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Hester Prynne As A True Hero

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Ashley Edge
Mrs. Maeger
English III Honors
16 October 2017

Hester's Heroism In The Scarlet Letter Hester Prynne is more than a literary figure in a classic novel, she is known by some people to be one of the earliest American Hero’s. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Hester commits adultery and has a child that she must care for all alone. She is forced to wear a powerful, attention grabbing “Scarlet A” on her chest while she must try to make a living to support her and her child, Pearl. Even though she must face all the harsh judgment and stares she does not allow her sin to stop her from living a successful life. She looks past the Letter as a symbol of sin and turns it into a sign of approval. Hester …show more content…

All of these points show us how brave Hester is. Hester proves that she is strong by not letting the punishment or her sin hinder her from living a successful life. Despite having to wear the bright “letter A” at all times wherever she goes she still manages to raise Pearl and make a living all by herself. Hester shows her strength in many ways, one being when she shouts to the governor, “God gave her into my keeping… I will not give her up!”(Hawthorne 90). When the governor saw Pearl and Hester he tries to take Pearl from Hester because he thinks that Hester is not fit to raise her. She stays strong the whole time that Governor Bellingham argued that Pearl should not be in her care. In this moment she is very impulsive, and she shows her true strength and love for Pearl by fighting to keep her. She also shows strength by bearing the burden of the letter as if it were not there, Hawthorne writes, “She had not known the weight, until she felt the freedom!”(Hawthorne 159). When Hester finally took the scarlet letter off, she immediately felt a huge weight lifted off her shoulders, but she is so strong that she did not even notice it. When she called Pearl however, Pearl would not come because she did not recognize her without it on her and she had to put it back on. Once she put it back on, all of the freedom

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