Hester Prynne In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

This page describing her crime shows how Hester defies the Puritan belief system through rebellion because the crime of adultery is a serious sin in their religion, showing that she purposely disobeys the laws of their religion by having an affair. Hester Prynne also defies the Puritan belief system through the scene where she immerges from the jail cell and is seen in public with her wedlock child for the first time. Hawthorne describes the manner in which she immerges from the jail and how the town reacts, in the quote “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 had enveloped” (46). This quote shows Hester’s rebellion against the Puritan beliefs because, due to how serious her crime is seen in the Puritan community, the town members had expected her to show sorrow, shame, and weakness as she walked from the jail cell. But, instead she walks out with her head held high, ignoring their judgment, showing no shame and in the crime she committed, and disregarding the mannerisms the Puritan’s expected of her. Along with her rebellion, Hester Prynne defies the Puritan belief system

  "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

She had to live outside of town in a small cottage, apart from the rest of the society. While she could still sew for a living, she could not make a wedding dress, for the people feared that she would stain the purity of the bride. Most importantly, she must forever wear that scarlet letter, so that no one would ever forget that she was an adultress: “The poor, as we have already said, whom she sought out to be the objects of her bounty, often reviled the hand that was stretched forth to succor them… If she entered a church, trusting to share the Sabbath smile of the Universal Father, it was often her mishap to find herself the text of the discourse... They (the children) pursued her at a distance with shrill cries, and the utterance of a word that had no distinct purport to their own minds, but was none the less terrible to her, as proceeding from lips that babbled it unconsciously.” (Hawthorne, 1994, p. 58-59) The Puritan society never let Hester live down the crime that she

In the life of Hester Prynne, she is viewed as an adulterer. During her sentencing on the scaffold, people enjoyed seeing her be humiliated and punished for her reckless actions. The self-righteous society views her as an outcast: “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” (Hawthorne 76). Because she broke the strict Puritan laws,

Hester Prynne from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter is a unique character. She shows a lot of strength. Hawthorne creates a Puritan Society who isolates Hester, which made her a character of her own uniqueness. Hester is a woman of strength, compassion, and honesty.

Hester is an outcast from town. “[Hesters] sentence bore that she should stand a certain time upon the platform… under the heavy weight of a thousand eyes, all fastened upon her and concentrated on her bosom” (63-64). This act of standing upon the platform means that she is now officially an outcast from the colony. She has gone from a respectable women living on her own to a women of disgrace that has had sex out of her marriage. The colonists see her as socially unacceptable and leave her as an outcast to their social society. Social isolation is seen again when Hester is dropped to the bottom social class. Before Hester exits the prison gates to stand on the platform, the women of the town begin to gossip. They begin to gossip about how Hester “has brought shame upon us all” (59), and how she really should be punished for embarrassing them. Hester used to be a good role model for the town, but now that she has sinned it makes the other upper class women look bad. Hester is dropped to the bottom because the upper class women could not bear to be seen socializing with a sinner like her. The women don’t socially accept her anymore. Hesters sin socially isolates her when the town only sees her as a symbol. Hester is seen by the colonists as, “the general symbol at which the preacher and moralist might point and in which they might vivify and embody their images of women’s frailty and sinful passion.

Actions played out in front of society, whether they are good or bad, receive commentary. People can get hurt or suffer from societal scrutiny, which can alter a person’s life. Hester Prynne, the protagonist in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, undergoes a traumatic transformation in society after being accused of adultery, which is highly denounced in the Puritan community. Similarly, Kim Kardashian-West received public scrutiny after the accidental release of her sex tape in 2007. Both women, scorned for their momentary lapse of judgement and indiscretion, spend their time dealing with the guilt and try to make up for their mistakes for themselves and their families.

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.

Hester is forgiven because Dimmesdale confessed and conscience which is Pearl kisses him. Another is Pearl’s inherited guilt and inherited redemption.

When you look at Hester Prynne you don’t look into her grief filled eyes, or the brokenness she wears like a cloak, the letter “A” attached to her is where your eye is drawn. She was given the punishment to wear her sin of adultery in the form of an “A” attached to her bosom. Hester was handed this punishment so everyone would know of her sin, but is she deserving of this disciplinary action that she has received? Hester Prynne’s consequences are too harsh given her social, internal, and the judicial punishment she is already receiving.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of The Scarlet Letter describes his character, Hester Prynne as being virtuous. Based on what The Bible says in Proverbs 31 about a virtuous woman, it was very clear that Hester was virtuous. Hester does charity work for the poor, works hard at things that she knows are profitable, her work is honorable, and she is not lazy as she takes care of herself and her household. These are the reasons Hester is a virtuous woman in The Scarlet Letter. The first way Hester Prynne showed being virtuous in The Scarlet Letter was when she did charity work for the poor.

Sin Hester Prynne is a single mother during the puritan times. The father, Arthur Dimmesdale, of the baby has been keeping the secret inside. Hester and Dimmesdale have two very different ways of addressing this sin that has been committed. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Arthur Dimmesdale demonstrates that keeping a major sin on your chest is bad for the soul proving that confessing sin, like Hester Prynne, is the only way to receive full peace. Hester Prynne’s sin has always been out in the open and common knowledge of the town people.

Sin is a common occurrence that results when one makes a infringement upon religious and moral principles, whether it be intentional or inadvertent, it is an act that can be forgiven if the right actions are taken. Sinners oftenly develop a self-defined guilt or discourage from outside forces, but can often lead to inclining actions to resolve these mistakes. Hester Prynne demonstrates this and although commits she a sin, strives to be forgiven by her community. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne adopts a characterization from main character Hester Prynne as a tenuous and admirable heroine to show that even the worst of sins can be forgiven.

Imagine yourself on display in front of your whole town, being punished for cheating on your husband or wife. Today adultery is looked down on, but in reality nobody makes a huge deal out of it. Sin can affect a person in many ways, but whether it’s good or bad only time can tell. In the old days, religion and law were looked at as one, and Hester Prynne just so happened to sin, which in turn caused her to break the law. In the novel, Hester displays that how a person deals with sin has a lasting impact on the people around her, and most importantly those that are the closest to her.

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.