Hester's Isolation In Puritan Society

No matter what personal trouble or sickness that spread through the town, Hester would come household that was marked by trouble, as if its was her job. When she visited, her scarlet A seemed to radiate a warm light, signaling hope. In these emergencies, Hester’s nature showed itself to be warm and rich; “a well-spring” of human tenderness, unfailing to every real demand, and inexhaustible by the largest (176). Hester also reverses townspeople’s views of the scarlet letter from ‘Adultery’ to ‘Able’. “Such helpfulness was found in her, — so much power to do, and power to sympathize, — that many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification.

The conformity found in the town is creating a large amount of humiliation that is being thrown upon her. Hester is humiliated and ridiculed by fellow village members. Hester, Dimmesdale, and Hester's daughter Pearl are all battling with the strength of puritan conformity and we find that evidence throughout the story of mistakes, judgement, and misfortune throughout The Scarlet Letter.

People have been stereotyping outcasts since the beginning of time. This behavior is a crucial component of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter. The main character of the story, Hester Prynne, resides in a community of Puritans; who are notorious hypocrites. Their harsh rules are basically impossible to follow, therefore setting their citizens up for failure and punishment. Hawthorne tells the story of Hester Prynne with the elements of sin, judgement, and revenge.

Hester Prynne grew up with a Puritan state of mind, but when her and her lover had an affair, she abandoned all of her personal values. Hester was imprisoned, and had to go to trail for her crimes. The Puritan people decided that her punishment should be public shaming. Hester was forced to wear a scarlet letter “A” on her chest at all times. She was shunned to live outside of town.

The imposition of Puritan ideals alone, would not have had such a great effect, had it not been for Hester’s natural inner world, which was already in a precarious space. Thus, the ideal of suppression of one's true self caused a “sad transformation” (150) within Hester. Furthermore, due to Hester’s previous ties to the Puritan society — before her sin — she does not fully alienate herself from them; this is seen not only in her choice to stay, but also in her constant fixation to fit into the mold of the Puritan woman. This portrayed quite clearly when she chooses to live on land which was “too sterile for cultivation” (74-75); Hawthorne uses the sterility of nature in this instance to symbolize Hester’s choice for sterility. Bring in AThis means that through this choice Hester is renouncing her femininity, and embracing the Puritan ideals. Hawthorne further depicts this in her appearance wherein “some attributes had departed from her, the permanence of which had been essential to keep her a woman” (150). When Hester deviates from the Puritan ideals, and is true to her inner self — as is seen when she takes off her scarlet A — and she becomes “the very heart of womanhood” (185). In this scene Hester symbolically throws off the force which has been her main suppressor. Hawthorne further laminates her liberation from the ideals in that moment through the personification of nature. “Her sex, her youth, and the whole richness of her

To begin, the Puritan society shamed a woman for adultery with a single man conceiving her daughter, Pearl. Pearl being the result of Hester's sin, is also shunned by the Puritan society“In the same circle of seclusion”(Hawthorne 77). This will end up causing Hester to never feel a “moment

This was the form of admonishing Hester, displaying her sin for the many onlookers to gaze upon and demean. Meant as a demeaning condition, the puritanic punishment of public humiliation endured by Hester only lead to a further development of her character building upon her preexisting strength. Puritan values contextually misrepresented women as inferior to their male counterparts and this punishment was designed to further instill that along with punishing Hester for her actions. Retrospectively, the latter occurred as this public shame lead to an acceptance of guilt and allowed Hester to develop into a more conscientious woman. Hester demonstrates an unimpeded lifestyle, “she repelled him by an action marked with natural dignity...stepped into the open air, as if by her own free will” Hester composes herself through every trial she is put up against allowing no negative circumstance to define her.

From her Sin, Hester became aware of the inequalities within Puritan society, and sought to make change, hoping that women would one day see the equality she was never been able to experience. Without her sin, she would have never contemplated such an independent, positive, and radical idea that offers such a beneficial outcome for women in her imbalanced community.

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.

While Puritan women are weak and dependent upon their husbands, Hester Prynne is empowered and self-reliant. A character designed by Hawthorne to show 19th century women that women’s work could be valuable, Hester supports herself and her daughter by needlework. “For, as the novel unfolds, the letter, intended by the Authorities to signify harsh but just condemnation, is made by Hester to signify something entirely different—able, admirable.” (Bell 109) All aspects considered, the ability of Hester, a woman who committed sin and was publicly punished for this crime, to manipulate this punishment into a virtue

As a result of this eclipse of her former personality, Hester became everything the Puritans wanted physically. She was a great Samaritan in the community, and was utterly humble and honest. When she showed the worst in her at all times, she had nothing to hide from the people who she met, and their opinions of her could only raise. The irony in the fact that she became a model citizen in the eyes of the Puritans only points to Hawthorne's distaste for the Puritan way of life, for Hester manifested a perfect Janus; a two faced entity of whom no one knew the true nature. Physically, the Puritans loved her behavior, actions, and example.

Hester faces conflict with Puritan society again when she cannot use her elaborate seamstress skills to make bride veils. Although Hester is very talented she is restricted from anything that would offend the Puritan society, which becomes evident when it is stated, “But it is not recorded that, in a single instance, her skill was called in aid to embroider the white veil which was to cover the pure blushes of a bride” (73). The moral sin of Hester Prynne leads to conflict with the Puritan way of life.

When Hester fixed the onerous scarlet letter back onto her bosom, “the warmth and richness of her womanhood departed, like fading sunshine,” leaving behind only a “gray shadow” in its place (145). As a result, the beauty Hester once held with such alacrity was snatched away by the venomous stigma society had placed on her. Moreover, society, by humiliating Hester with the scarlet letter, destroyed her very sense of self, thus causing her to grow into a character filled with woe; the infectious remorse placed by society consumed Hester - eating away at her beauty and humanity. Over time, Hester’s face began to incorporate the “frozen calmness of a dead woman’s features,” and Hester seemed “actually dead” (155). Hester, similar to a dead body, was unable to return to the living; she lost everything that once made her a beautiful lady. The woman whom society once viewed with esteem no longer existed, and in her place was a ghoulish, empty shell of a human who could never return to its original form. Hester is comparable to the rose bush with its “delicate gems,” and “fragile beauty,” caged behind the prison door “studded with iron spikes” (33). Hester’s allure is restrained by the pernicious barbs of society’s harsh punishments, so that she herself is an object not of admiration, but of scorn. Shackled by the chains of an immoral

In nearly everything she does, as a young child, she finds immense pleasure. However, the forest is also a safe place. the unhappy culprit sustained herself as best a woman might, under the heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes all fastened upon her, and concentrated on her bosom. Her existence came from what Puritanism deems “evil”. Hester demonstrates human naturalness by obeying her instinctual urges and having a relationship with Reverend Dimmesdale.

These feminists aimed to defend their silenced voices. One motive for the dissent of inequality could have resulted from the strict government regulation of conformity. Everyone was trained to evade individualistic thinking, which in turn, led to the questioning of leaders. “It was an age in which the human intellect had taken a more active and a wider range than for many centuries before,” (149). This quote illustrates the possibility of a change in people’s mind regarding the injustice towards women. Hester represents the story’s population that thinks freely. She is not content with fulfilling the pre-determined destiny of a silent wife under Christ, and demonstrates it by challenging that role and attempting to reorganize the archaic system in which she lives. The women of the town are outraged by her actions, demonstrating that they are afraid that if women start acting out of passion, the entire structure they depend on would dilapidate. Hester made it clear that it is possible to survive outside of prejudice, which is still exemplified today. She displays that the idea of feminism and the reasons leading up to it have not changed for decades.