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Personal Transmutation In Maya Angelou's The Scarlet Letter

497 Words2 Pages

Personal Transmutation The successful memoirist and poet Maya Angelou deduced,“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude” (as qtd. in “Maya Angelou quotes” 2). 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.
By accepting her mistake and not circumventing or avoiding her consequences, Hester Prynne modified the demeaning definition of her scarlet letter “A.” Hester Prynne proved her ability to take the ramifications that followed her and accept her fate frequently throughout the novel. Although Hester Prynne confronted ridicule from her surrounding neighbors, Hester showed her ability to accept her situation when she showed “[no] irritation nor irksomeness” (Hawthorne 179) towards the …show more content…

In order to escape the frequent ridicule, Hester changed her actions and revealed to the Boston community that she was able to combat the fierce insults and persevere. Hester began her transformation with the initial acceptance and acknowledgement of her sin. She furthered her metamorphosis with the decision to overlook the attitudes and demeanors of those around her and assist all who either lacked necessities or sought ornate embroidery. The alteration from “adulteress” to “able” was not caused incidentally, Hester Prynne changed the meaning with her

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In the Scarlet Letter Hester Prynne was a character of high integrity. She lived by her own values and merits no matter what the consequence, and refused to give in to the abundance of temptations that were presented to her. The scarlet letter also provided lessons that Hester needed to learn in order to continue her development as a person. Men living by Dimmesdale’s standard, hiding the fact they have sinned and having to be pushed to the edge to confess, feel integrity takes a back seat to getting what you yearn for. For them, their moral code is only a guide, seldom

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Many tend to focus on either the consequences of sins, or the causes of them. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, the protagonist Hester Prynne is widely considered as the most controversial character in the piece. D.H. Lawrence’s criticism “On the Scarlet Letter” displays his views of how Hester Prynne is depicted, as well as how she should have been depicted, in the novel. Lawrence utilizes the literary devices of choppy syntax, biblical allusions, and satirical tone to emphasize his opinions on the characterization of Hester Prynne.

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Is sinning really sinful? Is sinning really sinful? In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book The Scarlet Letter there are quite a few examples of sin. However, Hawthorne depicts the same sin as one being more sinful then the other, until they redeem these sins. In this essay I will explore these examples to determine whether this thesis is true.

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This shows how ungrateful and judgemental her society is. All things considered, through these many skills Hester accomplishes, the meaning of the scarlet letter, embroidered on her chest, changes in meaning from ‘adulterer’ to ‘able.’ This eventually leads to women looking up to her and going to her for advice. As a result, “the scarlet letter ceased to be a stigma which attracted the world’s scorn and bitterness, and became a type of something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon with awe, yet with reverence too” (Hawthorne 257). Hester’s experiences living with society, as they looked down upon her, eventually changes the way society looks at people and the choices they make.

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By wearing the “A,” Hester was publicly humiliated, however, her development in character causes a change in the meaning of the Scarlet Letter, which leads her to taking pride in the letter as it grows a part of her. After Hester’s sin the Puritan community places a false

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In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne is an extreme outcast in her society following her public ignominy and being sinfully branded as the adulterer. Succeeding Hester’s removal of the “A” from her chest, she initially believes that “the burden of shame and anguish departed from her spirit” (182). Hester feels as though the removal of the “A” has removed the stigma pertaining to the “A”, as well as the constraints and disregard society has cast upon her. But whether or not Hester contains a physical marker of her ignominy, she will be abandoned within society. After seven years of being accustomed to Hester’s sin, townspeople still believe Hester was “dead, in respect to any claim of sympathy” (203).

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Although the community originally knew Hester as a disgrace, the town’s opinion of her changed over time as she began to do work for the poor and needy. After this shift in the town’s view of Hester, “many people refused to interpret the scarlet [letter] by its original signification” (111). Instead of Hester’s scarlet letter serving as a reminder of her scandalous sin, her peers “ had begun to look upon the scarlet letter as a token . . . of [Hester’s] many good deeds” (111). She became known for her charity and generosity, which caused the civilians to overlook her sinful behavior.

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In the beginning the scarlet letter represented adultery and shame, but then the A represented “able.” Hester Prynne showed people that greatness can come out of huge mistake. One bad chapter does not mean your story is over. Willingly, Hester wanted to pick herself up again and move on with her life and eventually people noticed that. They began to respect her and think of her as strong and commendable

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In the book ‘ the Scarlet Letter’ Hester Prynne makes a lot of mistakes in her life, but She is trying to fix what She messed up on. She does a crime that will forever change her life forever. She has a child with another guy. She is a sinner, but She is also an object because some of the stuff She done can never be taken back. Hester will do anything to get her life back in order.

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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

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When Hester Prynne committed adultery she was punished greatly. She was made to stand in front of the town on a pedestal being shamed. Not to mention the scarlet letter A on her chest representing the crime that she had committed “That Scarlet Letter, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity” (Hawthrone pg.

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Hester Prynne was an example of sin, guilt, and redemption. Hawthorne uses bible passages as examples. The consequences for our sins are determined by God and where we will go. Hester’s punishment is wearing the letter, ‘A’ on her breast. " God, as a direct consequence of the sin which man thus punished, had given her a lovely child, whose place was on that same dishonoured bosom, to connect her parent for ever with the race and descent of mortals, and to be finally a blessed soul in heaven!"- (pg 55).

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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)

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