The Scarlet Letter
When Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter, he filled the story with archetypes. He used archetypes from three different categories. They are plot, character, and symbolic archetypes. Because of these three elements, The Scarlet Letter is an archetypal book. The first plot archetype is the battle between good and evil. In the story, Roger Chillingworth represents evil and is also seen as the devil figure. He was said to be the "Black Man" that lived in the forest and carried a book with people's names signed in blood. It is also said that Chillingworth resembled Satan. Hester Prynne and the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale represent the good in the story, and are both ultimately "good," despite the fact that they committed adultery. The "battle" that the three characters have, has to do with Chillingworth's obsession with getting vengeance on Dimmesdale. After Chillingworth finds out that Dimmesdale was the one Hester had the affair with, Chillingworth makes it a point to get revenge on the two. He mainly concentrates his evil doings on Dimmesdale though, because he figured that the scarlet letter was enough punishment for Hester. So he makes Dimmesdale suffer by digging deeper into the guilt t
She is the heroin, the scapegoat, and the outcast. At one point in the book, she even thought of committing suicide and murdering Pearl. She stayed strong so that she could raise her daughter, Pearl. But before Hester and Arthur relieved themselves of their sins, the forest was dark representing their despair. The sunlight also poured down upon her and Dimmesdale. Despite all the criticism she encountered, she never gave up. Light symbolizes hope, renewal, and also innocence. The "A" not only stands for "adulterer" but it also represents Dimmesdale's first name, which is Arthur. Throughout her entire ordeal, Hester was always courageous. The rosebush also symbolizes Pearl's free will, and how she will not be affected tremendously by the Puritanical society that she grew up in. Later in the book the letter also comes to mean "able" for Hester by the townspeople. For example, the sunlight always seemed to follow Pearl around, and "hide" from Hester leaving her in the dark. It was hard for him to be a minister, a person of God, when he knew what sin he had committed. The fact that the rosebush was pink means a lot, because pink is made up of red and white. In The Scarlet Letter, archetypes play a very important role.
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Acceptance Essays
