Hester Prynne And The Puritan Community

The Puritan community had strict core values and views on how society should operate based on the church’s teaching in the 17th century. People were expected to follow society’s standards, and if someone did not, that person would be deemed an outcast and ridiculed with shame. However, it was ironic that many in the Puritan community were hypocrites by sinning and not confessing their sins, but keeping them hidden in the dark. The main character of The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne, is the exception of society’s standards because she commits the sin of adultery, takes responsibility for it, is punished, and flourishes as a person when she learns compassion for the underprivileged and sinners in her community. In understanding others in the

During the course of seven-plus years, Hester along with her daughter Pearl, who had been born out of wedlock, endured a form of exile from their town because Hester had committed adultery. Normally in Puritan society, when one commits adultery which is against the eighth commandment found in the Bible, that person is executed in front of the entire town, but due to Hester’s circumstances of her husband being missing and presumed dead and having a baby, her life was spared. Her punishment for the affair with Arthur Dimmesdale was to be branded with a scarlet letter “A” so that all may know she had committed adultery and that they may forever remember her sin. Yes, Hester Prynne was a sinner because she had broken biblical law, but her actions do not necessarily mean that she was the evil person the Puritans made her out to be. It should be recognized that all individuals are sinners born with original sin, but not all individuals are saints. In the case of Hester Prynne, she is in fact both a sinner as well as a saint because of confession, turning away from sin and becoming a righteous person. Hester, in her isolated position that the Puritans had placed her in, was given the opportunity to rework her label of sinner to

Through the course of the novel, this symbol is given contrasting meanings which demonstrate how Hester is able to be labeled as both a sinner and a saint. The scarlet letter “A” embroidered onto her chest starts off meaning adultery, which makes her a sinner, however, it then takes on the meaning able, which makes her a saint. Hester’s character undergoes dynamic change when she turns away from evil with the help of her daughter Pearl. Her daughter was born out of the sin that brands Hester’s chest, and even though she was an infant, Pearl served as a constant reminder as well as a teacher to Hester regarding sin and the lessons that it brings because she was “...the scarlet letter endowed with life!” (Hawthorne 98). With Pearl by her side throughout her punishment, Hester was able to step past her sin and use her talents and skills to improve the community that had made her as an outcast. With Hester enhancing the community by helping the less fortunate individuals that lived in the Puritan community, she demonstrated her ability to move away from the past and forgive those who had judged her. The community slowly began to look up to Hester and realize that, “Such helpfulness was found in her - so much power to do and power to sympathize - that many people refused to interpret the scarlet ‘A’ by its original signification. They said it meant ‘Able’...” (Hawthorne 158). Hester’s change in character