Finding shelter in individual power can distort one's ability to adapt to new circumstances. In Gwen Pharis Ringwood's dramatic play Still Stands the House, Hester, the primary character, personifies her home through her behaviour. To elaborate, the death of Hester's father suppresses her and her house of spirit. Consequently, the past confines the house and Hester, erasing the possibility of progression. The symbol of the house is indicative of Hester's stages of life; both were once lively, but the past compels them to deny change and maintain absolute control. Hester's life takes a distinctive turn after she becomes responsible for her household. To elaborate, Hester's living room in the past exemplifies liveliness and elegance before turning into an antiquated structure. …show more content…
For example, when reminiscing over the past, Hester conveys that she "could have married" (Ringwood 34). The burden of raising her brother deprives Hester of her youth and forces her to sacrifice the ability to have a separate family. Moreover, her newfound responsibility poses a transformation in her personality and leads her to individual power. Indeed, when Hester's father perishes, her youthfulness dies along with him. As Hester matures, her fear of change only continues to grow. Hester's home is frozen in time; the details of the home prove a lack of renovation. For example, Hester's deceased father's room is just as he vacated it, and the living room makes a "stern and solemn pact with the past" (Ringwood 27). The house's outdated features and overall atmosphere are evidence of the absence of change. In addition, the house's elements mirror Hester, who dreads selling her home and resists modifying her house in the apprehension of relinquishing her connection with her father. For instance, Hester prevents Ruth from altering her father's chair by asserting that she "won't have it changed"
In order to sustain her indulgence for the finer conditions, her hunger for moneys grows so much that even the house whispers about it because there is never enough. Hester's anxiety over wealth affects her children to the point they feel as if they can hear the house constantly saying they need money: "And so the house came to be haunted by the unspoken phrase: There must be more money! There must be more money!" (Lawerence 411). Children feed off their parent's energy. In the mother's constant state of distress, Paul feels trapped by the overwhelming cries that flow throughout what should be his safe haven. In an attempt to quiet the voices, Paul secretly gives money to Hester to be distributed over a span of 5 years. Unappreciative of this
Physically and mentally, Hester and Alma begin to weaken and memories become limited. Both sisters are elderly and use canes and wheelchairs to get around their home, caring for each other since they have no one else there for them.
When being questioned on the identity of her child’s father, Hester unflinchingly refuses to give him up, shouting “I will not speak!…my child must seek a heavenly Father; she shall never know an earthly one!” (47). Hester takes on the full brunt of adultery, allowing Dimmesdale to continue on with his life and frees him from the public ridicule the magistrates force upon her. She then stands on the scaffold for three hours, subject to the townspeople’s disdain and condescending remarks. However, Hester bears it all “with glazed eyed, and an air of weary indifference.” (48). Hester does not break down and cry, or wail, or beg for forgiveness, or confess who she sinned with; she stands defiantly strong in the face of the harsh Puritan law and answers to her crime. After, when Hester must put the pieces of her life back together, she continues to show her iron backbone and sheer determination by using her marvelous talent with needle work “to supply food for her thriving infant and herself.” (56). Some of her clients relish in making snide remarks and lewd commends towards Hester while she works, yet Hester never gives them the satisfaction of her reaction.
Hester Prynne was said to have "perfect elegance on a large scale" (Hawthorne 56). While on the scaffold, Hester smiled and blushed as she held her baby (Hawthorne 56). Hester knew that the townspeople scorned her and thought horrible things about her, yet she was ladylike the entire time (Hawthorne 57). Hester was a prideful woman who was "marked with natural dignity and force of character" (Hawthorne 56). Hester’s pride in herself prevented the townspeople’s hatred from affecting her outward appearance (Hawthorne 56). Yet, despite Hester’s calm demeanor, she felt as if she were going insane. As the townspeople watched, Hester felt "as if her heart had been flung into the street" (Hawthorne 59). The narrator noted times when Hester seemed
Had Hester given a name and condemned her child’s father, she would not have to stand alone. The fact the “[she] will not speak” shows her love for Pearl’s father (68). Hester’s love for this man is her downfall; had she been willing to give him up in an act of selfishness, she wouldn’t have to suffer alone. In addition to this show of weakness, Hester has the opportunity to leave town after she is released from prison, giving her a chance to start a new life and live free from judgement and away from the weight of the eyes of the town. Instead of taking this gift, she “deemed herself connect in a union” with the father of her child, therefore she chooses to bear the town’s judgement for “a joint futurity of endless retribution,” (80). Hester Prynne was married to Roger Chillingworth for convenience, not for love. He had “betrayed [her] budding youth into a false
Not only has Hester changed physically but she has also changed emotionally and cognitively. In chapter two, we are introduced to defiant Hester, standing on the scaffold as punishment for her sins. Hawthorne states “…he laid his right upon the shoulder of a young woman whom he thus drew forward, until, on the threshold of the prison-door, she repelled him by an action marked with natural dignity and force of character…” (9). Hawthorne describes Hester’s actions as natural dignity and forceful to convey her defiance and reluctance to the Puritan society and culture. In contrast, Hester, after seven years of suffering and loneliness with her humanity stripped from
Hester at first felt that her sin had taken away everything that she had and left her with only one thing, Pearl. When she first walked out of the prison and onto the scaffold, she was full of pride but from that point on, she was isolated from her community and forced to live in the forest with only her baby. Hester felt that suicide was the only thing she deserved after committing adultery. She says, "I have thought of death, have wished for it?would even have prayed for it, were it fit that such as I should pray for anything. Yet, if death be in this cup, I bid thee think again, ere thou beholdest me quaff it. See! it is even now at my lips." As time passes by, Hester?s personality gradually changes and she becomes a completely different person. She has become more caring although her lifestyle became worse.
Hester Prynne, the heroine of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, exhibits considerable character growth both over the course of her life and during the events of the novel. Her view of herself and her perspective on the role of women in the world evolve as she learns from new experiences. She moves through the stages of self-centered happiness in her childhood, deep despair and depression as an adult, and a later more hopeful and selfless existence.
Throughout the novel, the harsh Puritan townspeople begin to realize the abilities of Hester despite her past. Hester works selflessly and devotes herself to the wellbeing of others. “Hester sought not to acquire anything beyond a subsistence of the plainest and most ascetic description, for herself, and a simple abundance for her child.
Hester Prynne's guilt is the result of her committing adultery, which has a significant effect on her life. Hester is publicly seen with the scarlet letter when she first emerges out of the cold dark prison. "It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity and enclosing her in a sphere by herself" (49). The spell that is mentioned is the scarlet letter, "so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom" (49). The scarlet letter is what isolates her from everyone else because it symbolizes sin. Hester is in her very own sphere, where her sin affects her livelihood and has completely cut her off from the world. Her entrance into the sphere marks the beginning of her guilt and it occurs when she is in the prison after her first exposure to the crowd. The prison marks the beginning of a new life for Hester, a life full of guilt and seclusion. Her problem is that her shame is slowly surfacing while she faces the crowd realizing that she has been stripped of all her pride and everything that was important to her in the past. The lasting effect of Hester's sin is the shame that she now embodies due to her committing adultery. The shame that is ass...
In this scene, the reader is able to see inside Hester's head. One is able to observe the utter contempt she holds for the Puritan ways. She exhibits he love and respect for the father of her child, when she refuses to relinquish his name to the committee. The reader can see her defiant spirit due to these actions.
Hester has changed throughout The Scarlet Letter. She was pushed into a world of isolation because she did not fear acting on her passion. Hester transforms from a free-thinking woman to a strong, "ABLE" woman. The suffering Hester endured strengthened her and turned her into a person who helped another in need. The meaning of the scarlet letter shifts as Hester’s ability to endure the worst as plight increases.
Throughout many years of her life, Hester was considered an outcast by the people of her town. These repercussions are felt by her daughter, Pearl, as well, because she has no friends. They don't associate with others and some instances occurred when Puritan children would throw rocks at the two. During this time, Hester refuses to make publicly known the name of her child's father. To bear the weight of her punishment all alone made her even stronger. As her life progressed, Hester became less of an outcast in the public eye. She was gifted at embroidery and was charitable to those less fortunate than she. (Although Hester was a talented seamstress, she did not make as much money as she could have because she was not allowed to sew wedding dresses. This is obviously because she had committed sins that were supposed to be confined to the sanctity of marriage.)
In the beginning of the written story the author reveals Hester to be a cold-hearted mother. "She had bonny children, yet she felt they had been thrust upon her, and she could not love them"(75). In public she is thought of as the perfect mother, but in private she and her children know her true feelings. "Everyone else said of her: 'She is such a good mother. She adores her children.' Only she herself, and her children themselves, knew it was not so. They read it in each other's eyes"(75). Heste...
Hester was very trustworthy, she kept in secrets that could have possibly changed her and her daughter