Scarlet Letter: The Power of Sin
Sin is a powerful force that has the ability to destroy anything that comes in its path. In life, sin is able to control people and manipulate them into different individuals. Nowhere is this capability more evident than in Hawthorne's writing. Hawthorne uses powerful stories to display the pain and troubles even the smallest peccadillo can cause. In both "Young Goodman Brown" and The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne demonstrates that shame and guilt caused by sin are capable of escalating to mask the true humans behind their curtains. The scarlet letter disables Hester Prynne from fulfilling her potential, yet she is able to survive by becoming a different person. She can no longer live the life she once had. The letter, which represents all sins, hides Hester's beauty and passion, to the extent that she only becomes known as the carrier of the letter. As the narrator states, The effect of the symbolXor rather, of the position in respect to society that was indicated by itXon the mind of Hester Prynne herself, was powerful and peculiar. All the light and graceful foliage of her character had been withered up by this red-hot brand, and had long ago fallen away, leaving a bare and harsh outline, which might have been repulsive, had s
(114)Dimmesdale's paranoia of all those around him, blocks him from being able to recognize the evil which Chillingworth is bestowing upon him. Guilt can make a strong individual an improved person (as in Hester's case), but the weak will become lost in shame (as in the situations of Dimmesdale and Goodman Brown). He returned from the forest as "A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man did he become from the night of that fearful dream" (744). The guilt that rises out of the sin weakens him mentally and physically. It groveled helpless on the ground, even while his intellectual faculties retained their pristine strength, or had perhaps acquired a morbid energy, which disease only could have given them. Regarding the evil Roger Chillingworth, the narrator explains,Mr. This view soon changes upon realizing that everyone in his life has hidden sin. He does not want anybody to uncover the secret that is running his life. Dimmesdale would perhaps have seen this individual's character more perfectly, if a certain morbidness, to which sick hearts are liable, had not rendered him suspicious of all mankind. His moral force was abased into more than childish weakness. By being an outcast, Hester is able to find herself in the sea of pain and sorrow. The transformation is seen very clearly on the morning after his adventure, when he encounters Faith in the town. Goodman Brown is an example that omniscience causes a loss of innocence that transforms man. He states, "she's a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night I'll cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven" (736).
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