Character Changes In The Scarlet Letter

People change for many reasons, the change may affect each person differently and over time a person can heal at their own pace. Depending on what has occurred to them and their actions towards themselves, helps to portray their reason to be and how it changed them into who they are now. Nathaniel Hawthorne depicts this in his novel the Scarlet Letter, many of Hawthorne’s characters undergo several changes because of the scarlet letter. Hester Prynne, the one who wears the letter A, is haunted by her crime as well as by her town. Pearl grows up knowing the scarlet letter and being a part of it, she does not know any of her town nor as religious Puritan, like everyone else. Dimmesdale on the other hand does, and he is the minister of the town,

Adultery was such a terrible sin to be committed in mid-seventeenth century, especially within the puritan community. Hester wanted to protect the father of her child because she knew that if everyone found out Dimmesdale was the other part taker in this crime then, they both would have been killed but Dimmesdale, being the minister, helped and saved her by letting her off easy, thus wearing the scarlet as her punishment. When she first realizes what the letter is capable of, she does not like it and is ashamed for herself. The townspeople would treat her very differently as well as talk rudely about her. In chapter twenty one, the narrator states, “Her face, so long familiar to the townspeople, showed the marble quietude which they were accustomed to behold there. It was like a mask; or rather, like the frozen calmness of a dead woman 's features; owing this dreary resemblance to the fact that Hester was actually dead, in respect to any claim of sympathy, and had departed out of the world with which she still seemed to mingle,” this reveals vivid imagery of her face that shows how used to she has become to people’s crude remarks (349). The town has been very accustomed to Hester and her quiet ways, the stillness of her face hides what she is actually feeling.