In the novel, ‘The Scarlet Letter’, Hawthorne writes chapter 5, “Hester and Her Needle”, to show the uses of Hester’s clothing to reveal Hester’s self-perception, releases the attitude of Hester’s neighbors, and explains the nature of her daughter’s conception in different rhetorical devices. In the 7th paragraph of chapter 5, it states that Hester didn’t wear the finest of clothing. She simply wears plain dresses and basic materials. Hawthorne describes Hester’s attire as “Her own dress was of the coarsest materials and the most somber hue; with only that one ornament,--the scarlet letter--which it was her doom to wear.”(86). It states that the scarlet letter is the only beautiful thing that Hester wears. On the other hand, she dressed Pearl up in the finest and fanciest clothing. Hawthorne says, “The child’s attire, on the other hand, was distinguished by a fanciful, or, we might rather say, a fantastic ingenuity, which served, indeed, to heighten the airy charm that early began to develop itself in the little girl, but which appeared to have also a deeper meaning.”(86). These …show more content…
She had in her nature a rich, voluptuous, Oriental characteristic,--a taste for the gorgeously beautiful, which, save in the exquisite productions of her needle, found nothing else, in all the possibilities of her life, to exercise itself upon.”(87). Reading this, it feels as if this kind of expresses the attitude of her neighbors by showing how much work she does. It seems as if her work may be kind of seen by her neighbors. It doesn’t exactly say it, but it hints at how hard she works at the needle, and it seems as if maybe the neighbors may like her work. It also shows how different she may be from the other