Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter centers around a young woman named Hester Prynne, an adulteress in a stringent Puritan community. After Hester conceives a child through her sin and the townspeople learn that she had committed adultery, they treat her as an outcast and force her to wear a “scarlet letter” to mark her shame. Even when under pressure, she refuses to tell who her child’s father is. Even though her punishment did not require that she stay in the community, Hester chooses to remain there in an attempt to cleanse herself from her transgression. Despite all of the pain this caused her, she was still able to show great strength. Hester Prynne’s isolation in her community as a result of her sin brings the reader’s attention to her dignity and inner strength, her kindness, and her independent nature. Hester maintained her dignity and showed immense inner strength when being shamed. Hester’s judgemental community demands that she stand on a scaffold and wear an “A” to shame her and mark her as an adulteress. When Hester is being publicly shamed, although she admits to feeling “as if her heart had been flung into the street for them all to spurn and trample upon” (Hawthorne, 1994, p. 84Scarlet Letter), …show more content…
Hester’s countenance is described as “haughty” when she is on the scaffold, showing that she will refuse to drown in shame or self-hatred. When Hester is forced to create and wear the letter A on her breast, she makes it incredibly ornate, which defies Ppuritan culture that insists upon plainness in clothing. This shows Hester’s independence because she is going against her culture’s norms. Hester stands by her decision to not reveal the name of her child’s father, showing perfect solidarity against the demands of the community. Hester’s independent nature carries her through her isolation by not being enslaved to the insults the community threw at
Hester Prynne is a character who gave up everything, even love, for her child. Hester Prynne sacrificed her peace, her beauty, her entire being for her child and this shows her determination and profound understanding of the world. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s piece, “The Scarlet Letter” shows the other side of the sinner’s story and not as a villain, but a victim.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, tells the story of a young adulteress named Hester Prynne and her bastard daughter, Pearl, as they endure their residence in a small town of the Massachusetts British settlement in the1600s. Pearl’s illegitimate birth is the result of the relationship between Hester Prynne and a minister of the Puritan church, Arthur Dimmesdale. Through public defamation and a perpetual embroidery of an “A” upon her dress, Hester is punished for her crime. Whereas, Arthur choses to suppress the secret over illuminating the truth and endures internal and self-inflicted punishment as consequence.
Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter tells the story of Hester Prynne, a sinner, living in a puritan society. As punishment, she is forced to wear a scarlet letter on her chest. Her daughter Pearl is the product of her sinful ways, and a constant reminder of her wrongdoing. Pearl’s embodiment of the Scarlet Letter causes her hostile relationships with the world and her mother. However, when Dimmesdale kisses her, he frees her from isolation and allows her to form human connections.
with. Having a heart blinded by love Hester choose to stay in the town and
In the Scarlet Letter, is a story of a young beautiful woman, Hester Prynne, who commits adultery and stays tough when the community harasses her. She is being punished for adultery, which is a disgusting sin. Her township community thinks of her as a proud but shameful woman who has defied the ways of the Puritans, so her punishment should be harsher. To the Puritans, Hester has defied them, taken the consequences and later conform to them. Hester Prynne undergoes both physical and emotional upsets of which consequences affect her openly. She locates a deserted house on the neighborhood of township far from any environs to any other tenancy (Hawthorne, 3-6).
The portrayal of Hester Prynne in the novel, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, has led to many different opinionated views. Many debate whether or not Hester Prynne should be portrayed in an angelic or sinful light. The author and critic, D.H. Lawrence, focuses on Hester’s sin itself, and focuses on having the reader view an alternate perspective of Hester, seeing her not as the victim, but as the criminal, as she should be viewed based on traditional Puritan values. Lawrence achieves the perspective that Hester should be viewed in a sinful light through his rhythmic and fluid syntax, negative and hateful diction, as well as his sarcastic and critical tone.
When Hester Prynne becomes pregnant without her husband, she is severely punished by having to endure public humiliation and shame for her adulterous actions. Hester is forced to wear a scarlet “A”on her breast for the rest of her life. (1.) She lives as an outcast. At first, Hester displays a defiant attitude by boldly march from prison towards the pillory. However, as time goes on, the public humiliation of her sin weighs heavily upon her soul. “An accustomed eye had likewise it’s own aguish to inflict. It’s cool stare of familiarity was intolerable. From first to last, in short, Hester Prynne had always th...
that is displayed on her chest is a reminder of the shame she should feel. However, once Hester removes the A, she also removes the harsh, unbending Puritan social structure, showing that she dispels her sin. While Hester’s beauty is shown through her physical appearance, it also shines through in her ability to redefine the mea...
At the beginning of the Scarlet Letter Hester Prynne is labeled as the “bad guy”. The townspeople demand the other adulterer’s name, but Hester denies this revelation. She does not reveal it because she knows that the information will crumble the foundation of the Puritan religion and the town itself. “‘But, Hester, the man lives who has wronged us both! Who is he?’ ‘Ask me not!’ replied Hester Prynne, looking firmly into his face. ‘That thou shalt never know!’(Hawthorne 52). Hester knows that finding out that the father of the child, the Minister that is leading the town, will diminish credibility for the church and for Dimmesdale, the Minister. During her punishment, Hester decides to move out near the woods and make a living as a seamstress. Hester is regarded as an outcast from Boston, but she still gives back to the society that shuns her. ‘“Do you see that woman with the embroidered badge?’ they would say to strangers. ‘It is our Hester, —the town's own Hester, —who is so kind to the poor, so helpful to the sick, so comfortable to the afflicted!’”(Hawthorne 111). Her acts of kindness, helping the sick and comforting the afflicted, toward the society that makes her an outcast shows the inner goodness of a person. Throu...
Three gossips present at Hester’s public shaming moan at Hester’s “merciful” punishment, one even going as far as declaring “This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die.” (Hawthorne 36). As time passes, however, and Hester dutifully lives out her penance, the people start to see the piety of her everyday actions. After seven years, they go from crying for her death to exclaiming “None so ready as she to give of her little substance to every demand of poverty…None so self-devoted as Hester, when pestilence stalked through the town.” (Hawthorne 110). They also declared her “a self-ordained Sister of Mercy…Such helpfulness was found in her,—so much power to do, and power to sympathize,—that many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. They said that it meant Able.” (111). When the people of Hester’s town managed to stop gawking at Hester, they easily saw her true nature and changed their ideas to
Hester Prynne, from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, the Scarlet Letter, faces a crucible. She commits adultery with Reverend Dimmesdale and becomes pregnant with a daughter, Pearl. She is isolated from the community and the general public except for when she must stand upon the scaffold for three hours as part of her punishment for her sin. She must also wear a scarlet letter “A” for adultery on her breast. The town looks at her differently because of her sin but Hester stays true to her personality. Hester fairs her life by honoring her punishment and her mistakes, as well as taking care of Pearl and teaching her to be kind.
In contrast to the typical Puritan women in Boston, Hawthorne depicts the female protagonist of The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne, as physically discrete. Hester has a perfect figure, a rich complexion, dark hair, and deep eyes. She dresses in modest clothing, but the symbol of her sin, the golden embroidered scarlet letter, remains the focus of her attire (Bloom 219). Hester’s breathtaking features and the scarlet letter give her a sense of individuality.
As Hester wears the scarlet letter, the reader can feel how much of an outcast Hester becomes. When walking through town, “…she never raised her head to receive their greeting. If they were resolute to accost her, she laid her finger on the scarlet letter and passed on” (Hawthorne, 127).She believes that she is not worthy of the towns acknowledgments and chooses to ignore them. The guilt that now rests in Hester is overwhelming to her and is a reason of her change in personality.
Hester Prynne committed a crime so severe that it changed her life into coils of torment and defeat. In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester is publicly recognized as an adulteress and expelled from society. Alongside the theme of isolation, the scarlet letter, or symbol of sin, is meant to shame Hester but instead transforms her from a woman of ordinary living into a stronger person.
The defining characteristics of Hester are her true beauty and radiance. “The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale.” (46) This shows the reader that Hester is not only perfectly beautiful, but she carries herself very lady like and in an elegant manner. This is surprising that Hester carries herself with such grace as she is leaving the prison for her sin, when the people are expecting her to be shameful. “Those / who had before known her...were astonished, and even startled, to perceive / ...