How Does Hester Prynne Change Throughout The Scarlet Letter

A young woman named Hester Prynne moves to Boston, Massachusetts while her husband stays in Europe to take care of some business. After 2 years pass Hester has an affair with Reverend Dimmesdale. When she becomes pregnant and gives birth to her daughter, Pearl. The town punishes her for committing adultery. She is sentenced to stand on the town scaffold for the town to stare at her and wear a scarlet letter “A” on her chest for the rest of her life. As she stands there on scaffold she sees her husband in the crowd, who later threatens to find the father of the child and seek his revenge with a new identity as a doctor named Roger Chillingworth. As time passes people see a change in Dimmesdale, he is starting to become withered and sick so Roger starts giving him medication but nothing seems to be working. As the book is drawing to a close Hester reveals the identity of Roger to Dimmesdale so they begin to make plans to escape on a ship to Europe in four days, so they can be together. During the Reverends sermon he is so guilt stricken that he confesses his sin of being Hester’s lover and rips open his shirt to reveal a red mark on his chest in the same place as Hester’s scarlet ¨A.¨ …show more content…
The ¨A¨ is meant to identify Hester as a sinner and an adulteress in her village. Hester and her young daughter Pearl are ostracized as a result of her punishment. Hester and Pearl live in a cottage on the outskirts of town, right on the edge of the forest to escape the judgmental gazes of the Villages. The Puritan Magistrates hope to turn Hester into an example of how not to behave in life. Because of her sins, Hester becomes a social pariah, and yet through all this she maintains her