The Scarlet Letter

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The Scarlet Letter
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Analysis of characters
Hester Prynne
the main characters
Arthur Dimmesdale
Roger Chillingworth
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Major characters in The Scarlet Letter
Roger Chillingworth
Arthur Dimmesdale
husband
lover
Hester Prynne
daughter
Pearl
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Major characters in The Scarlet Letter
attractive, appealing, intelligent, capable
Passionate has a love affair with Dimmesdale
strong and stoic she endures years of shame and
scorn
Hester
contemplative speculates on human nature, social
organization, and larger moral questions.
maternalmoderates her tendency to be rash cares
for the poor and brings them food and clothing
a protofeminist mother figure to the women of the
community
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Why does she repeatedly refuse to stop wearing
the letter?

• A--her passport into regions where other women
  dared not tread

her behavior
She desires to determine her own identity rather
than to allow others to determine it for her
she is determined to transform its meaning
through her actions and her own self-perception
She is unwilling to erase her past deed and her
past decisions
She is not the example of sin that she was once
intended to be. Rather, she is an example of
redemption(??) and self-empowerment.
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What makes Dimmesdales mental anguish?

• 1.Hester takes all of the blame for their shared
  sin goads,his conscience, and his resultant
  mental anguish.
• 2.The townspeople do not believe Dimmesdales
  protestations of sinfulness. This drives
  Dimmesdale to further internalize his guilt and
  self-punishment and leads to still more
  deterioration in his physical and spiritual
  condition.

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Chillingworth
true evil

• his name --- a man deficient in human warmth
• His appearance--- twisted, stooped, deformed
  shoulders--- his distorted soul
• His identity of a leech---he feeds on the
  vitality of others as a way of energizing his own
  projects.
• He is interested in revenge---after Dimmesdale
  dies, Chillingworth no longer has a victim.
  Having lost the objects of his revenge, the leech
  has no choice but to die.

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Themes of The Scarlet Letter
Dont intend to tell a love story or a story of
sin
assumes the universality(???) of guilty
Hawthorne
explores the complexities and ambiguities of
mans choices
focuses his attention on the moral, emotional,
and psychological effects of the sin on the people
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Everybody is potentially(???) a sinner, and great
moral courage is indispensable(?????) for the
improvement of human nature
Hawthorne
The book is an examination of the forces that
shape Hester and the transformations those forces
effect, a hymn on the moral growth of the woman
when sinned against.
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sinners
Hester Dimmesdale Chillingworth
confesses her guilty, faces the future
optimistically,helps others
hides his guilty first
morally degrads by his pursuit of revenge
undergoes the physical and spiritual torments
is able to construct her life, wins a moral
success
die
moral growth(????)
angel
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writing characteristics

• 1)It is a cultural allegory(?????) and
  structurally compact.

twenty-four chapters
are knitted together
scaffold scenes
in the beginning, the middle, and the end
All the four major characters are at the scene
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Writing characteristics

• 2)Hawthorne's ambiguity

people offer different views concerning the sign
of the letter A on the dead minister's chest. The
author doesn't give his views. So, People come up
with different interpretations.
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Writing characteristics

• 3)It is a kind of romance.
• Two lovers come together, finally united in
  death.
• 4)Hawthorne's use of the supernatural.
• The appearance of the symbol A in the sky is in
  twilight atmosphere, all things, natural or
  otherwise, may become probable.

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Writing characteristics
5) His use of symbols
the central symbol
the scarlet letter A
Adultery
Able
Angel
a token of shame
A appears in the sky
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What does A mean to the chief characters
respectively?

• For Puritan society, it just means punishment.
• For Hester, it means unjust humiliation.
• For Dimmesdale, its a reminder of his own sin.
• For Chillingworth, its a request for revenge.
• For Pearl, its nothing but a beautiful cloth.
• It is a guide for Hester to go to heaven, and
  Dimmesdale hell.