Hester Prynne's Dichotomy: The Scarlet Letter

924 Words2 Pages

Maddie Kelsey
Ms. Zamora
English 3 P. 2
27 February 2015
I will neither give nor receive unauthorized aid. Scarlet Letter Essay In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne is a Puritan woman who commits infidelity with a preacher, Dimmsdale, and bears a child, Pearl, as the result. In the Puritan world of colonial America (1620-1640), adultery was viewed as a sin towards the Lord and resulted in severe punishment. To punish Hester for this unlawful act, the council of leaders force her to wear a large ‘A’ on her bosom so that the community would be aware of her unthinkable sin. Ultimately, she is shunned by the community and chooses to moves to the outskirts of the town and avoids any unnecessary confrontation. By …show more content…

Hester’s withdrawal from society provides her the freedom to grow intellectually and spiritually as an individual. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the dichotomy between Hester’s outward conformance and inner rebellion and uses the scarlet letter to support the theme of individuality. The scarlet letter separates Hester from her puritan society and enables her to elicit sympathy from the reader by forgiving other sinners in her community. This dichotomy is used to point out the hypocritical nature of Puritanism: those who condemn Hester are condemnable themselves according to their own set of values. Although Hester becomes a living symbol of immoral behavior, her character is more forgiving than the community who condemns her. Whenever Hester is in the presence of one who sins for a personal reason, “the red infamy upon her breast would give a sympathetic throb” (Hawthorne 148). Hester can relate to, and forgive others’ sins …show more content…

Secretly meeting in the forest, Hester and Dimmesdale declare their love for each other. This behavior strictly defies the Puritan values to which she outwardly conforms. They secretly plan to reside in Europe to escape their current

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