https://padlet.com/2021doberlies/bp9mij0bfwllp4h7 By Danny Oberlies en-us 2020-06-10 23:14:02 UTC 2026-03-19 01:59:41 UTC hello@padlet.com 2021doberlies https://padlet.com/2021doberlies/bp9mij0bfwllp4h7/wish/629559427 One motif that is present throughout The Scarlet Letter is 'Night versus Day'. The day represents what is held as socially acceptable acts in society versus night, what is not socially acceptable that takes place. Hester Prynne contributes her actions to a spur-of-the-moment mistake, but does not want it to be publicized to the common man, “To say the truth, there was much needed professional assistance, not merely for Hester herself, but still more urgently for the child who, drawing sustenance from the maternal bosom, seemed to have drank in with it all the turmoil, the anguish and despair, which pervaded the mother’s system. It now writhed in convulsions of pain, and was a forcible type, and its little frame, of the moral agony which Hester Prynne had borne throughout the day” (Hawthorne 33).
It is very obvious that they names in this novel were chosen purposely. For example, Chillingsworth due to his cold and revengeful heart, and Dimmesdale because he is slowly dying due to his guilt from the affair. His light of life is growing dim, "so Mr. Dimmesdale, conscious that the poison of one morbid spot was infecting his heart's entire substance, attributed all his presentiments to no other cause” (Hawthorne 70).]]> 2020-06-16 20:35:08 UTC https://padlet.com/2021doberlies/bp9mij0bfwllp4h7/wish/629559427 2021doberlies https://padlet.com/2021doberlies/bp9mij0bfwllp4h7/wish/629560723 Sin is a very common theme throughout The Scarlet Letter. Reverend Dimmesdale commits adultery with Hester, going against his religion and proving him a sinning. This was shocking to the rest of the town, “‘I, your pastor, whom you so reverence and trust, am utterly a pollution and a lie!’ More than once, Mr. Dimmesdale had gone into the pulpit, with a purpose never to come down its steps until he should have spoken the words like the above. More than once he had cleared his throat, and drawn in the long, deep, and tremulous breath, which, when sent forth again, would come burdened with the black secret of his soul” (Hawthorne 71).
Another contributing theme to the novel is isolation. Mainly following the sins of Hester, she realizes that due to her actions, she has to live with the sense of isolationism and the exclusion from society,  “‘Mother’ said little Pearl, ‘the sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom. Now, see! There it is, playing a good way off. Stand you here, and let me run and catch it. I am but a child. It will not flee from me- for I wear nothing on my bosom yet!’” (Hawthorne 93).
"Lonely as was Hester's situation, and without a friend on earth..." (Hawthorne 38).]]> 2020-06-16 20:36:27 UTC https://padlet.com/2021doberlies/bp9mij0bfwllp4h7/wish/629560723 2021doberlies https://padlet.com/2021doberlies/bp9mij0bfwllp4h7/wish/629560850 The physical "Scarlet Letter" is a very prominent symbol throughout the novel. The letter begins with the meaning "adultery" due to Hester's actions. It is a symbol of embarrassment and shame, "On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold-thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it ... was of a splendor in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony."
But as the story progresses, the scarlet letter becomes this sign of dignity when worn on Pearl, “We've spoken of Pearl’s rich and luxurious 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 years, would be nearly akin to black. There was a fire in her and throughout her: she seemed the unpremeditated offshoot of a passionate moment. Her mother, in contriving the child‘s garb, had allowed the gorgeous tendencies of her imagination their full play, arraying her in a crimson velvet tunic of the peculiar cut, abundantly embroidered in fantasies and flourishes of gold thread. So much strength of coloring, which must have given a wan and pallid aspect to cheeks of a fainter bloom, was admirably adapted to Pearl's beauty, and made her the very brightest little dead aflame that ever danced upon the earth. But it was a remarkable attribute of this garb, and indeed, of the child’s whole appearance, that it irresistibly and inevitably reminded the beholder of the token which Hester Prynne was doomed to wear upon her bosom. It was the scarlet letter in another form: the scarlet letter endowed with life!” (Hawthorne 49).
Another pair of symbols in The Scarlet Letter is the forest/wilderness duo. This pair represents the true identity of what people do on their own time. Privacy. Basically the sin in society that directly opposes Puritan beliefs, a set of beliefs that Mr. Dimmesdale was sworn to follow. Very clearly, adultery is on the list of sin, "He was known to be a man of skill; it was observed that he gathered herbs and the blossoms of wild-flowers, and dug up roots and plucked off twigs from the forest trees like one acquainted with hidden virtues in what was valueless to common eyes. He was heard to speak of Sir Kenelm Digby and other famous men- whose scientific attainments were esteemed hardly less than supernatural- as having been his correspondence or associates. Why, with such rank in the learned world, has he come hither? What, could he, whose sphere was in great cities, be seeking in the wilderness?” (Hawthorne 58).]]> 2020-06-16 20:36:34 UTC https://padlet.com/2021doberlies/bp9mij0bfwllp4h7/wish/629560850 lwilliams48 https://padlet.com/2021doberlies/bp9mij0bfwllp4h7/wish/630523955
Truth itself is also a major theme and motif throughout.

What ab a discussion of characters?]]> 2020-06-17 13:13:24 UTC https://padlet.com/2021doberlies/bp9mij0bfwllp4h7/wish/630523955