NPR and Hester Prynne as the Pentultimate American Heroine?

Now that we have finished The Scarlet Letter, it is time to really dig deeply into the purposes and writing style of Hawthorne's text. First, we identified many different conflicts in the novel:

• man vs. self
• Dimmesdale vs. guilt
• Hester vs. guilt
• Hester vs. temptation
• Chillingworth vs. manhood (ugly/cheated on/outcast)
• man vs. society
• Hester vs. Puritan "gossip"
• Dimmesdale vs. "reputation"
• Pearl vs. "elf-child"
• man vs. man
• Dimmesdale vs. Chillingworth (revenge/truth/Hester)
• witch vs. Hester (soul/evil)
• Black Man vs. Chil/Hest/Dim
• Hester vs. Pearl (behavior/truth)

From our list, there are various antagonists and protagonists in the novel depending on which conflict a reader focuses on. Therefore, we charted the "good" vs. "bad" traits of each; our findings are listed below  (more points=more good):

-.5 Chillingworth        0 Pearl         1.5 Dimmesdale         2 Hester

Also, great job using higher thinking skills today, English 3 Honors! NPR's radio broadcast on Hester as the first female American archetype was of college-level thinking. Here is the transcript of the broadcast. Plan to do more with non-fiction literary analysis as you continue this year and through the rest of your educational career.