Character Dilemma Topic (the Scarlet

¶ … character dilemma topic (the Scarlet Letter)

Nathaniel Hawthorne's the Scarlet Letter develops themes such as personal development, sin, society and human condition. The characters in this book are the products of the society at a certain time in history. The Puritan society of New England believed in redemption only through a pure life. But a life of perfection and purity was, according to the Christian faith possible only in the case of Jesus. Humanity altogether is born from the original sin and according to the same faith, it Jesus already paid for every past and future sin of us humans.

The story told by the narrator takes place in Salem, New England, in the seventeenth century. Puritanism was still flourishing in that society and any member of its community that tries to break the religious law was severely punished. The heroine, Hester Prynne, is charged with adultery and forced to live isolated, at the outskirts of the town, always bearing the letter a on her clothes.

Her sin is actually not the focus of the philosophy for the characters involved. Hester herself will grow and understand her role in that particular society and build a life worth living for her and her daughter. The two characters that will eventually pay with their life are her former husband, who took the name of Roger Chillingworth and the minister, Arthur Dimmesdale, the father of her daughter who did not stand up for his fault and for Hester and his daughter when they were thrown stones at by the public opinion.

The actual sins are thus not Hester's adultery, but the minister's cowardice and her former husband's plans of revenge. Society as a whole could not help, but act according to the laws one thought fit to protect it from destruction. The community was blind, but not nearly as guilty of sin as the two men in Hester's life. The narrator reminds the reader of the two most important things a new colony was first raising on its new founded ground: a prison and a cemetery. Death and punishment were the two tools that gave people a certainty and the power to believe in their future as a community. That is why, although they are guilty of hypocrisy and prejudice, they are having the excuse of being blinded by their struggle to keep their community alive at all costs.