Literary Elements in The Scarlet Letter

Plot 1 Takes place over a seven-year period. Involves the familiar triangle of wife-lover-husband Is a struggle between good and evil, with the eternal souls of the characters at stake

Plot 2 Suspense is built around these questions:  Will the identities of the lover and the husband be revealed?  How will the identities of the lover and the husband be revealed?

Plot 3 The main psychological movement in the novel derives from the husband’s insatiable quest for revenge

Setting Boston in the mid-1600s Provides a framework of rigid social mores and religious beliefs a “people amongst whom religion and law were almost identical”

Definition of “mores” The accepted traditional customs and usages of a particular social group Moral attitudes Manners or ways

Structure Hawthorne’s form of the novel was writing innovative for 1850 Instead of an ongoing chronicle of events, it is a series of separate, fully realized scenes interspersed with expository chapters

Point of View omniscient Hawthorne reveals both the inner and outer lives of his characters with asides on social criticism, history and psychology

Major Characters

Hester Prynne 1 Young Englishwoman Has been living alone in Boston Her husband has been missing for several years

Hester Prynne 2 Has given birth to a child Refuses to name the father She pays for her sin in many ways, although she never renounces her love for Dimmesdale

Arthur Dimmesdale A popular and admired young clergyman Refuses to acknowledge that he is the father of Hester's child Undergoes intense internal suffering and becomes prey to Chillingworth’s slow revenge

Roger Chillingworth 1 Hester’s husband A scholar much older than she Arrives in Boston after years of captivity Finds that his wife has just given birth to a daughter

Roger Chillingworth 2 Is the major antagonist The novel chronicles his spiritual deterioration He takes revenge on Dimmesdale, whom he suspects, correctly, of being the child’s father

Pearl the daughter blithe (happy, joyful)‏ highly intuitive ( capable of knowing without deduction or reasoning)‏ intelligent imaginative

Theme 1 The effects of sin and the possibility of redemption  Hawthorne is interested primarily in the psychological and social consequences of sin on his characters and in their process of redemption

Theme 1: the effects of sin and the possibility of redemption Hester  The consequence of sin is isolation from society  Her redemption is worked out through a life of patient and selfless work

Dimmesdale  Consequence of his sin is internal anguish caused by his guilt and the psychological torment inflicted by Chillingworth  His redemption comes only with confession Theme 1: the effects of sin and the possibility of redemption

Chillingworth  His sin is obsession with revenge and violating “in cold blood, the sanctity of a human heart”  The consequence is a gradual shriveling of both soul and body  Redemption escapes him Theme 1: the effects of sin and the possibility of redemption

Theme 1: Secondary Effect Insight into the hearts of others is a secondary effect of the sin of all three characters  As eating the forbidden apple brought a kind of knowledge to Eve and Adam

Theme 1: Secondary Effect Insight into the hearts of others Both Hester and Dimmesdale use this understanding to positive ends Chillingworth, however, uses his insight to torment the already suffering Dimmesdale

Theme 2: Hypocrisy 1 Hypocrisy appears in the conflict between outer appearance and inner reality

Theme 2: Hypocrisy 2 Depicted in the vindictiveness of the pious women of town toward Hester

Theme 2: Hypocrisy 3 Illustrated in the portrayals of Chillingworth and Dimmesdale  Both live hypocritically  Each poses as something other than what they are

Major Symbols 1 The scarlet letter itself is the central symbol It changes meaning for the people of Boston as Hester steadfastly works out her absolution The A also becomes the pathway to redemption for Dimmesdale

Major Symbols 2 The scaffold  the cruel public exposure of private sins  the means to redemption through confession

Major Symbols 3 Elements of nature are used to symbolize good and evil  Evil: weeds, unsightly vegetation, darkness, and shade  Good: flowers, sun, and light  The forest is a changeable symbol representing both good and evil

Irony 1 Situational Irony is central to the action of the novel Situational Irony is the contrast between the intention or purpose of an action and its result In situational irony, the expectations aroused by a situation are reversed

Situational Irony 1 The guilty Dimmesdale is able to minister brilliantly to his congregation

Situational Irony 2 Chillingworth is the wronged husband  He might normally claim reader sympathy  But he turns out to be a fiend  A physician who destroys rather than heals