Who Is Hester's Destiny In The Scarlet Letter

Destiny is a funny and cruel thing isn’t it? How no matter what you are destined to be, someone will always be there to drag you down, to make you think that you are wrong. This is, in a perspective, what the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is about. Hester’s destiny was always to end up as Pearls mother, to be shamed in front of her town. Her destiny was always to have that agonizingly beautiful scarlet letter pinned to her breast. Her guilt did not come from destiny, no it came from the ridged society she lives in. It came with one night, one mistake, came a lifetime of public shame. But should she really feel all this guilt? Should the people of Boston force it on her? Now, with the way that the novel is set up, Hester has seemingly been dealt a bad hand of cards from fates deck. This bad luck seems to be present in the first few chapters of the story. Hester had the bad luck of no husband in a time where a woman was nothing without a husband. She had the bad luck of falling for a man, who was not her husband, and becoming pregnant with his child. She had the bad luck of doubting her own daughter’s legitimacy of being something other than human. Was this always to be her destiny? To have the constant presence of bad luck? Some would say yes, but others would say no. …show more content…
Was that the right choice in the end for all, or should the readers take a deeper meaning in the whole story to see that no matter the moment, that guilt can follow anyone? Even the most pious men like Reverend Dimmesdale? Ridged societies are bound to create rebellious citizens like Hester, with her agonizingly beautiful scarlet letter. Or that destiny will take control of it all and we will live the lives we were meant to have no matter what some say to our faces or behind our backs? Maybe it isn’t that destiny is cruel, just the people we