Hester Prynne: Victim or Heroine?

Literature is very interesting when there is a change in the protagonist. They can start out bad but turn out good in the end. Being the protagonist of a novel and changing your ways can affect the story and give it a great plot twist. There is a story in literature that contains a person that made a bad decision. A victim of sin, Hester Prynne, emerges as a determined, loving, and strong heroine, living her own life in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Hester Prynne came from Amsterdam to Boston two years ago. She came from a poor family. She is married to a misshapen scholar and physician who is much older than she. He has sent her alone to New England with the plan of following her at some later date. Since Hester has not heard from her beloved husband in a long time, she believes he has been lost at sea.

Hester is a youthful, beautiful, proud woman who has committed an awful sin and a scandal that changes her life in a major way. She commits adultery with a man known as Arthur Dimmesdale, leader of the local Puritan church and Hester’s minister. The adultery committed results in a baby girl named Pearl. This child she clutches to her chest is the proof of her sin. This behavior is unacceptable. Hester is sent to prison and then punished. Hester is the only one who gets punished for this horrendous act, because no one knows who the man is that Hester has this scandalous affair with. Hester’s sin is confessed, and she lives with two constant reminders of that sin: the scarlet letter itself, and Pearl, the child conceived with Dimmesdale. Her punishment is that she must stand upon a scaffold receiving public humiliation for several hours each day, wearing the scarlet letter “A” on her chest, represe...

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...he shows us her character, not by how she gives herself respect, but by the continued respect that she gives to others: even her tormenters. Her secret shame was kept inside, and it was an impossible burden to bear. She was brave.

Hester is an example. She is doomed to publicly carry her shame by force, but her willful determination to remain strong makes her a heroine. She may have been a victim of a major sin, but she is definitely a heroine to admire. Hawthorne got it right. Hester is a heroine that many will choose and is definitely a great person to study. Learning about Hester can teach so much to one person. Hester is seen by some as an early example of feminine strength. By standing up to her situation, facing her sin, and getting on with her life, Hester is forgiven by not only her peers, but herself, perhaps the most important forgiveness of all.