The Inner Workings Of Hester Prynne

Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays the ideology of Puritan society in the novel the Scarlet Letter; however reader also get to witness his characters being an illustration of hypocrisy and victims to their own guilt. In the Scarlet Letter, as in many of Hawthorne’s shorter works, he makes profuse use of the Puritan past: its odd exclusionary belief, its harsh code of ruling, its concern with sex and witchcraft. The Scarlet Letter is a story that is embellished but yet simple. Many readers may view this novel as a soap opera due to the way Hawthorne conveys this Puritan society’s sense of strictness and inability to express true emotion along with the secrecy and how deceiving the characters are being. As the story unfolds the main character Hester Prynne is bounded in marriage at an early age. She engages in an adulterous affair with an unknown member of their small village. Hester soon becomes pregnant and with her husband’s absence the chances of this child belonging to her husband are slim. The towns’ people know that she has committed a sin and imprisons her for her crime.

Hawthorne's Hester Prynne is the underdog protagonist that the reader cannot help but want to succeed. She is flawed but her flaws are outshone by her good heart and spirit. This shamed and humiliated woman is the one the reader, with the help of Hawthorne’s descriptions, wants to support. This sinful woman, with a child from wedlock, a diabolical “husband”, and a secretive lover is the motivating force that drives the reader to continue on with The Scarlet Letter. The language, descriptions, and plot of The Scarlet Letter show that Hawthorne believes the reader should look past gender stereotypes because not everything is what is

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

In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne develops the dynamic characterization of Hester Prynne from a beautiful, innocent girl into a somber, hardened women to showcase the evils and hypocrisy of Puritan New England’s culture of shaming. Hawthorne employs rhetorical devices such as metaphor and juxtaposition to further develop the characterization and his critique of Puritan society. When initially describing Hester, Hawthorne emphasizes her incredible beauty, and juxtaposes this with the other ugly, judging Puritan women, adding to the hypocrisy of her being shamed for sinning. Hawthorne emphasizes the verbal assault on Hester by employing metaphor and imagery in its description. After the community shuns and shames Hester for years, Hawthorne uses metaphor again to show how Hester’s body and character changes for the worst, emphasizes the malice and evil of public shame.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" is set in the early days of Puritan America. Hester Prynne, a seamstress, comes to the New World before her husband in order to prepare a place for them. During his absence, she develops a relationship with Arthur Dimmesdale, a rising minister in the newly founded Puritan community. Hester becomes pregnant. The novel is widely viewed to be a story about her trials and tribulations; however, critic Randall Steward argues that, "…Hester is not the protagonist, the chief actor, and the tragedy of the novel is not her tragedy but Arthur's. He is the persecuted one, the tempted one. He it was whom the sorrows of death encompassed…His public confession is one of

In his novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne narrates the story of Hester Prynne, an adulteress living in Boston during the seventeenth century. His purpose in this passage is to detail the change that overcame Hester after she had been subjected to her punishment of constant ignominy. Hawthorne adopts a sympathetic tone towards Hester, revealing that he believes women need to be delicate and tender in order to retain their feminine appeal.

The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, follows Hester Prynne who, along with the town’s saint like Reverend

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne has an extremely complicated relationship with her community. Throughout the course of the novel, this relationship changes dramatically, going from one of contempt and isolation to a more healthy one, in which the town accepts and even venerates her. Hester’s relationship with the town parallels the symbolic change in meaning behind the scarlet letter. In the townspeople’s point of view, she and her letter transform from a physical representation of sin and shame to a symbol of charity and ableness.

Hester Prynne: From Outcast to Respected Woman In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter a woman named Hester Prynne is prosecuted by her Puritan Community. She made love to a man that was not her husband and committed one of the greatest crimes, adultery. Through her prosecution of being judged by her community her husband, who thought to be long lost, arrives.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s use of symbolism in The Scarlet Letter conveys the theme that everyone has the potential to find purpose in life regardless of their place in society. This idea strongly opposes the ideas of a puritan society which consists of people who live based on their predetermined destination. Furthermore, saints, elected by God, have the power to tell others how to live. Thus, creating a community where church and the state have much power and influence over the townspeople. In Hawthorne’s novel, Hester Prynne, the protagonist, is condemned by the church and shunned by society for committing the crime of adultery.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s American classic, The Scarlet Letter, a Puritan community in early New England is explored through the story of Hester Prynne, a woman who has had a child out of wedlock, and the consequences that follow. Being set in the early American colonies, the themes of The Scarlet Letter parallel many of our modern cultural ideals, such as freedom, religion, equality, and perfection.

In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne is a young, strong, carefree woman who is married to an older man by the name of Roger Chillingworth. She married Roger although she did not love him. This led to her having an affair with Arthur Dimmsdale, which causes her to be publically shamed and humiliated in front of the whole community. Prynne is a major protagonist in the novel, because she is the target of all the alienation and estrangement from her locality. During this time, Hester becomes lost in thought and speculation on human nature and which leads her to become agnostic and wise. The narrator claims to denounce her new freethinking spirit, but covertly commends her confidence and ideas. Hester is also has a maternal nature about her, not only because she has a daughter, but she cares for the poor by bringing them supplies such as food and clothing. By the end of the novel, Hester Prynne becomes a well-respected, feminist, maternal figure in her community. After all the uproar about her affair blows over, she shows the people of the community the only reason she was so badly alienated was because of the old-fashioned sexist beliefs about women. For example in this quote, she is addressing the public regarding its radical, old-fashioned rules. “Doth the universe lie within the compass of yonder town, which only a little time ago was but a leaf-strewn

The Scarlet Letter, a novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a didactic tale of one woman who defies the rules of early Puritan society along with the struggles she endured. Hester Prynne, a woman who had an affair with Reverend Dimmesdale and as a result conceives Pearl, was chastised because of the affair and is then made in outcast in society. Hester was seen as a sinner and in result reprimanded for this with imprisonment and then the letter being made an outcast by being forced to stitch a scarlet letter A into her clothing, and forced to live outside of town in the woods completely secluded. As the novel develops Hawthorne explores the sin and hypocrisy of the Puritan lifestyle, and uses symbolism to demonstrate the isolation of Hester and Pearl.

Adultery was a moral wrongdoing and transgression in 1850. Hawthorne captured the essence of the events that could occur in any Puritan woman’s life after committing this sin from his own perspective of the topic, Hawthorne did this within a writing of his. The Scarlet Letter was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850. The Scarlet Letter is about the life of Hester Prynne and the other characters after she played a part in committing the sin of adultery. Hester partakes in moral trials throughout the novel too, some even concerning her daughter Pearl. The Scarlet Letter reflects on the toll that secrets can play of a person, through Dimmesdale and the effects of a person 's’ decision on others around them.

Hester develops an autonomous role. The book states, “She possessed an art that sufficed, even in a land that afforded comparatively little scope for its exercise, to supply food for her thriving infant and herself (34).” During this era the idea of “cult of domesticity” was a prevailing social code. Men protect women; likewise he was the provider of the family. However, Hester was able to challenge gender roles. Though she is without a companion, she supports herself and pearl with spirit. As the community realizes how Hester take a more “Puritan” character is when Hester’s perception changes. Although the women of the town thought she deserved death, Hester gets the punishment of wearing “A” for the rest of her life. Hester is often dehumanized as if she is often looked down upon. Hawthorne attempts to incorporate the self- seeking attitude of human beings. Being aware of Hester’s infamy, the women attempt to neglect their sins by reaching out their own kind and publicly shaming her. Not only do they ignore their sins, but it allows them to feel superior towards Hester. As the novel progresses, Hester’s vacant backlash benefits her in allowing her to be welcomed in the puritan community. The book states “The letter was the symbol of her calling. 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