The Scarlet Letter - Class Differences

1. The fear of Dimmesdale

1.1. Characteristic for the book is the fear of Dimmesdale. Of course Dimmesdale was the secret love of Hester, this is revealed early on in the book. Throughout the whole book the fear of Dimmesdale is heavily expressed. Dimmesdale is so afraid of getting caught for what he did, because the society will spit him out. He is a reverend and of course it is not allowed to undergo adultery. It is very typical that he is afraid of society codemning him and it gives a good example of class differences.

2. The Scarlet Letter

2.1. When Hester Prynne received the Scarlet Letter, she got humiliated on the scaffold. Nobody wanted to talk to her and she was totally ignored by the society. People didn't want anything to do with her because of the adultery. She got put down in a class and from that moment she belonged to the lower class. It is shown by people ignoring her and people looking at her.

3. Mistress Hibbins

3.1. This is an old lady and has very odd habitats for example she likes to go in the woods at night. People found her weird and claimed that she might be a witch. Because people found her weird and wanted nothing to do with her she got seperated from the society. Eventually she even got excecuted, just because people thought she was a witch, which of course wasn't the case but she got extremely seperated from the society and that made people think the rumors are true.