In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester shows signs of being a virtuous woman despite occurrences of sin throughout the novel. Proverbs states that a woman has to meet certain qualifications to be virtuous. Hester works with her hands, gives to the poor and dresses Pearl in scarlet. Although she has sinned and had Pearl out of wedlock, Hester has changed and become a better woman who shows virtue.
Hester is virtuous according to Proverbs because she makes clothes for others. Proverbs describes virtue as, “She makes linen garments and sells them”(31:24). “Hester Prynne went, one day, to the mansion of Governor Bellingham, with a pair of gloves, which she had fringed and embroidered to his order,....” (Hawthorne 103). She makes and alters many other garments as well. Even when she wore the A at first, everyone was fascinated by the embroidery.
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Proverbs states, “She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue” (31:26). Hester helps others with their problems and gives them advice, some even consider her an angel:
It had been her habit, from an almost immemorial date, to go about the country as a kind of voluntary nurse, and doing whatever miscellaneous good she might; taking upon herself, likewise, to give advice in all matters, especially those of the heart; by which means, as a person of such propensities inevitably must, she gained from many people the reverence due to an angel . . . (Hawthorne