Quotes On Hester Prynne

Hawthorne’s message about obtaining salvation through the means of being open and true to yourself, is shaped by the contrasts of consequences the characters Hester Prynne, who publicly acknowledges her sin, and Arthur Dimmesdale, who hides his sin, face. In Hester’s case, she was publicly shamed for her sin from the beginning and was forced to wear the symbol of her sin, the scarlet letter “A” representing adultery, to isolate her from the rest of society. She had the opportunity to leave the town and begin a new life free from the scarlet letter, but she decides to stay as, if she were to run away or remove the scarlet letter, she would be admitting to the shame of her sins. Her staying, shows she wants to change the scarlet letter to not represent her sin, but her as a character.

English Protestants created a large group of people in the 16th and 17th centuries called the Puritans. These people advocated strict religious discipline along with a strong beliefs and worshipping. The Scarlet Letter reflected on Puritan Society in several ways, from religion to discipline and punishment. Religion seemed to control everyone, the reverend was the person that everyone looked up to, and the community, as a whole, believed in fate and destiny. Puritan relationships were very restricted, therefore making adultery a terrible sin in the eyes of the community. In the 17th century, Boston was extremely strict and the laws were strongly enforced, making Hester’s sin a great

To begin with, Hester’s sin drove the story, but after the community established her as a sinner, she overcame her sins but she still struggled through other characters. Instead of depicting Hester’s inner turmoil directly to Hester, Hawthorne portrays her tumult through other characters in her life such as Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, and the community. Dimmesdale proclaimed to Hester, “If thou feelest it to be for thy soul’s peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and

The character of Hester Prynne changed significantly throughout the novel "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hester Prynne, through the eyes of the Puritans, is an extreme sinner; she has gone against the Puritan ways, committing adultery. For this irrevocably harsh sin, she must wear a symbol of shame for the rest of her life.

I am kind of on the fence with Hester Prynne's way of handling her punnishment. It was incredibly brave of her to own her mistakes; however, her child will have to live like an outcast just his or her mother.

In The Scarlet Letter there are differences between how certain people in the Puritan community handled sin. Some of the Puritan’s weren’t thought of as well because of their sin, and some didn’t even want to admit their sin. In the book there are two characters that particularly struggled with sin, Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale. The way these two characters handled their sin is different from each other. Hester Prynne is one of the characters that are seen in the book that has struggled with sin.

Often in society people are criticized, punished and despised for their individual choices and flaws. In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author uses Hester Prynne to symbolize that those who challenge social conformities can benefit society as a whole. Though she has been banished for committing adultery, she sees that the community needs her. Through her generous accomplishments the community realizes she is a person who, regardless of her sin, can affect the community in a positive way.

     As many know the shape of the Scarlet Letter was a letter “A”, and that the original meaning was to mean adultery. This was true throughout many chapters of the book, and became evident by how the Puritans treated Hester. Once again, even from the start of the book. In the first chapter all the towns people wait for Hester to come out from the huge iron doors. And even though they have yet no clue as to who or why someone is behind that door, the presence of hatred for whatever is behind the door is apparent. When they finally do see that Hester is the culprit, and wearing the Scarlet Letter, they proceed to badger her along with everyone else, and even the guard shows a sign of hatred. “___________________________________________”. Once again though, the Puritans eventually go back on these feelings, like they never even had them in the first place. By chapter thirteen Hester is seen no longer by the Puritans as a sinner, but almost as a holy figure. “How’s that?” Well, by this time Hester has done numerous deeds for the rich and the poor, and due to this fact the letter

Hester Prynne’s ability to sustain her stability and strength of spirit is the express result of her public guilt and penance. She was Arthur Dimmesdale’s partner in adultery, but she is used by Hawthorne as a complete foil to his situation. Unlike Dimmesdale, Hester is both strong and honest. Walking out of prison at the beginning of the novel, she decides that she must “sustain and carry” her burden forward “by the ordinary resources of her nature, or sink with it. She could no longer borrow from the future to help her through the present grief” (54). Hester openly acknowledges her sin to the public, and always wears her scarlet letter A. In the forest scene, she explains to Dimmesdale that she has been truthful in all things except in revealing his part in her pregnancy. “A lie is never good, even though death threaten on the other side” (133). Even Dimmesdale himself realizes that Hester’s situation is much healthier than his own when he states, “It must needs be better for the sufferer to be free to show his pain, as this poor woman Hester is, than to cover it all up in his heart” (92-93). This life of public shame and repentance, although bitter, lonely, and difficult, helps Hester retain her true identity while Dimmesdale seems to be losing his.

Through out the course of history, those who were considered sinners were often out casted from the society. This is much the case with Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. After a public trial, Hester is considered a sinner due to her birthing of a so called “devil child”. Hester is convicted to the life long bearing of a scarlet letter on her chest. The Scarlet Letter that Hester Prynne wears symbolizes the change in perception of sin through out the novel. Due to the revelations of the governor Winthrop and the reverend Dimmesdale, the way sin is perceived changes from one of shame to the idea that every one is a sinner in their own right.

However, this doesn’t always happen. Some characters, like Dimmesdale, never get the chance to redeem themselves, which forces them to live with their guilt and sin for the rest of their life. The Scarlet Letter deals with the acts of sin committed by the novel’s main character, Hester Prynne. She commits what the Puritan society believes is the worst sin any person can commit, adultery. Though Hester believes what she did isn’t that bad, her society views her actions as the work of the devil.

‘The Scarlet letter’ is meant to be a symbol of shame for Hester, and instead it becomes a symbol of identity. As Hester’s character develops the Letter ‘matures” along side her . As it ages, it shifts from meaning “Adulterer” to stand for “ Able”.. Hester bonds to the letter as much as she bonds to little Pearl, by choosing to keep them both. She could have given Pearl to the minister and she could have fled New England and left the letter far behind her and moved on with her life, instead she chooses to embrace her punishments. The letter is almost insignificant beside Pearl as a symbol of the sinful act commited by Hester, and helps to point out the meaninglessness of the community’s system of judgment and punishment. The ineffectiveness of this course of action is reinforced in chapter seven “...and the bond-servant, perhaps judging from the decision of her air and the glittering symbol in her bosom, that she was a great lady in the land, offered no opposition.”

Hester Prynne is a prime example of a character who defies the laws of Puritan logic. She is defies such logic by committing the grievous crime of adultery with Reverend Dimmesdale and bearing a child borne of/from such sinful action. Upon the scaffold where she bears the consequences of her actions, she steels herself to be resilient in the face of scrutiny. “Never!” she avidly replies to the demand of exposing the father of the child. She continues, “I will not speak!...And my child must seek a heavenly Father; she shall never know an earthly one!” (64). From this point on, The Scarlet Letter paints a mixed image of Hester. She was never inherently superficial or dispassionate as a person, yet people treat her as though she is. (Evidence pls) Her actions have resulted in 7 years of isolation, which leads her to become a free thinker and question the puritan community, but at the price of her human

"In our nature, however, there is a provision, alike marvellous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it" (Hawthorne 52). As Hester Prynne, the main character, is put through hardships from her sinful nature, she faces the rough times sin gave her and the way she endures the lives of the people closest to her. Nathaniel Hawthorne explains how a small Puritan village gets through sin and the way it took over their lives in The Scarlet Letter. Light and dark imagery, alluding to the larger conflict between good and evil, is present throughout the novel in the characters of Hester Prynne, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth.

Puritan ethic that man's fate is set at his birth is also very much a part of the characters of the book. The Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, who committed adultery with Hester Prynne, uses the statement, "Were it God's will" when he asks for Roger Chillingsworth's advice on whether he should admit publicly to the adultery . Dimmesdale says " I could be well content that my labours, and my sorrows, and my sins, and my pains, should shortly end with me, and what is earthly of them be buried in my grave, and the spiritual go with me to my eternal state, rather than you should put your skill to the proof on my behalf" p. Hester Prynne and The Reverend Dimmesdale's affair becomes the focus of the 17th century community in New England. Hester is the "fallen" woman who is brought before the court of community opinion and justice. This Puritan community believes that all men have fallen and all men are sinners (Bloom, 1986). Hester is made to wear the scarlet letter, an A. This A represents adultery and it is Hester's badge of dishonor and sin and a symbol of her failure. The scarlet letter is meant to affect the person wearing it by showing that they have sinned an are, in the end, sorry for their sin. The letter has the opposite