Scarlet Letter Good Vs Evil

When the differences between the “good” protagonist and the “evil” antagonist are clear, the reader feels strong support for the good characters and a sense of disgust and disapproval towards the evil. However, when this distinction is vague and the narrator offers his own view of the situations in the plot line, the novel becomes ambiguous and many questions cannot be answered objectively. This is the case with Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. The subjective narration presented on certain characters, notably Hester, Chillingworth, Dimmesdale, and Pearl, demonstrates dualities and contrasting realities within their moralities. The narrator thus is unable to provide the reader with a straightforward moral “good” or “bad” in these characters, …show more content…
From the beginning, the narrator presents Hester’s crime in terms of contrasts, when he describes her dignity emerging from the prison and juxtaposes her elegant state with her sinful position. As Hester walks to the scaffold, “her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune… in which she was enveloped” (37). The use of the word “misfortune” gives a sense that Hester is not truly a sinner, but just an unfortunate woman, and her apparent beauty makes the reader sympathize with her predicament. The word “halo” makes Hester seem like an angel with a halo of beauty and light, the very opposite of her real situation. Since angels are associated with heaven and sinners with hell, this narration suggests that Hester is going to heaven, which is inconsistent with her state as an adulteress being punished by the magistrates. The narrator thus creates a paradox because her appearance and aura contradict her real situation as a sinner, as the Puritans would not have expected an adulteress to be as dignified and as calm as Hester is during …show more content…
Furthermore, the narrator tries to sway the reader’s opinions on the characters through the use of words with differing connotations when describing their changes. Two contradictory characteristics existing at the same time results in a lack of distinction between morally “good” and “bad,” and thus the character cannot be wholly classified into either. Similarly, in the real world, nothing can be singularly divided into categories of beneficial or harmful, since every personality and event will have dualities in its nature which may contradict the others and ultimately lead to

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