Part one of term paper
One of the main themes in The Scarlet Letter is that of the secret. The plot of the book is centered around Hester Prynne’s secret sin of adultery. Nathaniel Hawthorne draws striking parallelism between secrets held and the physical and mental states of those who hold them. The Scarlet Letter demonstrates that a secret or feeling kep ...

Part two of term paper
... commits the serious crime of adultery with a young married woman named Hester Prynne living in the Plymouth Colony. Because of Hester’s unwillingness to reveal her partner in sin, and Dimmesdale’s fear of persecution and most of all humiliation, the minister is forced to keep his sin a secret. So he watches as Hester is placed before her peers on a platform in front of the whole town and is then called to speak to her and urge that she reveal her fellow adulterer. In essence, he is c ...