The Well by Elizabeth Jolley and Relationship of Hester and Katherine

However, while the alienation experienced by Hester is societal, it can be argued that Blanche’s isolation is largely self-inflicted rather than societal. Due to the criticism Hester faces after her release from prison, she moves to an isolated area, where she is physically isolated from the rest of the Puritan community. Even then, she still remains the subject of the community’s mockery and speculation. Hester’s isolation is revealed by Hawthorne through the description of her house, as well as the psychological burden she experiences from the speculation of the rest of the community. Hester is described to live in a “lonesome” cottage “not in close vicinity to any other habitation”, where its “comparative remoteness put it out of the sphere of that social activity” (Chapter 5). There is a parallel between the setting of Hester’s home and her isolation in the community. The location of Hester’s home symbolises the extent to which she is viewed as an outsider, relating to the poem as she has been forsaken in an area away from the rest of the community, and left alone to look after herself and her

The narrator covers the events of several years. After a few months, Hester is released from prison. Although she is free to leave Boston, she chooses not to do so. She settles in an abandoned cabin on a patch of infertile land at the edge of town. Hester remains alienated from everyone, including the town fathers, respected women, beggars, children, and even strangers. She serves as a walking example of a fallen woman, a cautionary tale for everyone to see. Although she is an outcast, Hester remains able to support herself due to her uncommon talent in needlework. Her taste for the beautiful infuses her embroidery, rendering her work fit to be worn by the governor despite its shameful source. Although the ornate detail of her artistry defies

The people begin to see her as “Able” and overall, in a more positive light. Hester’s salvation begins to come into play. She no longer has to live in the pain of her past.

She had such a kind nature and willingness to assist others that the fact that those whom she fed often returned the generosity with nothing but insults did not cause her to cease in her endeavors. Then, towards the end of the novel, after returning from Europe to the New England town in which she had sinned and repented numerous years before, Hester began to counsel other unfaithful women. For example, "Hester comforted and counseled them as best she might. She assured them, too, of her firm belief, that, at some brighter period, when the world should have grown ripe for it, in Heaven's own time, a new truth would be revealed, in order to establish the whole relation between man and woman on a surer ground of mutual happiness." This also demonstrates Hester's generosity and helpfulness. Although the New England town harbored such unpleasant memories for her, she was willing to return in order to assist others in need. She was willing to relive her own pain and absorb the pain of others in order to benefit future generations, and she was willing to give back to a society which had given nothing to her.

Hester Prynne is the protagonist of The Scarlet Letter, a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. She was a beautiful woman who, because of her adultery, experienced persecution and was ostracized by everyone in her town. Her shame and guilt gave her an understanding of sin and redemption. She serves as an example of someone who is rejected by society and, because of it, grows in both strength and wisdom. Hester’s sin overshadowed her beauty and talent, but her humble and generous deeds gained her respect over many years.

In the beginning of the written story the author reveals Hester to be a cold-hearted mother. “She had bonny children, yet she felt they had been thrust upon her, and she could not love them”(75). In public she is thought of as

Hester comes to the conclusions that she hates her past husband and that he had wronged her worse than she had him after recalling memories from her time, as is wife. The context of these memories had a happy appearance, but when Hester looks back upon them, she views them as some of her most unpleasant memories. She sees that when Rodger Chillingworth had convinced her to be happy by his side, when she did not know better, he had wronged her worse than any future acts she would commit against him. From this the narrator takes away the lesson that a man should never marry a woman unless she loves him with all her heart and passion. Hawthorne believes that if a man marries a woman without all her love, she will accuse him of providing her with

He starts to spy to find answers to what’s going on, then he find out that he’s distant wife had a daughter Pearl he knows he’s not the father he now he’s attention if toward finding the father of Pearl. Hester has always be trapped in situations she uncomfortable with. Her personality was grey ever since the book introduced her. She was married to a man she never loved. I ask myself, why would she marry a person she doesn’t love in the first place?

Her way of living reflects her loyalty to those more deprived than herself. Her only purpose in caring more for others than herself, especially for Pearl, is reflected in her self-change into a person who no longer cared about her beauty. Her beautiful hair was tucked inside a cap and she felt buried under the burden of the scarlet letter on her bosom. When Hester removes the cap and scarlet letter in Chapter 13, her beauty was once again radiant. Hester is a woman full of motherly love that she lavishes on Pearl.

Hester Prynne is a very complex character that presents the reader with two very different sides of herself, the sinful and righteous parts of her character. The kindness of Hester’s heart is explained by the things that she gives back to the community even after all they have said and done to her. “Hester bestowed all her superfluous means in

The Scarlet Letter, a story of Hester Prynne and her paramour, Reverend Dimmesdale, and her malicious husband in pursuit for revenge, Roger Chillingworth. The novel begins in the Puritan society in Boston, Massachusetts, during the 1640’s. The town first ostracizes Hester because of their strong religious beliefs. Hester is then faced with an immense struggle against the town and Roger Chillingworth. Through this struggle she is developed into a heroine, or a woman admired for her courage, achievements, or noble qualities; although she is not the perfect heroine because she starts her journey at the lowest point in Puritan society, in sin. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne overcomes the Puritan community and Roger Chillingworth to defy adversity and become a heroine whom everyone to admire.

Nathaniel Hawthorne generates a female principle figure who acquires determination, bravery, and courage throughout The Scarlet Letter. Although some critics of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic piece consider the protagonist to be a heroine, others differ in their opinions. Nonetheless, Nathaniel Hawthorne clearly produced a dauntless, female icon through his character, Hester Prynne. Due to her choice to take full responsibility for the sin of adultery, as well as her decision to live a self-reliant lifestyle with her newborn, Pearl, Hester Prynne, in fact, possesses heroic traits.

So, rather than leaving the town where her sin took place and starting over somewhere new, she chooses to stay and live out her punishment for the rest of her life, taking responsibility for her actions. “Here, she said to herself, had been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment.” She provides for herself and her daughter by making nice clothes for the upper-class people in her town. When she has extra clothing to spare, she donates it to the poor. Despite the fact that she is providing a service for people and is kind to the poor, the town continues to look down on her because of her adultery: “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. Dames of elevated rank, likewise, whose doors she entered in the way of her occupation, were accustomed to distil drops of bitterness into her heart...” Many people would try to defend themselves against these personal attacks and tell the antagonizers that they are wrong, but not Hester, because she ultimately believes that she deserves any snide remark that the town throws at her. This humbleness that she shows is another example of why she is a honorable woman.

“Only she herself knew that at the center of her heart was a hard little place that could not feel love” (601). Hester wasn’t even harmed by her child’s death. Hester couldn’t comprehend that she had brought this death upon them. She is blinded from the truth since she has no real love for her

Sometimes she may fit the perfect mold of a woman, and other times she may step out of that expectation and explore other roles that may be perceived as being those of men. Even though Hester was still described as “scarcely unequal”, and a “lonely woman”, Hester took the step to “set forth from her solitary cottage” (Hawthorne 203). Hester living alone is an example of her stepping out if the traditional gender roles in the aspect that women are/were expected to need a man to support them. And as Hester gained her courage to show her face more and more to the public, she steps out even further since the roles for her seem to be much more strict after her sin, which starts to make her stronger and stronger. Once again the novel progresses and Hester seems to almost switch roles with the minister in chapter 17. He tells her of his “spiritual torment” and “more misery”, which now depicts the minister as the weak and feeble one as he begs Hester to help (Hawthorne 384). Hester takes in the traditional male gender role as she practically tells him there is nothing she can