“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” The battle between cultural demands and Hester’s personal desire, Hester wishing for a life where her negative actions are nonexistent, suggest that author agrees with yielding to societal demands, and while he clearly states that the power of personal desire and the power of a community are both mighty, near the closure of the novel Hawthorne confesses that the power of a Puritan community can not be bested by the power of personal desire.
Even at the beginning of The Scarlet Letter Hawthorne makes it obvious that Hester is undergoing a battle between the Puritan community and her personal desire. In Chapter two, for the sin that Hester had previously committed, she is given an infant, another human being, as one of her …show more content…
She would rather wear a symbol which represents her crime than go against her own society.
Nathaniel Hawthorne establishes that the power of personal desire and the power of a community are both robust during the first few chapters of The Scarlet Letter when he talks about Hester being forced to be placed in front of the entire town on a scaffolding, being maliciously ridiculed, or when Hester asks to be watched throughout the night because she may “perpetrate violence on herself, or do some half-frenzied mischief to the poor babe,” and at first the power of the Puritan community dicates Hester and her actions. Near the end of the book, such as in chapter eighteen, the reader begins to see Hester make an attempt at breaking away from what the community believes she should do. “[Hester] undid the clasp that fastened the scarlet letter, and taking it from her bosom, threw it to a distance among the withered leaves.” Continuing to disband from the scarlet letter Hester goes on, “The stigma gone, Hester
Even at the beginning of The Scarlet Letter Hawthorne makes it obvious that Hester is undergoing a battle between the Puritan community and her personal desire. In Chapter two, for the sin that Hester had previously committed, she is given an infant, another human being, as one of her …show more content…
She would rather wear a symbol which represents her crime than go against her own society.
Nathaniel Hawthorne establishes that the power of personal desire and the power of a community are both robust during the first few chapters of The Scarlet Letter when he talks about Hester being forced to be placed in front of the entire town on a scaffolding, being maliciously ridiculed, or when Hester asks to be watched throughout the night because she may “perpetrate violence on herself, or do some half-frenzied mischief to the poor babe,” and at first the power of the Puritan community dicates Hester and her actions. Near the end of the book, such as in chapter eighteen, the reader begins to see Hester make an attempt at breaking away from what the community believes she should do. “[Hester] undid the clasp that fastened the scarlet letter, and taking it from her bosom, threw it to a distance among the withered leaves.” Continuing to disband from the scarlet letter Hester goes on, “The stigma gone, Hester