The story begins in seventeenth-century Boston, which is under Puritan command. A young woman, named Hester Prynne, is sent ahead to America by her husband---an old and ugly scholar. However, for many years, he himself doesn’t arrive. Obviously, it is possible that he has been lost in the sea. While waiting for her husband, Hester and a young local minister called Arthur Dimmesdale fall in love with each other. They commit adultery secretly. Because of Hester’s Pregnancy, the secret is finally discovered.
According to The Bible, everyone is sinful. That is the opinion of the original sin: when God creates the world, He first creates a man called Adam and then a woman called Eve. They live happily in the Garden of Eden. God tells them that they can eat every kind of fruit in the garden except those on the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Instigated by the serpent, the two can not control their curiosity and violates God’s order and eat the fruits from that particular tree. That enrages God. From that time on, they become sinful and are expelled from the Garden of Eden. However, sin doesn’t stop. It is passed from generation to generation by reproduction of Adam and Eve. All successive generations are their descendants and therefore inherit their sin. So at the time one is born, he/she bears evil and has the root of committing crime.
According to the principle of the original sin, Hester Prynne is not an exception. She is also the offspring of Adam and Eve. The inside of her flows their bloods and she of course inherits their original sin. Thus she is a sinner from the beginning of her life.
Are there any other standards to judge whether a person is sinful?The answer is positive. The criterion should not be the common custom. Instead, it should be the God’s standard. Because according to the common custom, it is very difficult to judge sometimes. Everybody is a mixture of virtue and evil and the emphasis of everyone’s selfish desire is quite different. Some cravenly fear death, some cling to woman’s charms, some seek only profits and some hanker after reputation. Some are frank and honest and others sly and cunning. Therefore it is hard to decide who is right and who is wrong. Furthermore, the common custom is relative and changing. For example, twenty years ago, to commit adultery was enough to ruin a person’s fame. However, in today’s society, cohabitation before marriage is universal. Besides, although some people display higher moral standards than others, they still can’t get rid of selfishness and avoid committing crime. If we adopts the criterion of the common custom, although we know that we are not innocent, we will comfort ourselves that we may be worse than some people, but still better than others.
Thus we can only use God’s criteria to decide whether or not a person is sinful. God’s criteria are The Ten Commandments and The Seven Deadly Sins.
The Ten Commandments:
I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.
You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.
Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.
For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour.
You shall not covet your neighbour's house. You shall not covet your neighbour's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.
(Exodus2,14)
The Seven Deadly Sins: a)Pride; b)Lechery; c)Envy; d)Wrath; e)Sloth; f)Glutton
Obviously, according to these criteria, Hester Prynne is quite sinful. She is sinful because she disobeys God by committing adultery. When Chillingworth --- Hester Prynne’s husband sent her to the New World, although there was no love at all between the couple, she shouldn’t forget that she had already got married. She had a husband, who was just missing at that time. However, she could not control her vicious desire and had a love affair with the minister --- Dimmesdale. That’s not forgivable according to Catholicism. That’s insult to God. That’s betrayal! In such a situation, Hester Prynne forgot God’s instruction and was completely degenerated. She is a blaspheme to God.
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