The Scarlet Letter Sinner

During the Puritan era, sin was the epitome of evil. Sinners were immoral and criminal creatures who were resented by the other Puritans and were forced to live a life of shame and guilt. Hester Prynne, the main character in The Scarlet Letter, is a sinner in Puritan-era Boston. Unfaithful to her husband and conceiving a child out of wedlock with another man, Hester commits a sin worthy of death. Conversely, Hester proves to be a compassionate, resilient humanitarian. Hawthorne depicts Hester as a morally ambiguous character by contrasting her sin and her character through the different meanings of the letter A. The scarlet letter A that rests on Hester’s chest is seen as representing her adulterous sin. Her penance is the only punishment

Their anger towards the sinner shows how the community refuses to see her as a capable human. Not only is Hester socially ostracized, but is also physically removed from her community. Hawthorne describes the adulterer’s house as, “abandoned,” “concealed,” “lonesome,” and, “out of the sphere,” to demonstrate her removal from the community (76). Hester commits adultery, a reprehensible crime, and does not reveal the identity of the baby’s father. The sinner’s choice to never disclose the father’s identity publicly is considered perjury by the Puritans, another condemnable sin. Even when Hester is standing in front of her entire community being accosted to disclose Pearl’s father, she protests: “‘Speak out the name! That, and thy repentance, may avail to take the

Despite Hawthorne’s description of Hester mostly through the use of shadows and darkness, Hester is, actually, “youthful and fair,” and a passionate humanitarian (57). The Puritans refused to observe any of Hester’s good deeds. The mother used her job, a needle worker, as an opportunity to do charity and devote her work to those who needed it. Hester did not do this to gain acceptance from her community, but gave to the poor solely from the good of her heart, even though the poor community mostly consisted of Puritans who saw Hester as a wrongdoer. As Hester continued to prove people’s opinion of her wrong, “the scarlet letter had endowed her with a new sense” (101). Hawthorne’s transition from Hester solely being seen as a sinner to an able woman further develops her compassionate character, characterizing her as more than