Hesters Letter :: essays papers

Hesters Letter there be numerous characters in The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, that play worthy roles. The character that put ups out the most is Hester Prynne. Hester changes significantly during the course of the novel. In the setoff of the novel she is conceived as an extreme perditionner done the eyes of the Puritans she has foregone against Puritan ways, committing adultery (Chuck). For this irrevocably harsh sin, she must wear a symbol of shame for the rest of her life. However, the Romantic philosophies of Hawthorne put down the squared-toe beliefs (Chuck). She is a beautiful, young woman who has sinned, except is forgiven. Hawthorne portrays Hester as a miraculous maternity and she can do no wrong. Not only Hester, save also the physical scarlet letter, a Puritanical sign of disownment, is shown through the authors style and rhetoric as a beautiful, gold and colorful mankind (Chuck). Hawthorne uses Hester Prynne in the novel to convey many different meanings. Hawthorne is more implicated in uncovering the flaws of puritan society and the hypocrisy of their reactions to Hesters sin, than to psychoanalyze adultery. Hawthorne uses Hester to scrutinize the Puritan way indirectly, and show the role women should play in society. The Puritan culture is one that recognizes Protestantism, a sect of Christianity. Though a staple of Christianity is forgiveness for ones sins, this has long been forgotten amongst the women of capital of Massachusetts Morally, as well as materially, there was a coarser fiber in those wives and maidens of old English birth and breeding, than in their fair descendants (Marcus). When Hester is number 1 brought out of her prison cell, it is the gossiping goodwives who keep recommending much harsher punishments, from a soil on her forehead to death. Hester, who had done nothing wrong prior to this sin of adultery, is no longer seen as a human being, but merely as a symbol of evil and shame upon the to wn. Hester is forced to stand on the scaffold with everyone in town ridiculing her until she confesses who her partner was in the sin, but instead she stands there for three hours, when she was allowed to come down. Her subjection for the Puritan onlookers was excoriating to bear, and Hester holds the tike to her heart, a symbolic comparison between the child and the scarlet letter, implying that they are truly both intertwined (Chuck).