In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne wrestles with social expectations of a Puritan community that has condemned her for an (admittedly wrong) act of sin: having an illegitimate child. Hester finds herself repeatedly in the forest, a place to the Puritans as the epicenter of evil. She loses a part of her human identity with the loss of her puritan identity. Hester’s challenging and defiance of societal expectations is her own conflict of accepting the wild…
The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter revolves around the meaning of Hester Prynne’s punishment for her sin of adultery in a Puritan society, which was to wear the scarlet letter. In the first chapter of The Scarlet Letter, the reader is introduced to Hester Prynne and her daughter Pearl. Pearl is the product of Hester’s sin of adultery.…
Towards the beginning of the novel she was mysterious, questionable, and isolated. When it came time for Hester to speak on the scaffold, she came out of the prison looking more daring and beautiful then ever. She had faced whatever the sin had brought her, weather it was the humiliation in the streets from the clergymen, the poor, or even the puritan women. “She conducted herself with what might be pride” (Wagenknecht 64). Hester had this warm nature of kindness in her heart, even when people would shame walk her or give her the silent treatment, she showed her humanity.…
After she was cast away from society, she attended church and tried to raise her daughter with a religious understanding. Everyone sins, and although Hester was not the ideal puritan, she confronted her past and dealt with her wrongdoing in the way that most “good” puritans would not. Hester was physically and mentally reminded of her sin daily, however she remained strong and learned to accept the punishment as if it were physically bound to…
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, tells the tale of a Puritan community in Massachusetts, rocked by scandal. Hester Prynne is convicted of adultery after the birth of her daughter and the disappearance of her husband three years prior. Her fellow sinner, the reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, is never discovered after Hester lies to protect him. Dimmesdale is shown under constant duress throughout the story as the guilt of what he committed builds inside of him. The pressure and stress created by Dimmesdale’s knowledge of what he did begins to unravel him until his death.…
In The Scarlet Letter,by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne, an adulterer, is confronted by her husband, Roger Chillingworth, while she is in prison. While Mr. Chillingworth is there he tells Hester that because of the A on her chest she will always be "a living sermon against sin" , a constant reminder of what not to do, and a warning of the consequences of sin. However Roger is mistaken in that belief because while Hester Prynne did face extreme prejudice for a substantial amount of time following her sentencing, as the years pass that hatred starts to dwindle. The reason for this dwindling is twofold, part of it being as time goes by seeing Hester with her red A on became a common sight and with nothing to kindle their fury they slowly became more accepting of Hester, since “ to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates” (110). The other part is that Hester starts to win their respect since she shows the town kindness and is always shown to be willing to help those in need.…
Hester knows who she can be and who she is inside, whether the people in the town see that or not. She believes that god knows that she is a religious, thoughtful, and caring person. As she strives to be someone that her daughter can look up to. She does not take any of her punishments lightly, as She wants to ensure her place in the Puritan community, a community she believes she belongs in. This moral strength translates deeply into the character Hester wants to assign herself as.…
The Scarlet Letter juxtaposes the effects of these ramifications and of hiding sin upon one’s life. After Hester commits adultery with Dimmesdale, a minister, whose role in the sin is unbeknownst to the public, the town magistrates force Hester to wear an embroidered “A” on her chest to symbolize her shameful and adulterous behavior. Hester’s…
Hester, the protagonist, is the wearer of the scarlet letter “A” as a result of her committing adultery and conceiving Pearl, the child of the affair, secretly with Minister Dimmesdale. Committing adultery in a Puritan society would bring death to the adulterer and the partner but since it was unknown if Hester’s husband, Chillingworth, was alive or not and in addition to Hester not revealing Dimmesdale’s name, she had to wear the scarlet letter for the rest of her life. Since she was led astray from the Puritan lifestyle by the “Devil”, the townspeople and Hester, herself, knew there was an evil inside her. Hester says, “Were I worthy to be quit of it, it would fall away in it’s own nature…” (153). As Chillingworth was picking herbs, Hester started a conversation with him regarding him and the minister.…
Hester Prynne was judged for a significant portion of her life for adultery, but it was a very intentional judgement. Her village wanted to condemn her and make her sin public permanently by putting a stamp of disapproval in the form of a scarlet letter placed upon her chest. She was forced to wear this bright red “A” on her chest always so that everyone would know that she had committed the act of adultery. No matter where she went this embroidered “A” would tell the story of her sin to people she never even knew. She was eternally an outcast.…
The Scarlet Letter is a large bright red A worn by Hester Prynne, the protagonist of the story. The Scarlet Letter symbolizes the Puritan sin of Adultery and has a negative effect on Hester and her relationship within society. Hawthorne says “... embroidered and inominated upon her bosom had the effect of a spell, taking her…
Through the process of Hester’s success of becoming a well-thought of being, Hawthorne portrays women of possessing great fortitude. Hester was an outcast in her society whom was publicly shamed for her sin but remained to be self-confident and strong-willed. Walking down the streets, she would be pointed at and whispered about. Nobody wanted to be a friend or even talk to her because they feared being associated with such a sinful person. Despite the judgment from her society, Hester kept her head held high.…
As a way of being shamed, Hester Prynne is forced to wear a bright red “A” upon her breast at all times, because she committed adultery. After Hester moved to Boston without her husband, Roger Chillingworth who was living in England at the time, Hester meets Mr. Dimmesdale. Hester then becomes pregnant, with her daughter Pearl, and refuses to tell the community or the church who the father of her child is, “Madam Hester absolutely refuseth to speak” (Hawthorne 75). In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the author shows the reader that some perceived bad things, like the scarlet letter, can bring about happiness and joy in some individuals.…
Throughout the Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne explores themes of conformity through Hester Prynne´s various relationships. Hawthorne illustrates three relationships in which Hester can frequently be seen both conforming to and rejecting societal expectations regarding how a woman should act, and for different purposes. As is demonstrated throughout the novel, Hester will -by nature- resist norms and expectations, but can be seen conforming when doing so will ultimately benefit her. Hester frequently conforms by means of appeasing someone of a higher power, to create a bridge of trust between them. As is reflected in her relationships with the Puritan church, Roger Chillingworth and Arthur Dimmesdale, Hester only conforms to expectations…
At the start of the novel, everyone regards Hester Prynne as a disgrace. Not only did she cheat on her husband whom had paid for her to travel to the New World, but she also wouldn’t relay to the political leaders of the community who it was that she had had an affair with. Along with this, she was also raising a child that was a product of her betrayal to her husband, only adding to the dislike that the citizens already held for her. Yet, due to the actions that take place throughout the novel, the scarlet letter begins to represent an entirely different aspect of Hester Prynne’s life. It proves to the people around her that she is an able woman.…