Scarlet Letter Essay - :: essays research papers

The Scarlet LetterIt is six in the morning at an Arizona prison house. A pris iodinr named Jonas has been awoken by the prison bell, which sounds more like a horn, and signals that it is time for the prisoners to awake. Jonas quickly gets up, makes his bed and then stands at the door of his cell awaiting a prison guard who will be doing the daily check of his cell. While waiting for the guard, Jonas thinks to himself ab bring out what his day will be like, but he soon realizes that it will be the same as the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that, and so on. Jonas then grows quickly depressed, for he realizes, as he always does, that his life is filled with repetition and he is trapped by it. Like Jonas, many characters in the novel, The Scarlet Letter, experience the feeling of being caught in one way or other . Among those characters are Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, Pearl Prynne and Hester Prynne. These characters are truly affected by entrapment. From begin ning to end, many factors contribute to making Mr. Dimmesdale feel trapped in one way or another. To start, he is trapped in silence and pain. His need to be silent and the pain that he feels because of it, is shown when he says to Hester Prynne, in front of the townsfolk, Hester Prynne, ... I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer Be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him for, believe me, Hester, though he were to touchstone down from a high place, and stand there beside thee on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life. What canister thy silence do for him , except it tempt him-yea, compel him, as it were-to add hyprocisy to sin? Heaven hath granted thee an open ignominy, that thereby thou mayest work out an open triumph over evil within thee, and the sorrow without. Take heed how thou deniest to him-who perchance, hath not the courage to grasp it for himself - the bitt er, wholesome, cup that is now presented to thy lips (Hawthorne, 62).The town does not know it yet, but Mr. Dimmesdale is Hester Prynne&8217s fellow sinner.