The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Strong Soul Of Hester Prynne
Imagine making one mistake and having people shame you for it for the rest of your life. In this situation a person would 100% feel bad for themselves and possibly turn to extreme measures just to get out of the nightmare. Although this may seem atrocious, this “bad dream” becomes a reality almost immediately for Hester Prynne in A Scarlet Letter. Going through such a traumatizing experience at such a young age is sure to break a girl’s shell, right? But how does all this negativity affect her thoughts and emotions as a young girl to young adult.
How does it truly affect and change her overall character and why? Hester is described as a beautiful young girl who has committed the unforgivable crime, adultery. As terrible as this seems, the punishment is truly worse. Hester is forced to wear a scarlet colored A on her chest for the rest of her life. She is looked down upon for the rest of her life because of this sin. Although everyone agrees this is the punishment for her, you can quickly find yourself seeing that they’re just hating on Hester to hide their own sins! But how do these events shape her and show her true character? When forced to stand up in front of everyone with her baby, which really is to unnecessarily shame her, she holds her own and doesn’t break. This reflects the maturity within her character and strength of her overall soul.
Although she is shamed and practically abandon by her own town, she never retaliates and simply carries on with her cottage life. The fact that she is out and free—in a way—about her sin and rarely has any personal problems about her sin makes her an empowering character in the story. Hester is faced with many problems all throughout the book that never seem to change her overall opinion on things and her “I don’t care what other people think of me” attitude. The only problem that manages to rock her boat is when they try to take away her child, Pearl. She ends up being able to keep her child because of a—supposed to be negative—comment, revolving around Pearl being her everlasting punishment. While this incident may not seem to say anything about her overall personality, it infact does show the reader that, yes, she is numb to negativity at this point in the book. Hester has been through a majority of problems and difficulties throughout the whole book and many people seem to notice the main change in her attitude. She is less of a passionate sensible person and focuses more on the logic and reasoning, which is most likely due to her realization of everyone is just as bad as her. Hester sees the sin in people more than they see it in themselves. Hester speaks and lives by her opinion of facts and truth in a time where women weren’t as repected.
This builds on to her character’s traits and overall changes by the end of the story. Her beliefs and responses to conflicts set her apart from anyone else in the story. You cant forget the mistakes you made in the past because they shaped you to be the person you are today! Hester is an amazing representation of this in a way that she didn’t just look at her own sin but the sin of others. In todays day, people are practicially shaped by the opinions of others so having such a character as Hester Prynne to completely ignore that truly reflects apon her strong soul and mental maturity.
