Shame is meant to weaken a person and make them regretful, but it can also make them a stronger, more independent person motivated to make their society better. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, explores how Hester transforms her shame and successfully changes the way other people in her Puritan society perceive her. After, choosing to become an outsider living on the edge of town, Hester shows the people of Boston that she is not sinful and ashamed but is charitable and open hearted. Furthermore, Hester’s unique and insightful daughter, Pearl, inspires her to be strong and curious, able to look at things in a different way than her Puritan society allows. Rather than to be ruled by humiliation, Hester demonstrates her compassion for
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Hester decides to move to the outskirts of Boston. From this distance, she is able to gain a different perspective on society. Hester comes to see that it is not she who has to change but, “the whole system of society [has to be] torn down, and rebuilt anew,” for everyone to be equal, that society has to change instead, a society so hypocritical that it could judge an act of love to be a sin (Hawthorne 153). In Puritan Boston, men have more power than women and “ethereal” women are not taken seriously but Hester rebels against the expectations of a ‘typical woman’ (153). Originally, Hester thinks there is no point in living, since everyone sees her as a sinful adulteress who should be put to death. Hester withdraws the hypocrisy and unfairness in the town. But instead of despising the people who shamed her, Hester gives back to the people of Boston by embroidering clothes and giving them away. This is her way of, “expressing, and therefore soothing, the passion of her life. Like all other joys, she rejected it as sin...it gave her a sympathetic knowledge of the hidden sin in other hearts,” (78, 80). Hester believes that passing judgement on others is sinful, instead she tries to see the good in them. She knows that she is not the only person in Boston who has ever committed a sin but she chooses not to continue to judge and hate, but to care for and give back to her fellow sinners. The shame of wearing the scarlet letter has given her “a sympathetic knowledge” to forgive; Hester’s strength is so powerful that it even convinces Dimmesdale to confess, relieving the guilt and shame that has been killing
Hester decides to move to the outskirts of Boston. From this distance, she is able to gain a different perspective on society. Hester comes to see that it is not she who has to change but, “the whole system of society [has to be] torn down, and rebuilt anew,” for everyone to be equal, that society has to change instead, a society so hypocritical that it could judge an act of love to be a sin (Hawthorne 153). In Puritan Boston, men have more power than women and “ethereal” women are not taken seriously but Hester rebels against the expectations of a ‘typical woman’ (153). Originally, Hester thinks there is no point in living, since everyone sees her as a sinful adulteress who should be put to death. Hester withdraws the hypocrisy and unfairness in the town. But instead of despising the people who shamed her, Hester gives back to the people of Boston by embroidering clothes and giving them away. This is her way of, “expressing, and therefore soothing, the passion of her life. Like all other joys, she rejected it as sin...it gave her a sympathetic knowledge of the hidden sin in other hearts,” (78, 80). Hester believes that passing judgement on others is sinful, instead she tries to see the good in them. She knows that she is not the only person in Boston who has ever committed a sin but she chooses not to continue to judge and hate, but to care for and give back to her fellow sinners. The shame of wearing the scarlet letter has given her “a sympathetic knowledge” to forgive; Hester’s strength is so powerful that it even convinces Dimmesdale to confess, relieving the guilt and shame that has been killing