and love in a small Puritan town in the 1600s. Hester Prynne is put to trial for committing adultery, having a child with another man whilst her husband was away for multiple years. As her punishment, she is instructed to wear a large letter ‘A’ upon her bosom until her last breath. In the Scarlet Letter, the letter A Hester bears upon her bosom begins as a representation of Hester’s shame, but ultimately…
found in classical writing. These personalities exist quite often, but very few as powerful as Hester Prynne, a character in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Hester was a young woman who moved to America in the seventeenth century to create a new life for herself. While waiting for her husband she committed the “great sin” of adultery. She was discovered of this great sin when she became pregnant…
In the novel The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850, the author portrays Hester Prynne as a condemned woman who suffered public humiliation, but shows a great amount of compassion in her character. Hester shows her compassion by single-handedly taking care of her daughter Pearl. Although Hester is seen as a subjective shameful Puritan who can not care for a child by the Puritan society, she is the best guardian to Pearl because she protects Pearl no matter her setbacks, she…
true nature of the characters, especially Hester, whose strength is no secret. Our very first depiction of Hester Prynne is one of a tenacious young woman, “she repelled [the town-beadle], by an action marked with natural dignity and force of character, and stepped into the open air, as if by her own free will”(36). In this instance, Hester is not backing down from her crime, and she is saying that this is her sin, not anybody else’s. Not only that, but Hester gives off an air of “Divine…
protagonist of the story, Hester Prynne. She proves to be an extremely dynamic character throughout the novel due to the many events and changes she faces. Hester undergoes three main changes, from being a chastised woman, to…
In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne conforms to the life of shame and guilt as she is required to wear the symbol of adultery on her chest. Hester is treated as a disgrace to puritan society because she has the undeniable proof of her sinful action, Pearl. Throughout her conformation Hester has changed from a passionate woman into a “bare and harsh outline” of her older self because of the A she, now, proudly wears on her chest. When Hester gets branded with the letter A upon her chest she…
When Hester Pyrnne’s reputation is buried beneath a wine-colored blemish, it doesn’t alter who she is. Hester Pyrnne is a woman of immense strength of character and defiance for convention. Because of this, she refuses to crumble and lose all sight of her dreams. Like many new mothers, she simply replaces them, hanging new ones in their place. Hester once wished for what many Puritan women did-- to float over to the New World with the nice older man she was saddled with and live a quiet, simple…
of characters such as Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, and Hester Prynne contribute to the idea that being true to oneself and the world is a constant struggle and is…
with elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A" ( Hawthorne 45). In the book, The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne is a woman convicted of adultery and who must wear the letter A upon her chest for her sin. The reader may assume that Hester is a coward who refuses to show her face in town after this incident but instead, Hester is a strong leader because of her ability to be honest about her sin through the symbol of the scarlet letter. Because of her…
the novel, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne is a charismatic, independent and a lovely woman who in the article, When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision by Adrienne Rich is “threatened with loss of beauty, the loss of youth” due to the Puritan laws of Adultery. Adrienne Rich points out in the article, When We Dead Awaken: Writing as a Re-Vision that women are a luxury. In the scarlet letter, Hawthorne describes Hester as a luxury when Hawthorne says, “The young woman…