Who Is Hester Prynne In The Scarlet Letter

Within the book The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, there are three main characters but within those three, there is Hester Prynne. She is the character that has taken concerns upon herself to handle responsibilities for herself and others’ wrongdoing. The Scarlet Letter portrays Hester as a woman who committed adultery. She acted out of sexual nature which resulted in her having a daughter named Pearl. Her daughter is of a father with whom, she has chosen not to inform nor speak of. “I will not speak… And my child must seek a heavenly Father; she shall never know an earthly one!”(Hawthorne 47) The actions she is making such as a promise she made to herself that she shall keep the truth of Dimmesdale being Pearl’s

Dimmesdale on the other hand has decided that it is better for him to not accept responsibility. He committed the same sin as Hester but he walked away from the sin with no suffering or guilt. He instead upheld his reputation and was able to remain the minister and be viewed as a sinless man from the townspeople. When given several chances to accept his responsibility of his sin he committed, he refuses to carry any of the pain .He left all his worries for Hester to carry for the both of them. Dimmesdale even went to the scaffold to carry out his job in investigating Hester. He is too scared to admit that he had a part in this sinfully sexual nature. He later became self-guilty and has to tell the truth because the guilt is consuming him from within to his outer being .He finally lays all his burdens onto the scaffold with Pearl and Hester in front of all the townspeople. He did accept the responsibility but right before he died in that very place. He is very late at confessing his actions. Hester took more responsibility because as soon as the act was committed is when she confessed and received her punishment while Dimmesdale waited until he couldn’t bear the pain anymore. He also never received the same punishment as Hester .He did receive punishment but he self-punished while Hester however received both self-inflicted punishment and punishment from others. While

He never cared about taking responsibility or being guilty. He consistently brought evil doings upon Dimmesdale due to the vital concept that Dimmesdale is Pearl’s father. Rather than Chillingworth taking his share in the responsibility he has his mindset on revenge and how to make Dimmesdale as miserable as he can possibly make him. The only thing Chillingworth ask is that he keep his identity secret so that he can still perform evil unto Dimmesdale. He feels as though it is his priority to destroy Dimmesdale for what he has done. Chillingworth wants destruction upon those who have been of sin but he realizes not that he is a continuation of sin.” In a world, old Roger Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man’s faculty of transforming himself into a devil” (Hawthorne 116) Chillingworth is not the man that he once was and though this is when he changed into a man who doesn’t care weather he is hurting someone or about responsibility .Instead he rather consistently have the selfish mind state