Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter follows Hester Prynne, a young woman living in puritan Massachusetts in the mid-1600s, and how the label of being an “adulterer” considerably impacts her life for years after the crime. Arthur Dimmesdale, an unmarried man and the town’s respected minister, is secretly the father of Hester’s newly born daughter, and the guilt he experiences slowly kills him throughout the novel. The Scarlet Letter was never meant to be a love story; Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale would never have ended up together due to their positions in society and how their lives were affected following the scandal.
As a punishment for her actions, Hester is required to wear a scarlet letter A on her dress that symbolizes the shame of her adultery. This humiliation continues throughout her life as the town treats her with great disrespect because of her past. Hester proves to be very charitable in her lifetime, regularly bringing food to the poor and helping to take care of the sick. Even though “Such helpfulness was found in her—so much power to do and power to sympathize” (113), the town took advantage of her efforts and only appreciated that she was benefiting them with her actions. As she makes a living as a talented seamstress, her clients in town believe
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Pearl is a symbol of evil in the book because she is a child born from the result of adultery. Pearl grows up without her father being involved, so Hester is solely responsible for her and the shame that comes with raising the product of a crime. Hester treats her with love and care, but Pearl is a symbol of sin, saying things like “...the sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom”’ (138). Pearl is both a reminder of Hester’s sin and a treasure to aid her loneliness, but unfortunately, they are both ostracized in their