Literary Elements In Scarlet Letter

Words: 544
Pages: 3

Have you ever thought about the what-ifs and consequences of all your actions? Well, in the Puritan times there were consequences for almost all of the actions that people consider normal these days. Hester prynne, the main character of our story, didn’t think about the consequences of her actions when she committed adultery with Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale.The main themes in the Scarlet Letter are: sin, crime, and punishment, the themes are expressed multiple times through the actions of all the characters. The author also used literary elements such as, allusion, symbolism, and tone. The author Nathaniel Hawthorne used allusions multiple times in the story. He constantly alludes to the beliefs of the Puritan society and how they would deal with things such as sin, punishment, and crime. First, there is an to a woman named Anne Hutchinson, who is believed to be the person who built the rosebush outside of the prison. Page 34 states, “...as there is fair authority for believing, it had sprung up under the footsteps of the sainted Ann Hutchinson, as she entered the prison-door.” Anne Hutchinson was raised to believe the Puritan beliefs. Since the Puritan beliefs were the only things she knew, she questioned any other ideas of living and often tried to teach her …show more content…
The tone of The Scarlet Letter is ironic and detached. The narrator doesn’t seem opinionated towards the Puritans, but as the story evolves it becomes more obvious that he knows the problems of the community. The Story starts by stating, “the founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project…” The founders of this new society originally started this new government to create a utopia, however the first things that were built were a cemetery and a prison. It is ironic that their goal was to create a utopia, but the first things built was a place where dead people are buried and a place to condemn