Hester Prynne, being the main character of the novel and having the punishment of wearing the scarlet letter A on her bosom, was convicted of adultery after she had conceived a little girl. Hester was originally sent to Boston and was supposed to wait for her husband to finish up affairs in Europe, but instead had an affair with none other than Arthur Dimmesdale, one of the highest figures in the
As a punishment for breaking the seventh commandment, Hester Prynne was sentenced to wear a scarlet letter “A”, meaning adulteress, on her bosom. Consequently, Hester received judgement and shame from her bold stigma and changed her attitude to alleviate her pain. Therefore, Hester Prynne changed the definition of her stigma from a degrading description, to “able”, a dignifying definition. The scarlet letter’s change in meaning correlates directly to Hester Prynne’s actions and new found calm temperament. The meaning change stems from Hester’s ability to accept her situation and forgive the sources of her ridicule.
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.
In Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne commits adultery with Reverend Dimmesdale. From this union, a child is born, and so the story revolves around how the child grows up, and the conflicts Hester faces because of her actions. “With these words she advanced to the margin of the brook, took up the scarlet letter, and fastened it again into her bosom… Hester next gathered up the heavy tresses of her hair and confined them beneath her cap. As if there were a withering spell in the sad letter, her beauty, the warmth and richness of her womanhood, departed like fading sunshine, and a gray shadow seemed to fall across her.”
Although publicly admitting to sin can be a challenging task, time will heal the initial pain. Hester Prynne, of the Scarlet Letter, lives this lesson as she commits the sin of adultery. Her punishment for the sin is to wear the letter “A” on her bosom until she is allowed to remove it by the Puritan authorities wishes. Initially, Hester feels guilt and shame as she wears it. As Hester’s character grows in strength, she overcomes the letter’s original purpose of punishment.
Punishment of Puritans for their sins occurred harshly and frequently, and these punishments ranged from fines, branding, and severe whippings to hanging and death. Many of these penalties involved public humiliation of some kind, which made it extremely difficult for townspeople to accept by their peers after they had sinned. Because the Puritans believed religion was immensely important, the community was often reluctant to allow citizens that exhibited sinful behavior to achieve redemption (Cox). However, in the case of Hester Prynne, an adulterer in Nathaniel Hawthorne 's The Scarlet Letter, the townspeople eagerly made amends with her. This novel narrates the life of Hester Prynne, who committed adultery and courageously accepted the repercussions
In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne explores the relationship between the individual and society within a strict puritanical community. After committing adultery, Hester is stripped of her humanity and forced to wear an “A” for “adulterer” in order to appease the community. Her ignominy was lead by Dimmesdale, a minister for the community and later revealed to be the father of her daughter, Pearl. From the beginning of the novel, Hester maintains a commitment to her set of personal values. This is exhibited through her refusal to reveal Dimmesdale’s name, thriving outside the values of the community, and accepting the letter as a part of her identity.
Hawthorne also uses the Puritans harsh treatment of Hester as a way to critique and insult their harsh ways of life. For example, had Hester’s husband been believed to be alive at the time of her sin, Hester would most likely have been put to death for her sin. These kinds of harsh punishments shine a light on the injustices imposed on women in that time period. One Puritan went so far as to comment that “[Hester] has brought shame upon [them] all, and ought to die” and even argued that “[there is] law for it both in the Scripture and the statute-book” (Hawthorne 22). This overwhelming demand for Hester’s death simply because she fell in love after her husband was believed to be dead shows how harshly women, and Hester specifically, were forced into a sphere of isolation.
This is just another example of how women and their bodies are policed under this dichotomy. Yet men are free from the being either the Madonna or the whore because that separation is exclusive to women. Throughout the story, Hester’s torment is contrasted with the man whom Hester had an affair with, Arthur Dimmesdale. Despite Arthur revealing his part in their adultery, the townspeople do not condemn him. In the conclusion, the narrator reveals how the spectators refused to believe that Arthur’s “dying words, acknowledged, nor even remotely implied, any, the slightest connection on his part, with the guilt for which Hester Prynne had so lone worn the scarlet letter” (Hawthorne 566).
Strength Hester Prynne did the unthinkable she committed adultery. In the Puritan society, the punishment for such a crime is death. Although they spared her life, she had to bear forever a crimson A on her chest for all to see. The embroidered red letter that Hester Prynne wears may at first glance be merely a symbol of adultery and sin, however after a deeper look, it represents something much more; it represents Hester’s strength, passion, and forgiveness. Hester demonstrates this by extravagantly adorning the letter and by remaining strong while raising Pearl by herself and always helping others in the community.
In The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, do you think Hester Prynne committed a crime and was punished the correct way? Hester, the main character, had to wear a scarlet A for the rest of her days for committing adultery. Never did she feel sorry for herself and always wore the A with pride. Although Hawthorne projects Hester as both a victim and a heroine, Hester Prynne is projected as a heroine because she shows her brave, mature, and loving nature. Hawthorne projects Hester as a heroine by showing her braveness.
Originally, Hester is “rejected” by society and forced to wear the letter “A” for adultery on her chest to alert other people of her mistakes(Sova). Her character grows and the town realizes that she does not deserve to be “condemned” by society and the townspeople “assign [different] meanings” for the “A” on all of her clothing(Ragussis). From a young age, her daughter Pearl seemed to always understand the power of the letter. She was seen as the “human form” of the letter and would “constantly remind Hester of her sin”(“123helpme”). Hawthorne artfully uses many ways to display Hester’s sin which helps the reader better understand how important it is to society that its members follow the
Even though the Puritans may have designated the letter as a representation of sin, Hester’s renewed sense of pride does not want society to define the A for her. Rather Hester wants to define it herself and by doing so she develops responsibility and power over her own actions. Because Hester has the power to change who she is, she also has the power to change what the Scarlet Letter represents. By letting the letter be “embroidered with gold thread” readers are able to see how for Hester sin is not something to be fearful of; furthermore, it allows one to see how Hester has developed into an independent individual who accepts who she is and the situation she is presented with. Hester’s lover unfortunately
Receiving the scarlet letter changed every aspect of Hester’s life. Especially at the start of the story, the letter symbolized the solitude and great suffering Hester faced just because of a letter placed on her bosom. The “A” also depicted how no one viewed Hester the same way as before her peccant actions. “…she saw that, owing to the peculiar effect of this convex mirror, the scarlet letter was represented in exaggerated and gigantic proportions, so as to be greatly the most prominent feature of her appearance” (Hawthorne 109). The pejorative community Hester lived in never saw Hester as the beautiful, young woman she was, but now, as a horrible fiend.
In the “Scarlet Letter,” Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays hypocrisy of the Puritan society, where the protagonist Hester Prynne face many consequences of her actions and the how she tries to redeem herself to the society. During the seventeenth puritans believe that it is their mission to punish the ones who do not follow God’s word and it is their job to stop those from sinning. Therefore, the hypercritical puritan society punishes Hester harshly for committing adultery, but in Hester’s mind, she believes that what she did was not a sin but acts of love for her man. Eventually, she redeems herself by turning her crime into an advantage to help those in need, yet the Puritan society still view her as a “naughty bagger.” (Hawthorne 78)
