Michael Pringle's Puritan Ideas

The sinner of all sinners, the adulteress of her time, the outcast of her community, the one and only, Hester Prynne. Miss Prynne, is the woman with the civil disobedience and the A upon her breast. In Michael Pringle’s article, Hester’s Civil Disobedience, he explains her complex situation with her sin. The Puritan ideas has taken a peer pressuring effect upon the citizens. Pringle's article shows Dimmsdale fall of grace is strengthened by Hester's public actions, her fight with her community to show the okayness of her letter and and that Hester is not viewed as a community criminal.

Dimmesdale is Hester's accomplice to her dreadful sin. As she stands on top of the scaffold, the product of their evil sin in her arms, he gains strength …show more content…
Because Hester has such a timid confidence with her A, Pringle says this in the quote "Hester effaces her beauty to highlight the A, and she keeps it prominently in the public eye." Hester has never hid her A from anyone, in forcing it to her Puritan community. Forcing them to look at it, and eventually getting so used to it, it becomes a part of their daily live. it no longer sticks out to them. She does not stop trying to influence their brains with pure perspective of the A. Because of the way Hester took pride and effort into making the A on her chest visible and pretty, Pringle also says "Like the elaborate embroidery she has worked into the letter, this claim serves to disassociate the symbol from the magistrates and to link it more directly to herself." This is what Hester is known for, her humble beauty with her A. No one can take that away from her. Hester makes her A beautiful. Embracing it, making it a part of her. Being confident with something shows to the people around her that it's okay to be okay with the A. It’s just part of who she is and not something you should view as an evil eternal life from hester. She would rather be with the A title, than to be without it, because it has became such a large part of her …show more content…
Hester has never been brutal or has killed anyone. She’s never defied laws that would count as a felony in today's world. Pringle tries to say that the A has a devil or evil form to it by saying, "she frames the A as beyond their control." It shouldn't matter how she wants to portray her letter, it's hers and they are making her where it. It shouldn’t be a crime to embrace something and love something that has became a part of you. Another thing is that just because you ‘commit adultery’ doesn’t make you a criminal. The Puritans focus on Hester shouldn’t even be that important and claiming her as a ‘criminal’ when are people out there killing and stealing. But that’s not as important as who had a baby with who. Pringle states that if you sit in a prison cell your a criminal in this quote, "Hester was implicated into a prison cell on her own consent." If a person does good deeds, that makes them a good person, one mistake doesn't define who they are. The Puritan society focus too much upon someone else’s life rather than real problems in their community. Hester is not a criminal no matter what the puritan society beliefs upon the time