The_Scarlet_Letter

The Scarlet Letter The Scarlet Letter One belief that people live by is that evil is the nature of mankind, yet there are others that feel man has good intentions but those intentions can be overrun by the devil. Nathaniel Hawthorne points out that the former is true of all people in the novel The Scarlet Letter. In this novel, there are three main characters who commit evil and sinful acts, but each act is at a different degree of sinfulness. For example the sins get worse as the story goes on. These three sinners, in the eyes of the puritan community are the beautiful Hester Prynne, the esteemed Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, and the cold-hearted doctor, Roger Chillingworth. Like Hawthorne, I believe that evil is the nature of man but that there are different magnitudes of evil; some choose to fight it, like Hester, and some choose to give in, like Chillingworth. In the novel, Hester received a scarlet letter, “A,” for her sins, which she had to wear upon her chest for the rest of her life in Boston. This was the Puritan way of punishing her for her criminal action of adultery. She wondered hester, evil, chillingworth, sin, dimmesdale, man, puritan, novel, god, first, worse, sins, roger, people, life, hawthorne, even, committed, against, adultery, admit, wrong, worst, upon, until, through, sinners, sinful, scarlet, reverend, out, one, letter, himself, heart