Clark Bolding
Mrs. O’Neal
AP English Language and Composition-4
14 November 2015
The Scarlet Letter Writing about Reading
Defense of Passages Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book The Scarlet Letter contains many overarching themes throughout the book. The author uses the themes to teach the reader a moral lesson. The main theme of the scarlet letter is sin, which causes many other ideas such as isolation and guilt as well as many others. The Scarlet letter is about a woman named Hester Prynne who cheats on her thought to be dead husband with minister Dimmesdale conceiving a child . The child is named Pearl and brings the light of a child to the evil act that was done. All the while Hester’s husband now known as Roger Chillingworth arrives in town and plans to seek revenge on whoever impregnated Hester. The description of events seems to be short, however the largest conflicts do not happen outwardly but rather internally.
The internal conflict that the book is built around can best be seen in chapter 10 where Chillingworth discuss the idea of sin and taking responsibility for one’s actions as opposed to leading a life of …show more content…
Chillingworth says this in an effort to test Dimmesdale’s reaction to the topic because he suspects him to be the father of Perl, but has no proof of it. Dimmesdale responds with “...it must needs be better for the sufferer to be free to show his pain, as this poor woman Hester is, than to cover it all up in his heart.” This shows that Dimmesdale understands what it is he has to do to feel free, however his knowledge does not mean anything unless he acts upon it. The ministers silent suffering from his sin causes him to become distant from everyone leaving him hopeless and alone even though there are many people around. The isolation only continues to get worse because he has no one to turn to except the person he does not speak
Mrs. O’Neal
AP English Language and Composition-4
14 November 2015
The Scarlet Letter Writing about Reading
Defense of Passages Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book The Scarlet Letter contains many overarching themes throughout the book. The author uses the themes to teach the reader a moral lesson. The main theme of the scarlet letter is sin, which causes many other ideas such as isolation and guilt as well as many others. The Scarlet letter is about a woman named Hester Prynne who cheats on her thought to be dead husband with minister Dimmesdale conceiving a child . The child is named Pearl and brings the light of a child to the evil act that was done. All the while Hester’s husband now known as Roger Chillingworth arrives in town and plans to seek revenge on whoever impregnated Hester. The description of events seems to be short, however the largest conflicts do not happen outwardly but rather internally.
The internal conflict that the book is built around can best be seen in chapter 10 where Chillingworth discuss the idea of sin and taking responsibility for one’s actions as opposed to leading a life of …show more content…
Chillingworth says this in an effort to test Dimmesdale’s reaction to the topic because he suspects him to be the father of Perl, but has no proof of it. Dimmesdale responds with “...it must needs be better for the sufferer to be free to show his pain, as this poor woman Hester is, than to cover it all up in his heart.” This shows that Dimmesdale understands what it is he has to do to feel free, however his knowledge does not mean anything unless he acts upon it. The ministers silent suffering from his sin causes him to become distant from everyone leaving him hopeless and alone even though there are many people around. The isolation only continues to get worse because he has no one to turn to except the person he does not speak