Sin and Isolation Theme in The Scarlet letterword精品文档13页

Sin and Isolation Theme in The Scarlet letter

Through a series of analysis of the three major characters in the article,the problems such as who is the truest sinner, what their own views about the sin are and what the profound impacts on their successive acts are are revealed. Hence, a more penetrating understanding about the book and the author's writing style is obtained.

Sin and isolation are the two main subjects that Hawthorne attempted to deal with in The Scarlet letter.

Generally speaking, isolation is the result of sin in the book. Different characters hold different views about sin and isolation. To one character, adultery is transgression against God's law, to another, no more than a violation of the natural order of things. Likewise, to one character, “ hypocrisy is a violation of his own nature, to another, a transgression against the moral code of the community”. Furthermore, as the nature of the sin differs, the nature of the isolation as its result differs. To be specific, when a character feels isolated, he feels isolated from someone or something. Therefore, isolation is a feeling of estrangement from those persons or things whose code the individual feels he has violated. To make the problem clearer, we need to consider the three major characters respectively.

As a symbol of sin, Hester is regarded by the strict Puritanical town as a presence of evil detested by God. Under the harsh condemnation, she never truly does extricate herself from segregation in her life. She has absolutely no communication with the world except for her occasional trips to town and there is nowhere for her to escape the glares of humanity.

Actually no one of the three major characters comes into the story guiltlessly. Of the three, however, Hester has the misfortune of being the only one unable to hide her guilt, and so it is upon her that the penalties of the community fall. Hester experiences the most evident and apparent form of isolation and alienation. It is unnecessary to go into detail about her public humiliation or her subsequent life in the small cottage at the edge of town. What interests us is her own attitude toward that enforced estrangement or toward her misstep. In the first place, it is evident that Hester does not feel she has sinned against God, partly because God has never been a real presence in her life. But chiefly, we can infer that, it is because she experiences no new sense of estrangement from God as the result of her adultery. She attends church" trusting to share the Sabbath smile of the Universal Father". Moreover, though man has punished her for her sin, God has given her " a lovely child, whose place was on that same dishonored bosom, to connect