Hester Prynne Essay -- essays research papers

Hester PrynneNathaniel Hawthorne&8217s The Scarlet Letter, a dark tale of sin and redemption,centers around the small Puritan community of Boston during the 17th century. In the midst of this small community is Hester Prynne. She is a muliebrity that has defied the Puritans, taken the consequences and in the end conformed with the Puritans. It did,however, take great effort to settle down and become a women of honor again.Hester Prynne, through the eyeball of the Puritans, is an extreme sinner. She has gone against the Puritan ways by committing Adultery. The Puritans believed that Hester was a lost soul that could only be maintaind by sincere and thorough repentance. For thisirrevocably harsh sin, she must wear a symbol of shame for the rest of her life.From the beginning, we see that Hester Prynne is a young and beautiful woman who has bought a child into the world with an unknown father. Hester, to the reader, is obviously a woman who has violated a strict social and religious code, but who has sinned in an deposition of love and life. The Puritans do not take her heartings into account. They are people that take things as being right or wrong. Committing adultery is seen as wrong in the Bible, and therefore Puritans do not care of the circumstances. The Puritansare grim, forbidding people. Nonetheless they have a degree of dignity and authority. They lack sympathy and discrimination. In their eyes all crimes are equal. Hester is punished by the Puritan society by wearing the scarlet letter A on the bosom of her dress and stand up on &8220the weather darkened scaffold(p.234) for three hours. The Scaffold is a painful task to bear. The townspeople have gathered around togossip and stare at her. They yell horrid things at her. One matron screams &8220At the very least, they should have put the brand of hot iron to her forehead. (p.59) Obviously, the Puritans did not believe that this punishment was beastly enough. The screams of thismatron showed just how unforgiving the Puritans were. Here one can see the difference between the Puritans and Hester. She was standing on scaffold shedding her honor because she had sinned in love. Although she had attached a sin, the reasons behind it were because she was truly in love. T... ...athe the ways of her child.As time went by, Hester came more in contact with the Puritans of the town. She had come to conform with their belief that redemption would save her soul. She gave her life to God, by visiting the sick and sowing for the poor. She came to be revered by most members of the community because of her actions. The scarlet letter, for many had come to represent able, not adultery. Her dexterity to satisfy the needs of others and comfort them was a gift many towns people respected. As time went by, Hester was no longerconforming to Puritan ways of redemption. She was doing winsome things because it bought her pleasure and peace of mind. The word in the town was that the letter no longer stood for adultery and indeed stood for able. Hester became strong with the letter. She had let it be a objet dart of her for many years while Pearl&8217s father, minister Dimesdale, had covered it and it had gnawed at his soul. Hester was no longer hurt by the letter neither did she feel guilt.Hester Prynne had committed a sin which the Puritans believed took her soul. In the end, however, her sin had become part of her