Adultery In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

The Puritans firmly held the belief that all people were born natural sinners. No one was exempt from this, not even members of the clergy. The Puritan people thought of human life as “suspended by a string over the fiery pit of hell”. Consequentially, the Puritans enforced a strict set of rules to live by to avoid sinning, for each sin was punishable by law. What might have been the worst possible sin of the time, adultery, was the main focus of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter”. Adultery, viewed as equal to murder at the time, was punishable by death. However, the protagonist of the story, Hester Prynne, is spared her life in order to become an example for the townspeople. As an adulterer, Hester Prynne had broken one of the Puritans laws. When Hester broke this law, the townspeople did everything in their power to make her feel ashamed and suppressed. Members of the town’s clergy conjured the idea to make an example of Hester. The idea behind her scarlet letter was to remind others to stay within the moral standards of the time,
Thus the young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast,—at her, the child of honorable parents,—at her, the mother of a babe, that would hereafter be a woman, —at her, who had once been innocent, —as the figure, the body, the reality of sin. (Hawthorne 62) …show more content…
The scarlet letter in many ways led Hester to empower herself, Hester raises her own money sewing for the town, learns to become independent, and endures her shame, all while raising her daughter, Pearl, whom she had to fight to keep from the clergy when she was viewed as an unfit mother because of her sin. Hester even becomes like a hero to the women in her town, years after she moves away. Hester’s courage and love for her family encouraged her to will through her punishment and emerge as a better