P5+TBrown

Title: Religion
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After reading The Scarlet Letter and our class discussions, it is obvious that Hawthorne uses a cycle of transgression, shame, repentance, and acceptance as a reoccurring motif. He uses it to explore many different ideas including the nation’s national identity in religion.

At the beginning of the novel it is brought to our attention that the main character, Hester, has committed the horrible sin of adultery. This starts off Hawthorne’s cycle by the use of transgression. It shows that she has committed a religious sin and must now suffer the consequences. Next in Hawthorne’s cycle is shame. Hester undergoes her shame as she is forced to stand on the platform in the center of town as to be judged and resented by her community. “But, in their great mercy and tenderness of heart, they have doomed Mistress Pryne to stand only a space of three hours on the platform of the pillory, and then thereafter, for the remainder of her natural life to wear a mark of shame upon her bosom.”(pg. 22) This showed that Hawthorne believed that Hester got off easy for a sin of such magnetite and that she deserved more than just being shamed on the scaffold and the letter A on her bosom.

After her shaming came her repentance. Her repentance involved her coming to terms with her sin and becoming a better person because of it. “Woman, transgress not beyond the limits of Heaven’s mercy!...speak out the name! That, and thy repentance, may avail to take the scarlet letter off thy breast.”(pg. 27) In many ways, Hester’s scarlet letter helped her with the repentance process because it made her realize and deal with her problem and taught her to accept herself again, because before she could be accepted by the community, she had to accept herself. Which brings us to the last step of the cycle, acceptance. At the end of the novel Hester and Dimmesdale try to run away but are caught, only after this Hester realizes why she needs to stay in her community. “Here had been her sin; here, her sorrow; and here was yet to be her penitence.”(pg. 211) She knew the only way to free herself from her sin was to be accepted by her peers. She did this by taking on an active role in the community by becoming the wise old woman who the towns people sought for advice. She took her problem that she dealt with for most of her life and used it to help others deal with their problems, ultimately gaining acceptance back into the community.

That is how Hawthorne’s cycle of transgression, shame, repentance, and acceptance is used as a motif to explore the nation’s national identity in religion.