Analysis of Characters In “The Scarlet Letter”

NAME: - ASHISH B. PITHADIYA
ROLL NUMBER:-2
TOPIC NAME: - Analysis Characters In “The Scarlet Letter”
PAPER NAME: - The American Literature
SUBMITTED TO: - DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
G-MAIL ID: - ashvribhay@gmail.com
Enrollment no:-2069108420190037

Introduction:-

Summary At the end of Dimmesdale's Election Day sermon, the crowd emerges from the church; they are extremely enthusiastic about the inspired and powerful words which they have just heard from a man whom they feel is soon to die. Seemingly, this is the most brilliant and triumphant moment in Dimmesdale's public life.

As the procession of dignitaries which has formed to march to a banquet at the town hall approaches the marketplace, the feelings of the crowd are expressed in a spontaneous shout of tribute. "Never, on New England soil, has stood the man so honored by his mortal breth- ren, as the preacher!" They are speaking, of course, about Dimmesdale. But the shout dies to a murmur as the people see Dimmesdale tottering feebly and nervously in the procession. His face has taken deathly pallor, and he can scarcely walk. The Reverend Mr. e uo Wilson attempts to give some support to Dimmesdale, but the minister repels him and struggles on until he comes to the scaffold, where Hester stands holding Pearl by the hand. There, Dimmesdale pauses. Governor Bellingham leaves his place in the procession to help Dimmesdale, but he is strangely repelled by a certain "something" in the minister's appearance.

Dimmesdale tells Hester that he is dying and must acknowledge his shame. Then he turns to the crowd and cries out his guilt. Hester lifts Dimmesdale's head and cradles it against her bosom. Chillingworth, meanwhile, kneels down and, in a tone of defeat, keeps repeating, "Thou hast escaped me!" Dimmesdale asks God's forgiveness

Characters in "Scarlett Letter"

1. Hester Prynne
2. Arthur Dimmesdale
3. Roger Chillingworth

4. Pearl

CHARACTER ANALYSES

Hester Prynne

Hester Prynne Hester is introduced as being young, tall, and beautiful, with an elegant figure, abundant glossy dark hair, a rich complexion, and deep- set black eyes

She comes from an impoverished but genteel English family, poverty-stricken having lived in a "decayed house of gray stone, with a aspect, but retaining a half-obliterated shield of arms over the portal, in token of antique gentility." But even without that specific indication of her high birth, the reader would know that Hester is a lady from her bearing and pride, especially in Chapter 2, when she bravely faces the humiliation of the scaffold: "And never had Hester Prynne appeared more lady-like, in the antique interpretation of the term, than as she issued from the prison."

Hester's sin (committed about a year before the novel begins) is the sin which gives the book its title and around which the action of the book revolves. Adultery, prohibited by the Seventh Command ment, was so seriously condemned by the Puritans of seventeenth century Massachusetts that it was often punished by death.

But the most important facts to note about Hester's sin of adultery are, first, that her sin was a sin of passion-rather than a sin of in- tellect. This fact distinguishes her from Chillingworth. He deliber- ately, with his intellect, sets out to destroy Dimmesdale. In addition Hester's sin is openly acknowledged, rather than concealed in her heart. This fact distinguishes her from Dimmesdale, who chooses to hide his sin.

Arthur Dimmesdale

Arthur Dimmesdale Dimmesdale is young, pale, and physically delicate. He has large melancholy eyes and a tremulous mouth, suggesting great sensitivity He also has that fresh and childlike quality which undoubtedly brings out the "mother instinct" in his female parishioners.

Why does Dimmesdale conceal his sin during seven long years of torment-both by Chillingworth and by his own conscience? In Chapter 10, Dimmesdale himself offers two possible explanations, he says: "It may be that they are kept silent by the very constitution of their nature. Or-can we not suppose it-guilty as they may be, retaining, nevertheless, a zeal for God's glory and man's welfare, they shrink from displaying themselves black and filthy in the view of men; because, thenceforward, no good can be achieved by them; no evil of the past be redeemed by better service."

Chillingworth's remarks show the importance of Dimmesdale's confession: "Hadst thou sought the whole earth over, there was no no place so secret-no high place or lowly place where thou couldsi have escaped me-save on this very scaffold!" In fact, Hawthorne himself in his "Conclusion” In many ways, The Scarlet Letter is Dimmesdale's story. The central struggle is his. Whereas the other characters occupy relatively fixed positions, the minister must-in one dramatic decision-reverse his actions of seven years' time.

Roger Chillingworth

Roger Chillingworth When Chillingworth first appears, having just ended over a year's captivity by the Indians, his appearance is hideous, partly because of his strange mixture of "civilized and savage costume." But even when he is better dressed, he is far from attractive. He is small, thin, and slightly deformed, with one shoulder higher than the other. Al- though he "could hardly be termed aged," he has a wrinkled face and appears "well stricken in years." He has, however, a look of calm intelligence, and his eyes, though they have a "strange, penetrating power, are dim and bleared, and testifying to long hours of study under lamplight.

Ignorance, however, does not excuse Chillingworth's selfish desire to have a lovely young wife. And one should remember that Chillingworth was largely ignorant about other people. He hadn't been around them; he had immersed himself in his studies. But he knows now that he was wrong to marry a woman who did not love him. He did sin, and he knows it: "Mine was the first wrong, when I betrayed thy budding youth into a false and unnatural relation with my decay."

But far worse than that offense is the sin which begins to take possession of Chillingworth when he first appears at the scaffold scene. Briefly defined, this sin is the subordination of the heart to the intellect. It occurs when one is willing to sacrifice his fellow man to gratify his own selfish interests. As displayed in Chillingworth, it involves a violation of two biblical injunctions: (1) "Judge not, that ye be not judged" and (2) "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord."

This particular point is made specifically in Chapter 17, when Dimmesdale says to Hester: "We are not, Hester, the worst sinners in the world. There is one worse than even the polluted priest [a reference to Dimmesdale himself! That old man's revenge [Chilling- worth's] has been blacker than my sin. He has violated, in cold blood the sanctity of a human heart. Thou and I, Hester, never did so!"

Pearl

Pearl rearl appears first as an infant, then at the age of three, and finally at the age of seven. The fullest description of her comes in Chapter 6. There, we see her at the age of three. We learn that she possesses a rich and luxuriant beauty; a beauty that shone with deep and vivid tints; a bright complexion, eyes possessing intensity both of depth and glow, and hair already of a deep, glossy brown and which, in after ears, would be nearly akin to black. Was imbibing her soul from the spiritual world, and her bodily frame from its material of earth. The mother's impassioned state had been the medium through which were transmitted to the unborn infant the rays of its moral life; and, however white and clear originally, they had taken the deep stains of crimson and gold, the fiery lustre, the black shadow, and the untempered light of the intervening sub- stance. Above all, the warfare of Hester's spirit, at that epoch, was perpetuated in Pearl."

As Pearl grows older, her actions and her questions are matters of increasing torment to Hester. Pearl pelts the scarlet letter with flowers, "covering the mother's breast with hurts for which she could find no balm in this world," and then she adds to Hester's pain by demanding to know where she "came from," and by refusing to accept Hester's biblical explanation that Pearl's Heavenly Father sent her (Chapter 6).