Hester Prynne In The Scarlet Letter

Improved Essays
Isabella Aiello
Mrs. Voshell
Honors English 10
22 December 2017 Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter
The Scarlet Letter is a romance, historical, and American fiction novel, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne wrote this novel using a time scheme opening in Boston in the year 1642 and closing seven years later. Throughout this period of time little action occurred. The action that had arisen, involved a important character in one way or another. This relevant character, was one of the four main characters in The Scarlet Letter; Hester Prynne. Hester was the mother of Pearl and the partner of Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. She committed the sin of adultery with Dimmesdale, before the novel had begun. As Hawthorne gets further into The Scarlet
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Towards the beginning of the novel she was mysterious, questionable, and isolated. When it came time for Hester to speak on the scaffold, she came out of the prison looking more daring and beautiful then ever. She had faced whatever the sin had brought her, weather it was the humiliation in the streets from the clergymen, the poor, or even the puritan women. “She conducted herself with what might be pride” (Wagenknecht 64). Hester had this warm nature of kindness in her heart, even when people would shame walk her or give her the silent treatment, she showed her humanity. Hiding underneath the cap, was her long glossy beautiful brown hair and upon her bosom was the scarlet letter. After seven years of her hiding her true beauty, she had let her hair down again and she had removed the scarlet letter from her chest. Not much time later, Pearl had wondered why she had done so, this left Pearl confused. Pearl has never saw her mother like this. Sooner than later Hester had put her hair back up and the scarlet letter back on, to please Pearl. Over time, God did forgive Hester and she was more glowing them ever. Hester had grew to become independent as well as compassionate. Hesters commonly accepted symbols in The Scarlet Letter are bravery, sin, confession, and repentance. At the end of the novel, Hester had lost who she loved and Pearl lost her father; Dimmesdale, but Hester continued to grow from this. Hester …show more content…
Everyone sins in their lifetime, but of course we do not have as harsh punish as the Puritan society does. In the Catholic religion we confess our sins to the priest, who tells us what prayers we have to say and how many times to say them. As soon as we confess our sins, we are forgiven and free until we sin again. We all know the feeling of being betrayed, hurt, humiliation and we know the feeling we get when we are punished. People are forced to do good things when they have done something wrong to makes up for what they did. Over time as we think about what we have done, we start to regret it and feel ashamed, but we know God can forgive us. In The Scarlet Letter we started to compare our society to Hesters. Hester’s society was more harsh than ours is today, although back then who knows what the punishment could have been. Hester knew she could be forgiven by God, but she just didn’t know

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