Hester, too, struggles with forgiveness. The entire novel is based on the fact that she made a sin, and no ones forgives her, so everyday she works to rid herself of her bad name. She tries her hardest to be forgiven, and in the end, the town does forgive her, and they accept her and her daughter for who they are.
Forgiveness is a big theme in our religion. God is open to teshuvah- he pushes us to admit to our sins and own up to them, so that we can do better next time. God knows and understands that man isn't perfect, and he doesn't expect us to be, and so he loves when we do teshuvah, so that we can learn for the next time.
Judgement:
A BIG BIG BIG theme throughout the novel is judgement. Hester and Pearl both live everyday knowing that they are being judged. The novel starts off with Hester walking out onto the scaffold, and everyone judging her and looking at her and categorizing her with her sin. Even her child, Pearl, who her herself did no wrong, and is only a product of a wrongdoing, is judged by the whole town. She is looked at as the bastard child. even her mother, Hester, judges her and says she is weird. Theres a big case of judgment going around town! Dimmesdale too, is a product of judgment. His character is based around him having a self dilemma about whether or not he should confess to being the father of Pearl. He fears the towns judgment.
This theme is relevant to our own lives. Hate to say it, but people are quick to judge, and we must remember that and act as if there is always someone watching and judging us. If we don't want to be judged for doing something, then we shouldn't do it, because word goes around and we are bound to be judged for it.
Repentance and Penitence:
In the novel, Dimmesdale struggles with repenting for his sins. He has a very hard time coming to terms with his sins, and so he can't fully repent. If you don't admit to your sins fully, you can't repent to your best ability. In the end, Dimmesdale admits to what he did, and he merges his inner beliefs with what he preaches, and once he comes to terms with his doing, he is able to repent, and even die happy and accepting of who he really is.
Like I said before, we Jews are very into repentance. We even have yom kippur- a full day dedicated for repentance. We also believe that you must come to terms with your wrongdoings in order to fully do teshuvah and repent for them. As you can see, a lot of the themes in this novel apply to everyday people and moments.
Romanticism:
In the novel, there are a lot of romantic elements. The meteor, for example, flew through the sky with a huge letter "A" engraved into it. This, my friends, is quite supernatural. Thats not an everyday occurrence. Pearl, too, is a romantic element. She is looked at as the weird, quirky, elfish, angel/ demon girl (depends what chapter you look at lol)- all of which are romantic. Most of the townspeople see Pearl as a supernatural. They don't think she's a normal, little Puritan girl. The scenes in the forest, too, are romantic. So pretty much, this book is stuffed with romantic and supernatural elements.
I don't really think we have romanticism in everyday life. You know life's not all supernatural and fun and rainbows and meteors flying through the sky. Life's pretty real so.... yeah this doesn't apply to real life.
No comments:
Post a Comment