Suffering In The Scarlet Letter

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The act of suffering is a fundamental aspect of human life. Nathaniel Hawthorne ensures that his characters in The Scarlet Letter exemplify many different types of suffering, as well as how to cope with this condition. Hester Prynne, one of the main protagonists of the story, gives birth to a beautiful daughter out of wedlock. This occurrence within the Puritan society is highly frowned upon, and every measure is taken to show Hester that her infidelity is not approved of in the eyes of God. Hester Prynne suffered beneath the heaviness of the patriarchy as a single mother marked by the distinct letter “A”, signifying adultery, who had to carry the weight of her own immoralities as well as Dimmesdale’s.
Hester had to raise Pearl, the child …show more content…

“‘Doth he love us?’ said Pearl, looking up with acute intelligence into her mother’s face. ‘Will he go back with us, hand in hand, we three together, into the town?’” (Hawthorne 318). The confusion caused by Dimmesdale within young Pearl is heartbreaking alone, but the confused girl goes to Hester for guidance on the matter. Hester had to raise Pearl by herself for the seven years rising up to this point without a partner to help her with the struggles of parenthood, and in this aspect, she suffered heavily. Within Hester Prynne’s Little Pearl: Sacred and Profane Love, Whelean acknowledges the hardships that this little ‘family’ of three took, and how hard it was on all of them. “Under the guise of little Pearl, therefore, a lawless and passionate love has been born into the world- a love that is able to face hardships and suffering, but that has no home and apparently no way to build one” (Whelean 492). Everything is in place for there to be a familial relationship between the three individuals, but Dimmesdale’s reluctance to admit his doings put a hold on this idea. This being so, Hester is left again to clean up the minister’s emotional suffering he has placed on Pearl, which in return increases Hester’s agonizing

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