Gender and Status Inequality Before the Law Readers could feel the genuineness of Hester’s contrite heart, having been legally married to Roger Chillingworth, her long lost husband – even though she would never regret the love she feels for Dimmesdale and the product of such love being her child, Pearl. Hester and Dimmesdale – two prominent characters harboring the most damnable sin of their era – appear to have had a contrite heart after the act, particularly with Hester, who is publicly announced and disgraced.
The sin for which she is being punished is that of adultery – which she commits with a Christian preacher, Arthur Dimmesdale.īeing she lives in the era of a Christian-inspired puritan society, her punishment becomes one of massive social shaming and disgrace – whereby she has to wear a dress with a large inscription of the letter ‘A’ appearing on her chest in blood red color. Hester Prynne, who is the heroine of the book, is one of the characters who bear such guilts of sin and punishment.
These are probably the two most obvious themes of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘ The Scarlet Letter’ and they are very clearly executed throughout the pages of the book – beginning from the first chapter. The most important ones will be analyzed in this article. There are some foundational themes as there are other subsets that still carry a vital message in them. Hawthorne’s move to go by such name as ‘ The Scarlet Letter’ for the book’s title is symbolic in itself and already hints at the themes of penitence and punishment for the crime of adultery committed by two of the book’s major characters in Hester Prynne and the priest – Arthur Dimmesdale.
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