-
Essay / Original Sin in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
In Hawthorne's complex tale, The Scarlet Letter, his characters create a parallel theme with the biblical story of original sin. By examining the characters, their interactions, and their ideas about each other, one can examine the symbolic parallels to the Garden of Eden. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essayOne aspect of the Garden of Eden theme is represented by the connection between Hester and Dimmesdale. Hester's story parallels Eve, the original mother of humanity, a woman exiled from the New Garden of Eden due to an unforgivable sin. She is condemned forever to leave the garden, no longer able to enjoy the fruits of paradise, prevented from entering by an apparent “divine intervention”. Hester is Dimmesdale's temptress, offering him the fruit of good and evil which, so far, removes all naivety and forces him to walk, tortured, through the world with the knowledge of good, evil and magnitude of his sin seeming to approach him. him at each new turn of the dark path he takes. Dimmesdale is a fallen hero, one of God's chosen, who fell from grace at the moment of his original sin. He too is excluded from society because once his eyes are opened to the knowledge of good and evil, he cannot remain a true member of the blind and childish Puritan society. Instead of leading the brilliant life one would expect from Dimmesdale's deep faith, he is still tortured by his two-faced appearance. He imagines: “A flock of evil forms smiled and mocked the pale minister, and beckoned him to go away with them” (Hawthorne 141). Thus, Dimmesdale provides insight into his own character by examining his divided character and appearance. He realizes that society is innocent and blind and that, even admitting its guilt, it cannot believe it because it does not see evil. “He had spoken the very truth and transformed it into the most absolute lie” (Hawthorne 1410). Hester's connection to Dimmesdale seems more deeply rooted, just as Eve was Adam's wife in such a connected way because "from Adam's rib was born a woman." " (the Holy Bible). When Dimmesdale and Hester meet again after their sin, their reaction is close to that of Adam and Eve who, after eating the fruit, discover their nakedness and hide from the Lord in the shadows of the garden . When Hester meets Dimmesdale on her walk in the forest, both men feel an unspoken need to hide in the shadows, both in a moral and physical sense “Without another word, neither he nor she assumes leadership. , but with unexpressed consent they. fell back into the shadow of the woods from which Hester had come” (Hawthorne 181). Yet none of these sins would have occurred without the serpent, the earthly incarnation of the Devil, a creature seeking the ruin of morality and righteousness. several times throughout the novel by the ideas of various characters. Chillingworth, once an honest man, is reduced to a state of crawling, condemned to crawling on the earth on his stomach due to his role as an evil tempter. He admits to Hester, “My first wrong was that in which I betrayed your budding youth into a false and unnatural relation with my decadence” (Hawthorne 79). He admits that he is the cause of Hester's sin, the malevolent character who quickly pushes an innocent young man to the brink of ruin. Once he had wreaked these original ravages, the poisoned evil entered his soul, bringing him.