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Hester Prynne: A Sinner Or Saint

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Recommended: Study on Hester Prynne of the Scarlet Letter

In a legalistic society, people adhere to strict moral codes, punishing and isolating transgressors. Hester Prynne, in the fiction that I have read recently--The Scarlet Letter is an example of the transgressor-adulteress. Hester breaks the social laws, and thus, is considered a sinner, condemned to wearing the stigmatizing ‘A’, lying in her bosom for Adultery. With this symbol of sin, Hester suffers despise and isolation. Yet, later, Hester Prynne has done charitable acts due to her repentance, achieving saintliness. In terms of saint and sinner, people think that Hester Prynne must cater to one or the other. However, based on the reading and research, I believe Hester Prynne is neither a sinner nor a saint because she was so helpful and kind …show more content…

A famous example would be Mary Magdalene. In a research paper conducted about her, Mary is identified as both a beloved follower of Jesus--the first to whom Jesus appeared after he was resurrected, and a sinner--a prostitute. In the paper, Lisa Merry eventually favors one side and claim that Mary is a saint not sinner. (3) Yet, in spite of the effort Lisa offered to portray Mary as a Saint, the counterargument of Mary Magdalene as a sinner continues.

Same debate applies to the ‘saint and sinner’ theme of Hester Prynne, many people would surly stand on one of the extremes of the thread. Some people may point out that Hester is an ultimate sinner. It sounds pretty reasonable. In puritans’ views, repentance is a life-long activity—it goes deeper than remorse into an essential change. In an article The Puritan View of Holiness, repentance is “ a hating the thing I loved before” (Beeke). Obviously, Hester disobeyed the rule of repentance.

However, sanctification of the puritan times is paradoxical, emphasizing both repentance and righteousness. While, Hester is not truly repentant, she seems to compensate for her sin through the doctrine of righteousness. “What you do and say reflects who you are within” (Beeke). Through all the kind acts, Hester’s inside should be as pristine as that of a

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We are all sinners, no matter how hard we try to hide our faults, they always seem to come back, one way or another. Written in the 19th century, Nathaniel Hawthorne shows us Hester Prynne and how one sin can change her life completely. Hester Prynne changes a great deal throughout The Scarlet Letter. Through the view of the Puritans, Hester is an intense sinner; she has gone against the Puritan way of life committing the highest act of sin, adultery. For committing such a sinful act, Hester must wear the scarlet letter while also having to bear stares from those that gossip about her.

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Through this process, she developed a strong sense of self and learned to reject the limitations society imposed on her because she was a woman. Hester started to doubt the tight gender roles and suppression of female independence that were a result of Puritanical principles. Hester resisted being reduced to nothing more than her sin, despite the Puritan community's efforts to silence and shame her. Hester is described as wild in her personality, imagination, intellect, and will, due to the fact that he holds both feminine and masculine attributes. She doesn't conform to Puritan society, and through the isolation from society, she was able to think for herself and form feminist

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Introduction In the novel “The Scarlet Letter”, Hester is constantly reminded of her sin and put down for it. The Puritans look down upon her because she has committed a sin. Thesis: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel “The Scarlet Letter” can be seen as criticism of the beliefs of puritans and how symbolism is used to show Hester’s sin and how she is defined. Body Paragraph 1 Topic Sentence: When the Puritans had found out that Hester had conceived a child with another man, the Puritans saw this as a sin that deserved punishment.

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