What Does Hester's Greed Symbolize In The Scarlet Letter

Puritanical societies can quickly blame and judge each other within a society. In Puritan societies children had to act like adults, bad luck meant God punished you, and minor sins constituted a whipping. The strict and harsh law caused the Salem Witch Trials and created the source of the main character's problems in The Scarlet Letter. The Scarlet Letter, published in 1850, was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne; a descendant of a judge who participated in the Salem Witch Trials. Did the shame of his ancestor’s actions drive him to concoct a story of a woman shamed by society and the corruption within a theocracy? The public grew to shame Hester Prynne, the protagonist in The Scarlet Letter, when she has a baby with an unknown father and she refuses to give the church his name. Due to her

Hester’s loyalty caused the downfall of her co-conspirator, the collapse of town’s beliefs in the church, and while she never dies due to her fatal flaw, she never comes to terms with it and her devotion causes her happiness to depend upon others.
At the heart of the issue, Hester’s life balances upon her devotion to others beyond herself. This trait rises to the surface when Chillingworth makes Hester promise she would never tell anyone that he was her husband: “Breathe not to any human soul that thou didst ever call me husband!” (71). When she promises Chillingworth to keep his secret she validates his need for revenge. Her promise gives Chillingworth the power to torture Hester’s lover and continues to hold it over her throughout the story. Hester’s undying promise to Dimmesdale, her lover, to suffer together in life so they could spend the afterlife together creates another example of her unrequited devotion.