The Scarlet Letter
Uploaded by jtraina on Sep 14, 1999
People judge others they encounter based upon their own values. These values are acquired through experiences in the home, school, at work, and with friends. A person is taught from their parents at a very young age what is right and wrong, but they may fail to realize that the values they are taught are filtered through the minds of those who teach. Therefore one is a product of their previous generation adding our his or her judgement to the values that we will pass on.
Hawthorne judges the characters in The Scarlet Letter by using his own values. These values were drastically different from other Puritans. Instead of the stern, harsh values of the Puritans, Hawthorne sees life through the eyes of a Romantic. He judges each person accordingly, characterizing each person's sin as the pardonable sin of nature or the unpardonable sin of the human soul. One can infer, by the writing style, that Hawthorne is most forgiving to Hester.
He writes about Hester with a feeling of compassion that the descriptions of the other characters lack. Hawthorne approves of Hetser's feeling, vitality, and thirst to overcome the iron shackles of binding society. He shows us that although Hester is not permitted to express her feelings verbally because of social persecution, there is no one that can restrain the thoughts of the human mind. Hawthorne, being a romantic and man of nature himself, can relate to the this. - If you were to look up the human mating characteristics in a science book you may surprise yourself. The human instinct is to have more than one partner not to stay loyal to one partner- In fact Hester is often contrasted with the Puritan laws and rules, especially when Hawthorne states: "The world's law was no law for her mind." (70)
Roger Chillingworth's personality is one of intelligence and knowledge but no feeling. Hawthorne considers Roger Chilingworth's sin the worst in the book. In one of his journal entrees he labels it the "unpardonable sin." Hawthorne describes him as very cold and Puritan-like, an educated man that looked very scholarly. As stated here:
There was a remarkable intelligence in his features, as a person who had so cultivated his mental part that it could not fail to mould to physical to itself, and become manifest by unmistakable tokens. (67)
Hawthorne frequently refers to Chillingworth's genius and diction, but purposely fails to have...