several European upheavals, which showed that authority could be overthrown. These social upheavals were large-scale versions of the small revolution staged by Hester, Dimmesdale, and their daughter Pearl in The Scarlet Letter.

Plot Summary

This novel begins with a quite lengthy introduction of how this novel came to be written. Found in a customhouse's attic, an assortment of documents wrapped in a piece of cloth embroided with an 'A' was used to create a fictional novel wriiten by Hawthorne. The Scarlet Letter was originally set in Boston, Massachusetts and led to a classic novel read by most Americans. It reinforces the extreme change of the acceptance of society between then and now.

In the first few chapters, Hawthorne describes the setting and introduces some of the characters, who are soon to be the main characters. Hester Prynne is currently on the scaffold, or pubilc platform, for being accused of adultery. She is described as to be holding her daughter, Pearl, extremly close to her chest, which is marked by the scarlet 'A'. The entire town seems to be present in watching her suffer from public humiliation. Also, in the back of the crowd, a stranger inquires about what is happening to her. The stranger happens to be Hester's husband, who told her to go on to America and he would follow soon after, but did not come until now. While he was away she had a child with another man,Dimmesdale, who is later found as being the priest in the town. Soon after learning the knowledge of why Hester was on the scaffold, her husband, Chillingworth, went to visit her in prison. He keeps his sights on her for the rest of novel to find out who the child's father is.

One late night Dimmesdale went out to the town scaffold to confess his sins. Hester and Pearl spot and inquire what he is doing and he tells them to join him in confessing his sins. Then, Chillingworth comes up to them, saying he was on his way back from the funeral of Wilson. Once he was gone, a meteor marks the sky with a red 'A' while the three's hands are linked, standing on the scaffold. Hester doesn't reveal to Dimmesdale, the father of Pearl, who Chillingworth really is in relation to her until they are alone in the forest. This encounter in the forest is their first true moment of alone time, also with Pearl. They discuss their plans of escaping to Europe, which later are disrupted by Chillingworth, who somehow learned of their plans. Also, after leaving his last sermon, Dimmesdale goes to the scaffold, in front of everyone, to confess his sins and reveal the mark on his chest and dies. A year later Chillingworth dies and Hester leaves Boston with Pearl. Hester Prynne doesn't return until many years later and spends her time doing charity work. When Hester died, she was buried under a united headstone with Dimmesdale that displays a scarlet 'A'.