Human Nature: Beautiful
and Beastly
Kelci Beatty, Slammin Salmon (Nick Miller),
Scott Keffer, Terae Moxey
Human Nature Overview
 Human nature has a great capacity for evil
 May be dark deep down, but even deeper is eternal
beauty
 Always beauty within the dark
 Scarlett Letter shows that internal beauty can over
come sin and darkness
Important Character: Hester
 Prime example of eternal beauty
 Scarlett letter masks womanhood and youth
 Sin masks beauty
 Externally tired and aged
 Internally strong, prideful, and beautiful
Themes
Transcendentalism
Sanctity of the Heart
 People are naturally
good
 Beneath sin is still
strong
 Individuality
 Heart is the only thing
your own
 People will do what
they believe
 Staying strong through
hardships
 Individual (who you
are)
Thesis
In human nature there is always beauty beneath the
surface of people, even though they appear to be dark;
Hester’s natural beauty is masked by her sins and she
appears to be dark and aged, unlike her natural self that
is beautiful and young.
Quote 1
“He laid his right upon the shoulder of a young
woman…in the threshold of the prison door, she
repelled him, by an action marked with dignity
and force of character, and stepped into the open
air, as of by her own free will”
(Chapter 2, page 62)
Meaning of Quote 1
 Hester’s repulsion of the guard shows her inner strength
 Inner strength=beautiful—not fully engulfed in darkness
Quote 2
“Hester Prynne with a mind of nature, courage, and activity, and
for so long a period merely estranged, but outlawed for
society…Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in
desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in
his woods.”
(Chapter 18, page 239)
Meaning of Quote 2
 Internal beauty and strength helped Hester through hard
times
 Strength not always visible but it’s always there
Quote 3
“The burden of shame and anguish departed further
from her spirit. Oh, exquisite relief!...Her sex, her
youth, and the whole richness of her beauty came
back from what meant men call the irrevocable
past.”
(Chapter 18, page 243)
Meaning of Quote 3
 Once the SL is removed beauty returns
 Sin and darkness will mask inter beauty
 One must find a way to show beauty in the darkness
Quote 4
“But, on the one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the thresh
hold, was a wild rose-bush… which might be imagined to offer
their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in,
and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom,
in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind
to him.”
(Chapter 1, page 56)
Meaning of Quote 4
 Rose-bush symbolizes beauty
 Even during punishment for sin beauty can still be found
Quote 5
“Mother says little Pearl, the sunshine does not love you. It
runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of
something on your bosom.”
(Chapter 16, page 220)
Meaning of Quote 5
 SL masks Hester’s beauty and happiness
 Noticeable that the SL is the reason behind her darkness