Hester Prynne Loss Of Innocence In Scarlet Letter

In Nathaniel Hawthorn’s novel, “The Scarlet Letter,” the main character Hester Prynne makes a life-altering, and perhaps a life-saving, choice for herself as well as others when she decides to stay in Boston after being sentenced to wear a scarlet, “A,” upon her breast for committing adultery.

In the corrupt Puritan society in which the novel is based, Hester must face much scorn and resentment from the other townspeople as punishment for her crime, whilst knowing she is lucky to be alive. When Hester stands upon the scaffold at the beginning of the novel, she stands vulnerably and makes a feeble, somewhat ironic, attempt to cover the mark of her sin with her baby Pearl, who is the product of her adultery. Knowing in her heart that she can escape the brutal treatment of herself and her daughter, Hester contemplates leaving Boston and running away to a far off place where knowledge of her

terrible action does not exist. But because of her confession, Hester is symbolically reborn into anew woman, a woman who will take liability for the consequences of her actions. And so, she feels bound to the town out of sheer moral responsibility for her daughter and her actions.
By staying and completing the penance for her crime Hester avoids the same fate which her partner Dimmesdale suffers.

She is open to the town and the people in it, which allows for her soul to be free and purified of all guilt even though she must bear the mental burden of wearing the letter, her conscience can be clean. Dimmesdale, on the other hand, ultimately dies from the spiritual hardship placed on his soul by his inability to repent and publically admit to his crime. He is able to resume his false identity as a righteous minister after Hester’s condiment, but he truly longs for her to expose him because he is aware that he does not have the will to reveal himself to so many who look to him for guidance and counsel in his positon of power. He looks to Hester and cryptically begs and pleads to her to uncover his true identity as her secret lover but she will not out of her love for him. Hester feels a deep spiritual connection to Dimmesdale, one that she has never experienced before and feels that the mutual offense between them binds them together and binds her to the

town.
To the modern reader Hester’s love for a man who lets her and her daughter suffer silently for years is absolutely unfathomable, but it is because of Hester’s bond to Dimmesdale and Pearl that she stays. Even though she is met daily with the full burden of her sin, she acts in the most ethical manner possible by continuously enduring the humiliation for the sake of her loved ones and benefits herself and is able to grow stronger and more able from the experience.