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Literary Elements in The Scarlet Letter

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:

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Literary Elements in The Scarlet Letter

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  1. Literary Elements inThe Scarlet Letter

  2. 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

  3. 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?

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

  5. 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”

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

  7. 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

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

  9. Major Characters

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

  11. 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

  12. 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

  13. 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

  14. 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

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

  16. 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

  17. 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

  18. 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

  19. 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

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

  21. Theme 1: Secondary EffectInsight 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

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

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

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

  25. 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 alsobecomes the pathway to redemption for Dimmesdale

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

  27. 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

  28. 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

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

  30. 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

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