The Scarlet Letter : Short Interpretation In The Scarlet Letter

Repeatedly she stays silent to protect both those she loves and those she is indebted to. One instance of this is when she denies information about Dimmesdale, her lover, to her husband in order to protect him, saying “‘That thou shalt never know!’” (Hawthorne 69). This privilege of trust is not just exclusive to loved ones however, as she turns right around and offers the same deal to her husband, who asks her to “‘[b]reathe not, to any human soul, that thou didst ever call me husband!’” (Hawthorne 69-70). She complies, and no one ever finds out their prior relation. Hester is loyal to more than just the people around her, however. Hester is also loyal to her punishment and societal beliefs despite her lack of respect for the clergymen and their decisions. Hester has the option to escape her punishment, but chooses not to, rather displaying her embroidered ‘A’ to the public “... which was of a splendor in accordance the the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony” (Hawthorne 50). She views this mark of her sin as something to be proud of, decorating the letter like a trophy and taking a firm ownership of her sin. At the same time she also remains loyal to her ideals, refusing to believe she has done anything wrong. Hester “remains unwilling to separate herself from her sin by recognizing it as a sin,” and as a result maintains a strong “devotion to

Even though Hester’s sin is the one the book is titled after and centered around, it is not nearly the worst sin committed. Hester learns from her sin, and grows strong, a direct result of her punishment. The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. “ Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers--stern and wild ones--and they had made her strong... “ Hester also deceived Dimmesdale, also committing the sin of deception. She swore to Chillingworth that she would keep their marriage a secret. She even withheld this from Dimmesdale, whom she truly loved. Hester finally insisted on telling Dimmesdale and clearing her conscience. In this passage, you can see how he grows angry at Hester: “O Hester Prynne, thou little, little knowest all the horror of this thing! And the shame!--the indelicacy!--the horrible ugliness of this exposure of a sick and guilty heart to the very eye that would gloat over it! Woman, woman, thou art accountable for this! I cannot forgive thee!”  Dimmesdale does forgive Hester. She has done

The Scarlet Letter is about a woman named Hester Prynne and her crime of adultery. She had a baby with man who is not her husband, and she will not reveal who that man is. Throughout The Scarlet Letter Hester represents social injustice just as the Salem Witch Trials in The Crucible do, and this injustice becomes accepted and leads to acceptance. Furthermore, Hester’s case represents injustice in the fact her case was unjustified and she was imprisoned on unfair judgement, just like the people convicted of witchcraft in Salem had been accused based off of opinion, not fact. Both have endings of acceptance of their “sin.”

     Hester Prynne, through the eyes of the Puritans, is an extreme sinner. She has gone against the Puritan ways by committing Adultery. The Puritans believed that Hester was a lost soul that could only be saved by sincere and thorough repentance. For this

Hester Prynne's guilt is the result of her committing adultery, which has a significant effect on her life. Hester is publicly seen with the scarlet letter when she first emerges out of the cold

Here, she said to herself, had been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment; and so, perchance, the torture of her daily shame would at length

Hester Prynne. Hester is shamed publicly for her sin of adultery, for which she bears the mark of

When Hester is released from prison, she ponders the effect of the scarlet letter and realizes, “she must either sustain and carry it forward by the ordinary resources of her nature, or sink beneath it” (Hawthorne 69). In other words, Hester knows that allowing other people to bring her down will lead to self-destruction. Through a great deal of inner strength, Hester decides to stay in her hometown and let “the torture of her daily shame . . . purge her soul and work out another purity than that which she had lost; more saintlike, because the result of martyrdom” (Hawthorne 71). Essentially, Hester resolves to learn from her “mistake” and use the situation as a growing opportunity. Decisively, Hester concludes that although she cannot change the past, she can show her strength and resolve by overcoming the shaming that is sure to occur in her town. Hester’s honesty and willingness to accept her punishment enable her to

First, Hester’s punishment could be compared to a spectacle. Indeed, after having committed adultery in a Puritan society, the town government decides to punish Hester by exposing her on a scaffold for several months and by making her wear the “A” letter on her breast to be able to identify her as an adulterer. During this time, she faces endless mockeries and insults but she never gives up; she grows stronger and doesn’t let the town judgement affect her.

Having to deal with her daughter Pearl day in and day out is a punishment in itself as well. Most people, including Hester, view Peal as a demon child. However, Hester hesitates to punish Pearl for being so. She feels guilty as it is, placing a burden on Pearl's life, for Peal is branded as the child of an adulterer, all of this resulting from Hester's 'passionate sin'. (Guilt as Reparation for Sin, paragraph 14).

Despite the lonely life that she leads Hester somehow finds an inner strength to defy both the townspeople and the local government. Hester’s strength is apparent also in dealing with her husband, Chillingworth and

Through Hester Prynne’s captivity of sin, as depicted by the scarlet letter on her chest, Hester is granted freedom to observe and live a life of her own choosing as well as grant that for her illegitimate child, Pearl. Hester Prynne is held physically captive by the scarlet letter which binds her to sin and the town’s public knowledge of her adultery: “Thus the young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast […] as the figure, the body, the reality of sin,” (95). Hester is obligated to be both excluded from the community, but to be ridiculed and scorned daily by it as well because of the physical depiction of captivity upon her chest. The scarlet letter, however, is what grants Hester Prynne freedom: “She had wandered, without rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness. […] The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread,” (237-238). Hester uses her sin to her advantage and takes her freedom to do right by the community which has thus judged her and becomes a nurse. Hester is also free to disclose at any time

Dimmsdales sins affects his physical well-being, and his mental stability. Since he never publicly admits his sin, he has to keep his sins bottled up within him. He has no way to relieve himself of the burden of his sins, but to be shamed in public. He ultimately becomes a coward and he tortures himself . He was healthy before, but as the years go by, he becomes sickly, and he worsens his condition by abusing himself. Later on through the years, when he joins with Hester and Pearl in the forest , he becomes different, and when they decide what their plans will be, his health changes, and his energy seems as I it was back. He changes and transforms to another person. "The minister's own will, and Hester's will, and the fate that grew between them, had wrought this transformation. It was the same town as heretofore; but the same minister returned not from the forest." He changed to a new him.

The harsh townspeople force her up on the scaffold to be humiliated in front of the whole town. Not only is she sent up on the scaffold with her sin revealed by the “A” for everyone to see, Hester becomes an example of what a woman should not come to be. The author is talking about Hesters experience on the scaffold and her pregnancy, “Throughout them all, giving up her individuality, she would become the general symbol at which the preacher and moralist might point, and in which they might vivify and embody their images of woman's frailty and sinful passion”(32). Hester looses her individuality and is labeled by the townspeople and known for the Scarlet Letter. Further, the townspeople singled her out as an alien or outcast of the town forcing her to live an abnormal live. She was ridiculed and known for her one sin, unable to have acceptance back into society. Although the townspeople feel as if Hester has brought sin upon there lives, she clearly have not harmed any of the townspeople physically, and they have no grounds to punish Hester. The cause of the townspeople's harsh disciplinary acts on Hester originates from a strict, unrealistic standards of puritan society and the zero tolerance of any ungodly behavior observed in the town. Due to the absence of proper justice, Hester's sentencing is left up to the harsh townspeople in which they show no mercy or

Towards the end of the novel, Hester gets the break in life she’s been waiting for. She put up with seven years of shame and guilt, to finally be the person she used to be. Her rekindled love with Arthur makes her happy again, and everything just seems right for them. She’s filled with hope that her life will finally turn back to normal again. She feels redeemed, and the guilt is no longer on her shoulders. She’s now ready to take on the world, and start her life over to the way it was before the “A” entered her life. Having the courage to show her face in the colony again is just a sign of her bravery.