An analysis on The Internal Conflicts Faced by The Main Characters of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter

ABSTRACT

People as creative creature; never stop creating something new in their
life. It is because they have emotion and feeling, therefore through that distinguish them from another creature in the earth. One of their creations is literature. It is
one way to express their emotion and feeling in a form of words or language. By reading novel, one of literary work, people can enrich their emotion; it also can enrich their experience and some aspects of life.

This study proposes some problems namely (1) the internal conflict of the main characters, (2) the way the main characters solve their conflicts. The purpose of this study is to answer the research problems proposed. The writer hopes that this study will be able to contribute some findings or information to the study of literature especially on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Besides, this study is also expected to be useful as an alternative scientific material for deeper or further study on the same work.

This study is literary criticism. The approach used is structural approach since the writer analyzes the intrinsic aspect of novel. The data are chiefly collected from the original text of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter.

As the result, this study shows that Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter contains several internal conflicts faced by the main characters. They are (1). Hester, experiences the internal conflicts; it is character against disability in keeping the secret, and character against guilty feeling (2). Arthur Dimmesdale experiences the internal conflicts; it is character against disability confessing sin, character against insecurities and character against guilty feeling (3). Roger Chillingworth, experiences the internal conflict, it is character against curiosity

Through the analysis in this study, it is found out that all of the kinds of the main character’s conflict they faced are the internal conflicts. And they use different way in solving their conflicts. Hester uses both her logic and her feeling in solving her conflicts, while Dimmesdale uses his logic more than his feeling in solving his conflicts, and it is different with Chillingworth in which uses his ego in solving his conflicts.

Finally, this study concludes that the kinds of conflict faced by the main characters are same; it is the internal conflicts. The way of the main characters to solve their conflicts are mostly use logic.