Society and Characters in The Scarlet Letter :: essays research papers

Nathaniel Hawthorne chose the commercialise frame and the forest as settings employ to symbolically develop his portrait of society and the characters in The Scarlet Letter. In this novel a story unfolds of three people who are lacerate apart by sin, revenge, and guilt. The market place reveals to the reader a place of restraint and severe Puritan laws. The setting of the forest yieldsthe impressions of wild unrestraint and passion. The market place paints a criminal maintenanceful picture of restraint and law that seldom delves into the depths of raw human emotion. As we study the buildings, we receive an equally stringent message. The churches plant a vision of austere religion and conformity into the minds of eagre readers. The closeness of the buildings in proximity to one another demonstrates the level of care andinterest each member of the population is meant to take in the others. atomic number 53 of the most prominent structures in the market place is the hold. It was in short, the syllabus of the pillory and above it rose the framework of that instrument of discipline, so make as to confine the human head in its tight grasp, and thus holding it up to public gaze. The very ideal of ignominy was substantiate and made manifest in this contrivance of wood and iron (56). It was made overhear that this structure was a symbol of punishment to the people, but it withal came to be a symbol of sin, guilt, death, and release. How did this structure take on so more meanings throughout the book? The answer is that each time there was an solvent occurring at the scaffold, each of the main characters was present. The place that Hawthorne chose to unite the characters and hoard symbolic meaning was the scaffold. In the second chapter, entitled The Market-Place, the reader is first introduced to Hester Prynne as she serves her punishment on the scaffold with her child, Pearl, in her arms. A careful look back of this scene reveals her minister Dimmes dale abovethe scaffold and her husband, Chillingworth, in the crowd. From the very beginning, Hawthorne has brought these characters unitedly in the ominous presence of the scaffold.In chapter seven, entitled The Ministers Vigil, we find Dimmesdale stand up atop the scaffold with his arms outstretched to his mundane lover and daughter. Chillingworth also emerges out of the darkness to call in the minister. In the final scaffold scene, we see the minister openly admit his sin, with Hester and Pearl by his side, and Chillingworth at the bottom of the