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10/1/2010

GROUP TWO:

1. All of the characters in The Scarlet Letter make mistakes. They all have their own agendas, and they all succumb at one point or another to human desires and fallacies. So who is the antagonist in The Scarlet Letter? Who is the chief villain that orchestrates the largest amount of trouble for the characters? If there isn't an antagonist, why?

2. Look back at the character assigned to you. Provide a complete character study on this character. What insight did you learn about the character, now that the novel is complete? What significant actions/statements revealed character traits (physical, mental, personality, etc.) concerning your character? Use examples to explain the character in detail. This will serve as a study guide for your classmates. This will be a LONGER answer than what you have been doing!!!
3.

Discuss the symbol of the scarlet letter; what does it signify? How does it function in the novel? How does its meaning change over time? What, besides “adultery,” can the A stand for in this story?

21 Comments

Carly VanLandingham

3/6/2011 10:07:57 am

The main antagonist would probably be Chllingworth. He causes most of the problems for the characters. He is constantly digging at Dimmesdale trying to get him to confess his sin. He also gave Hester an extremely hard time about committing adultery. He also causes Hester additionally stress towards the end of the story because he goes behind her back and tells the sea captain that he is part of her party. He does everything in his power to make her and Arthur feel absolutely terrible.

Alivia Cutts link

3/7/2011 12:37:05 am

Question 1
I really think the whole community are the antagonists. They all are the reason that it was harder for Hester, Pearl, Dimmensdale, and Chillingworth. The cheif villian is Chillingworth. I believe he is the one who made it harder for the other characters because he was slowly becoming more evil and doiong more evil to Dimmensdale who is the preacher that commited adultury with Hester, who was Chillingworth's fformer wife, and he wanted revenge.

Alivia Cutts link

3/7/2011 12:41:05 am

Question 3
The symbol of The Scarlet Letter is the letter A. The letter A signifies what the community is against. The community used it as a punishment against Hester for the daily reminder to both for her and the community, that she sinned. The letter A on Hester breasts first singnifies Adultary for Hester's sins she commited, but by the end of the book it symbolizes Able, for her ability to help others who are ill or thosse who just need things that the community can not give.

Alivia Cutts

3/7/2011 04:29:38 am

Question 2
Pearl is a mysterious being to Hester and the rest of the community. The community thought Pearl as a devil child. She danced and sang where ever she wanted and in a Puritan's views that was the work of the devil. Their childeren never did that. It wasn't right. They weren't allowed. It was a sin for their child to sing and dance around town. I learned that, although, Pearl was a devilous child towards her mother and the community, as she grew and learned who her father was she became more obedient and once her mother's former husband died, Pearl got all of his riches and lived as a woman in England should and not how a harsh Puritan woman should. "Certainly, there was no physical defect. By its perfect shape, its vigor, and its natural dexterity in the use of all its untried limbs, the infant was worthy to have been brought forth in Eden: worthy to have been left there to be the plaything of the angels after the world's first parents were driven out. The child had a native grace which does not invariably co-exist with faultless beauty;..." This comes from page 59 to describe Pearl was the most beautiful child anyone had ever seen. Page 61 explains how mentally the child was intellegent. "It was a look of intelligent, yet inexplicable, perverse, sometimes so malicious, but generally accompanied by a wild flow of spirits, that Hester could help not help questioning at such moments whether Pearl was a human child." Pearl's laugh was something that Hester thought matched her thought's of Pearl being like a little elf child. Pearl's laugh also made people think she had no emotions, like on page 61,"Not seldom she would laugh anew, and louder then before, like a thing incapable and unintelligent of human sorrow."

Alivia Cutts

3/7/2011 04:32:55 am

Reply to Carly question 1
I think that Carly words her answer the way it should be explained. I like the way you gave examples how you believe what you did. It makes it much simpler to understand and i agree with what you think. He is the main cheif villain and antagonist.

Larissa Fogle

3/7/2011 04:52:18 am

Question 1:
I believe if you look at each character carefully, almost each one, in some way, can be taken as the antagonist, but the two main ones are Hester and Chillingworth. Hester can be seen as the antagonist because of the sin she had committed to her husband, and to god; aslo, if she didn't commit the sin everything that had happened in the book wouldn't of occurred. Chillingworth caused the most trouble for the charcters throughout the story. His set goal was to torture Dimmesdale for as long as he could, even to his death. He bothered Hester throughout the story and in the end he was going to make sure he could still torture Dimmesdale and Hester by following them back to Europe.

Larissa Fogle

3/7/2011 04:59:02 am

Reply to Carly, Question 1:
I agree that Chillingworth was the main antagonist. The damage he caused to the characters brought upon death to Dimmesdale, and added a lot of extra stress upon Hester towards the end. I also believe that Chillingworth did have a right to give Hester a hard time for committing adultery because that's a huge mishap in a marriage, but he shouldn't of taken it as far as he did.

Larissa Fogle

3/7/2011 05:04:33 am

Question 3:
At the beginning of the book, the scarlet letter signify’s adultery, as the story proceeds meaning is added to it, like alienation, able, angel, accomplice, and acknowledge. It functions as a punishment for Hester, to remind the town and herself of the sin she committed, throughout the story. The letter “A” can stand for alienation since Hester becomes an outsider, and it can stand for Angel because that’s how the town saw it when the letter A appeared in the night sky.

Larissa Fogle

3/7/2011 07:13:44 am

Reply to Alivia, Question 2:
You described Pearl well. She was able to live her life with people who accepted her and wouldn't treat her harshly because of who her parents were. I never thought Pearl became more obedient until I read your reasoning, now I see that she did become that way over time.

Larissa Fogle

3/7/2011 08:03:57 am

Question 3:
Arthur Dimmesdale is a very respected minister in New England. Many people looked up to him, turned to him for spiritual guidance and some even compared him to an angel (page 44). He is very kind, intelligent, wise, a coward, strong, weak, and a hypocrite. Throughout the story, till the last two chapters, he held the secret of being Pearl’s father close to his heart. By holding in this secret for that long he basically started to self-destruct. His mental state was first to go, then shortly after the townspeople could see the pain and suffering he was enduring. As I was reading, I could tell Dimmesdale wanted people to know of the sin; for example, he stood on the scaffold confessing his sin, even though it was at nighttime, and at the very beginning he tried to get Hester to come forward. I do think Dimmesdale is very strong for holding a secret in for that amount of time, but he is also very weak in doing so. He’s a hypocrite because he’s supposed to be a prime example of pureness since he’s a Puritan minister.

Carly VanLandingham

3/7/2011 09:47:31 am

The scarlet letter represets the isolation that was forced upon Hester. She was ostracized because of her sin and was forced to wear a reminder of it every day. The letter functions as the berrier between Hester and the rest of the community. Because of her sin she is not accepted by the rest of the town and will never be looked at in quite the same way. Over time, the townspeople begin to see Hester differently. She was very helpful in the community with helping the sick and poor so some people started to say that the A represented 'angel' instead of 'adulterer'.

Carly VanLadingham

3/7/2011 09:48:25 am

^^ Question 3

Carly VanLandingham

3/7/2011 09:56:10 am

Reply to Alivia Question 1
I totally agree wiht you about the community being antagonists. I didn't think to even put them as an answer but it really makes sense. If it wasn't for the community then Hester and Dimmesdale's sin may never have even been looked at as a sin. We may have never gotten the story that we read.
The community really cuased the majority of the problems that Hester and Authur faced, therefore they really are some of the main antagonists.

Carly VanLandingham

3/7/2011 10:06:36 am

Reply to Larissa Question 1
I don't know that I agree with you at all that Hester was anantagonist. Yes she committed adultery but she recgonized that she did something wrong and she paid the price for her crime. I think that she really tried to just accept her punishment and stay out of society's way.It was other people like Chillingworth and the townspeople that kept bringing her back in.

Carly VanLandingham

3/7/2011 10:10:50 am

Reply to Alivia Question 3
I really like how you said that the A that Hester wore could represent able. SHe really worked her way though all the troubles and hardships she faced and made a life for herself and Pearl. She also went on to spend time helping the poor and sick people even though they still judged her and were rude to her for the sin that she had committed years ago.

Carly VanLandingham

3/7/2011 10:33:21 am

Question 2
Dimmesdale is a scholar and a minister. He is seen in the town as almost an idol. Many people look to him for spiritual advice. He was the type of person that didn't do things because it was his nature but because the environment he was in led him to do so. He also had an overactive conscience so when he committed adultery with Hester it tore him apart keeping the secret. It really bothered him that Hester took all the blame for the sin that they both committed. Being a sinner himself he had a lot of empathy for others, this helped him to become a very powerful and persuasive speaker. On many occasions he tries to confess his sin to his congregation however they don't see it as a personal confession but more of a general statement. The townspeople saw him as a religious icon even in is death when he finally confessed his sin to the community. They saw it simply as symbolic just as the sermons he preached that attempted to confess his sins sooner.

Ray Edwards

3/7/2011 11:00:13 am

Question 1
Roger Chillingworth is the antagonist by far. He was one of the main reasons Hester committed adultery since he hadn't been there in 2 years like he promised he would. Even when he comes back he doesn't reveal his identity nor let Hester reveal it to the townspeople. As all of the drama is unfolding he sits and watches Hester seem helpless. Also when he seeks revenge on Dimmesdale, he ends up torturing him causing him to get sick with emotion. With this torture comes his own life and sanity at stake because he changes so much mentally it effects his outward appearance. Roger Chillingworth had to do with almost if not all of the negative things in the story, he's clearly the antagonist.

Ray Edwards

3/7/2011 11:12:10 am

Question 2
Roger Chillingworth started out as a benevolent scholar as it says verbatim in the book but as the story gets deeper into the truth he changes with the information he soon uncovers. His torturous ways change him into what townspeople recalled as demon like. When obtaining information from Hester about the man she committed adultery with he automatically turns to revenge and his mind becomes dark. Finding out Dimmesdale was the man, and being his live in doctor gave him perfect opportunity to play out his evil scheme which in-fact has corrupted him. This has corrupted him so much that the townspeople can tell by his appearance and demeanor, relating him to the devil.

Ray Edwards

3/7/2011 11:24:39 am

Question 3
The letter embroidered on Hester's blouse signifies helplessness and persecution. This functions by outcasting Hester from society and the townspeople. It constantly reminds her of the sin that she committed and even embarrasses her. The letter soon changes in meaning by once meaning shame and adultery and now meaning able and understood. This allows her to live amongst the community maybe not fully but justly. The letters best meaning from what i get is "able" she now has the ability to choose her own path and to change how she lives life, becoming content this coming from the townspeople's allowance.

Ray Edwards

3/7/2011 11:33:22 am

Response to Larissa Question 3
I agree with all of your meanings of the letter especially when it comes to Angel. This meaning kind of shows that maybe she is an angel in disguise, because of how beautiful she is and the example she sets for all of the other people. While acting flawed like all humans are she shows the proper way to go about getting forgivness and acceptance by turning the given meaning of the letter A and making it seem less bitter.

Larissa Fogle

3/7/2011 11:53:52 am

Reply to Ray, Question 3:
I agree that the letter did serve as an embarrassement for Hester because it was a constant reminder of her sin to the town, so it was like constant humiliation every time someone saw her. I see how it means able because even with all the hardships she had to face, she kept moving forward.

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