The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is one of the most famous and influential novels written in American literature. The story takes place in the seventeenth century in the Puritan settlement of Boston where a young woman named Hester Prynne is punished after having a daughter with a man who was not her husband. Though, instead of hanging Hester they spare her life because of her beauty. She is then shunned and forced to wear a scarlet “A” (for adultery) on her breast for the rest of her life, while, the “unknown” man who Hester had an affair with moves on with a guilt-filled life. The novel is a classic romance with it’s countless symbols tossed throughout the book.
Hester Prynn, a character from The Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthorne, is a trouble women who committed adultery in a strict Puritan society. She committed an unspeakable crime and many thought she was an awful women. However, I believe she was one of the greatest in Boston. She suffered a huge roadblock and managed to turn her life around, helping many people. Hester and her baby, Pearl, barely had any money.
Is Hester Prynne the best citizen of Boston? I believe she is one of the best citizens of Boston if not the best citizen. In the novel of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester gives back to the community by donating the extra money that she earns from sewing articles of clothing. She is looked upon for advice when she returns from Europe. She has been given the scarlet letter as a punishment, but this also keeps her from misbehaving.
To most, the letter “A” is just another letter in the alphabet but imagine living in a society where it meant sin, shame, and ridicule. That is what it means to those living in the Puritan society. The main character, Hester Prynne, lives in the Puritan society and that sin, shame, and ridicule are her daily life. Hester is forced to wear the letter “A” on her bosom every day to be reminded of her wrong doing. The “A” stands for “Adulterer”, which is what Hester was convicted of when she had her daughter, Pearl, without her husband around.
Hester Prynne is a woman from Boston, Massachusetts. During the 1640s she was punished for committing adultery. She was given multiple punishments. The punishments that were given to her were very harsh. Hester's punishments were cruel because she was publicly ridiculed; she must wear the Scarlet Letter for life; and her child may be taken away from her.
Hester Prynne's inner strength, her defiance of the law, her honesty, and her compassion may have been in her character during the entire novel, but The Scarlet Letter brought them to our attention. Hester was such a strong woman who did not pay any mind to what others thought of her. For example, Throughout the novel she faced humiliation by the other people in her town,but all the while remained a woman of great probity, and she never lost her sense of pride. When she walked to the scaffold from the prison, she held her head high and wasn't affected in any way by the evil glares from the public. As an adulteress, she was forced to endure shame, and judgment from her peers and was sentenced to have the letter “A” pinned to her gown until death parted her from it.
The Scarlet Letter, a novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a hopeless tale of one Hester Prynne, who committed adultery and now has to pay for her crime, and her relationship with the rest of the characters in the book; this reveals how a harsh society can ruin lives. The negative impact of committing sin and secret-keeping is seen throughout the entire story of The Scarlet Letter; it is portrayed through Hester’s fate, the intertwined lives of Chillingworth and Dimmesdale, and the ultimate end. The scarlet letter Hester Prynne now bears on her chest will unfairly rule the rest of her life. Her own sin led to the attainment of the scarlet letter.
The Virtuous Woman Hester Prynne The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne focuses on the early Puritan settlement of Boston and a woman named Hester Prynne. Hawthorne has this character face having a child out of wedlock and hatred from society. In this case then, is Hester Prynne a virtuous woman or not?
Hester Prynne lives in an era in which people strive for moral perfection, and trample wild passion and freedom in the process. She is like a rose among weeds in The Scarlet Letter, portrayed by Nathaniel Hawthorne as a beauty of nature that stands out from the strict uniformity of Puritan society. However, her wild passion tempts her to fall in love and commit adultery. Hester is forced to wear a scarlet letter A for the rest of her life, and she is banished from society for her sin.
The Scarlet Letter In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the female protagonist, Hester Prynne, endures life isolated from society and stigmatized by her act of adultery. Although Hester’s position within her Puritan community may be harrowing, she is still portrayed as a tenacious, independent women, as opposed to a weakened, fragile female as a result of her ignominy. It is apparent that her character represents an early female figure that defies 17th century social norms. As a character of feminism, she recognizes the capability of females as equal to that of men through her actions.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the protagonist Hester Prynne is used by Hawthorne to break away from the feminine norms of women during the Puritan period. Although Hester Prynne embodies stereotypical feminine traits, she also embodies masculine traits that were unseen in women of the period. Women of the time were typically considered the “domestic workers,” doing things such as cleaning, cooking, sewing, and much more. An article by NPR accurately puts Hester’s controversial personality into perspective, citing that Hester is “the embodiment of deep contradictions: bad and beautiful, holy and sinful, conventional and radical” (Seabrook).
For years, women have been looked down upon as an object of lust, unworthy, and are not fit to speak their mind. Feminism was created to combat against these unjust accusations and labels, and to prove that women deserve to be treated equally like men in society. A feminist believes in this and tries to disprove the common terms that women are labeled as. Hester Prynne, from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, is representative of a strong female character by going out of her way to reject the negativity associated with her from her Scarlet Letter and from just being a woman in Puritan society. Hester showed these signs when she was first introduced in the novel.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of the first American authors to engender the idea of regenerate his ancestral culture through his stories (Clendenning). Most of Hawthorne's short stories and novels originate from his representation and belief of the harshness and unreasonable Puritan community. For example, in The Scarlet Letter , a character who embodies the opposite of an epitome of a proper Puritan woman. Hawthorne illustrates this character by contrasting the bold attitude of Hester Prynne to the extremely conservative society: But Hester Prynne, with a mind of native courage and activity, and for so long a period not merely estranged, but outlawed, from society, had habituated herself to such latitude of speculation as was altogether
The Scarlet Letter, published in 1850, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne has known to become his masterwork and is thus far his most illustrious novel. A tale of sin and its gruesome consequences, one’s temptation to passionately love, revenge and guilt, and most importantly the immense repercussions of social stigmatizing and public shaming are all profoundly implicated throughout this story Over the course of twenty-four chapters, Hawthorne illustrates the life of Hester Prynne, the female protagonist who has been brutally condemned by the Puritan society to wear an “A” on her bosom as a symbol for adultery, the horrible sin she has committed. Nkechi Diallo, commonly known as Rachel Dolezal, a former civil rights activist and former president
It’s crazy how a single letter can summarize someone’s character. In the book, The Scarlet Letter, Hester was labeled by her community as an Adulterer. She had to wear a Scarlet A everywhere she went, signifying that she had committed a great sin looked down upon in the eyes of the Puritan’s God. The project given was to wear a letter that shows what we frown upon in ourselves or what we pride ourselves on, character wise. I chose to use the letter B as my scarlet letter because it stands for Broken.
