Hester Prynne In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

  "What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us," stated Oliver Wendell Holmes. This eventually proves to be especially true for Hester Prynne, the main character in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. Hester Prynne, a fair young maiden whose husband had disappeared two years prior to the opening of the novel, has an affair with the pastor of her Puritan church, resulting in the birth of her child Pearl. Because of this act of adultery, Hester Prynne is branded by the scarlet letter "A," which she is forced to forever wear upon her attire. The plot thickens as Hester's former husband returns to New England and becomes

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter is about sin. Its heroine, Hester, and the town minister, Arthur Dimmesdale, both bear the weight of adultery on their backs. Hester’s sin is discovered, and she is forced to wear a scarlet A on her chest. Dimmesdale’s sin remains hidden, and it eats away at him for years. Ultimately, Hester finds comfort in the public nature of her sin.

The narrator remarks, “The scarlet letter had not done its office,” (Hawthorne 163) while speaking of how the experience of wearing the letter has changed Hester and how the community opinion of her has evolved over seven years. While the letter was supposed to make Hester a social pariah, her charitable nature quickly changed how she was viewed. While she may believe that she is isolated from the rest of society by the letter, the community has chosen to view the letter as standing for “Able,” instead of it’s original “Adulterer.” Mentally, she is punishing herself for her sin, but that is her own decision and not an affect of wearing the letter. In fact, she almost feels empowered by it. She “assumed the freedom of speculation, then common

The scarlet letter, despite being Hester’s burden to bear, has a lot to say about all of the characters in the novel, main and supporting character’s alike. There are many themes and traits that the scarlet letter is tied to, but there are a select few that I felt most focused on throughout the novel that differ from character to character. Among concealed sin, self-torment, and many other linked concepts, the few that I will be pointing out pertain to the characters and are a large part of who that character is as an individual, not simply what they see or don’t see the scarlet letter meaning for those around them.

Hawthorne shows that through the development of Hester Prynne in the Scarlet Letter, we have to pay for committed sins, but instead of feeling sorry for ourselves about it, we have to embrace it and make our lives better from that sin. It chapter five of the story, it says “Thus the young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast,—at her, the child of honorable parents,—at her, the mother of a babe, that would hereafter be a woman, —at her, who had once been innocent, —as the figure, the body, the reality of sin”. This quote is Hawthorne telling the reader that all of the young and pure children in the puritan community look at Hester as a sinner now and as an all around bad person even though she use to be just as pure as all of them. She came from a good family and now she is a living sin that walks among the innocent children. Hester knows that she is looked at differently by everyone now but she doesn’t let it bother her.

Of course the answer to this question is "neither" if she must be only one or the other. In one way, Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is a much less complicated character than her lover because her great sin is known to all and how she deals with it is overt; however, because of that public punishment, Hester does not have to deal with the effects of her sin on her soul in the same way that Arthur Dimmesdale must. If a sinner is defined simply as someone who has sinned, then Hester is, indeed, a sinner. If we think of a sinner as being someone who persists in committing the same sin--then I might make the case that Hester is a sinner. The truth is that Hester is really only sorry for getting caught, which she does because she is pregnant.

I, your well-respected minister, intrude on your time with well-wishes. In this time of trials and tribulation I beg of you to not resort to bitterness, but to resort to God’s word. Widow Hester Prynne has been a standing member of our society for two years now, earning her place as a wonderful seamstress. Up until the time of her sin Widow Hester was a reputable member of our community, and I beg of you now to not change your opinion on her. In a moment of weakness Widow Hester sinned, and now I rouse you to support her. As the Bible says in Psalms chapter sixty-eight verse five “He is a Father of the fatherless, and a Judge of the widows, even God in his holy habitation”. Instead of tearing Widow Hester down, I encourage our community to

Although she removes the scarlet letter much later in the novel, it will always be a part of her. Thus, Hester becomes a figure of strength, compassion, and acceptance. I believe that Hester has developed this way because she doesn’t want anyone else to feel the humiliation and loneliness that she experiences. Moreover, she feels the need to impress the Puritans because they look down upon her. In the novel, Hester does a lot of charitable deeds such as providing solace to poor, sick, and mourning people. Furthermore, the reason she does this is because she wants to compensate for her sin of adultery. By doing these good deeds, she evens out the bad with the good. Therefore, her moral actions ultimately proves her

With Hester Prynne’s first appearance in The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne describes the reactions of “Those who had before known her, and had expected to behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped” (480). In this sentence Hawthorne describes Hester’s ability to conquer the unfavorable situation she is in while coming out stronger and showing her unique character that shines bright in contrast to the Puritans. By looking at this quote in the context of The Scarlet Letter it is quite apparent that Hawthorne has developed Hester’s character in contrast to the Puritans to show not only the flaws in the

People think that their sins are usually a lot more embarrassing and awful than they actually are. Because of this, most people are not happy or expressive about their mistakes. When someone does wrong, they tend to suppress their sins from society because of the embarrassment that they feel. On the rare occasion that people express their sins they get hated or shamed by society. In the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne the main character, Hester Prynne, had no choice to hide or express her peccant ways, because the Puritans forced it upon her to wear a scarlet letter on her chest to show that she is a victim of peccadillo.

Introduction- The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne takes place during the middle of the seventeenth century in Boston, Massachusetts. The story is told through an unnamed custom-house surveyor who writes two hundred years after the events he describes took place. He is both omniscient and subjective because he knows everything about the characters while he also voices his own interpretations and opinions.

The Scarlet Letter is about a woman named Hester Prynne. She is a young woman who is accused of committing adultery, and for this crime she must wear a scarlet letter A on all of her clothing. In the beginning of the story she is forced to stand in front of the town while the townspeople stare at her. Hester has a child, and refuses to give up the name of the father, the child is named Pearl. A man named Chillingsworth reveals to Hester, in private, that he is her husband. Once she is released from jail her and Pearl live in the forest in a small cabin. A clergyman named Dimsdale,who is suffering from an unknown mental illness, stands on top of the scaffold one night and yells that he is actually Pearl’s father but no one but Hester and Pearl

Independence and freedom from one’s husband before the 1900s was not a common situation to come across, but in The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne creates Hester as a husbandless and independent young woman. Not only is Hester’s husband (missing for two years) not in the picture, but she also has her own business. Hester supports herself and new born child all on her own with her own sewing/embroidery business. Not only was this business her own, but it was also very successful; “By degrees, nor very slowly, her handiwork became what would now be turned the fashion” (Hawthorne 76). Pearl, her child is also portrayed as a very independent character because she had to live her life without her father and take care of certain problems on her own.

In his essay On The Scarlet Letter, D.H. Lawrence contradicts Hawthorne’s portrayal of Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne respects Hester and portrays her as a victim, whereas Lawrence argues that she is one of the main sinners in the novel. D.H. Lawrence establishes and supports his claim that Hester Prynne is unworthy of Hawthorne’s praise by effectively utilizing concise syntax, frequent repetition, and strong biblical allusions.

Hester becomes a scapegoat and gives the townspeople, particularly the women, a chance to demonstrate their own piety by condemning her as loudly as possible. Rather than seeing their own potential sinfulness in Hester, the townspeople see her as someone whose transgressions outweigh and obliterate their own errors. The women of the town criticize her for embroidering the scarlet letter, the symbol of her shame, with such care and in such a flashy manner: It seems to declare that she is proud, rather than ashamed, of her sin. In reality, Hester simply accepts the “sin” and its symbol as part of herself.