The Role Of Hester Prynne In The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter is a novel containing a character that is considered to be one of the first great heroines of American Literature. Hester Prynne is illustrated as a very strong woman despite the way she has been victimized. Many people residing in the same town she moved to had mistreated her because of a sin she committed. She was publicly humiliated in front of women who, for the time she spent standing on a scaffold, belittled her. Regardless of the fact that she had to go through this horrible punishment, she had proven herself throughout the book and had changed the opinions of many people around her. Hawthorne’s depiction of Hester Prynne is one that shows us, as the reader, a way of moving past the mistakes that have been made and to grow from them. The sin she is being chastised for has an everlasting toll on her, forcing her to wear the letter A on her chest. The novel tells the story on how to overcome the effects of a sin like this where …show more content…
Hawthorne doesn’t directly tell us that this is what the letter A actually stands for. He wants the reader to figure it out by the clues that are given throughout the text. By the end of the novel, Hester has transformed her character into an angel. All of her acts of kindness, such as helping the sick and giving to the poor, prove that she is angelic. Her good deeds are like those who one would consider to be an “angel” would do. These types of people are more positive than negative and try to have an optimistic outlook on life. One would say that she is almost described as being saintly because she always puts others before herself, even when people constantly put her down for her sin. Even though she had relations with Mr. Dimmesdale, she feels bad for this. She makes sure her daughter is fully taken care of. Despite Mr. Dimmesdale keeping quiet about being the father of Pearl, Hester forgives the