Hester Prynne

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a novel with many interesting characters, one of which is Hester Prynne, a young woman at the time of the novel. Hester is considered the main character of the novel, because she is the bearer of 'The Scarlet Letter' from the title, which is a red A, meaning that she has taken part in the sin of adultery. The people of her town make her wear this because of their Puritan beliefs.

Hester Prynne is stuck in a trap of forbidden love with Arthur Dimmesdale, with whom she has an affair. She becomes pregnant which gives away their secret affair; however, the people of the town do not know that the father is Dimmesdale. Since they don't know this, and because Dimmesdale is too cowardly to admit that he's the father and take the heat along with her, Hester is the person that is most punished, by being made to wear the A.

The bearing of this outer shame prevents Hester from getting over her guilt of her sin, and also it prevents Arthur Dimmesdale from getting over his shame and guilt. Although they should still keep some shame and guilt for their actions and sins against God, they should still be able to ask forgiveness from Him, and live their lives. Never forgetting their mistakes, of course, but letting them alone. The sin of adultery was confessed by one of the two, Hester, but Arthur Dimmesdale tried to keep it a secret, which, in time, tore him apart physically and mentally.

Hawthorne, throughout the novel, explains how un-confessed sin could eat away at the conscience and destroy the soul, as it did to Dimmesdale. Hester, who had confessed her sin of adultery, bore the shame and scorning that came with the letter, but in the end, as a result of Hester's confession, the sin does not destroy her, but instead it makes her stronger and braver and stronger than she had been. Near the end of the narrative, the four protagonists are about to set sail on a boat. While they are standing on the scaffold, the reader can compare this scene to the first chapter, in which Hester is being scorned and hated on the scaffold. But now, she is respected.

After the events on the scaffold (Dimmesdale revealing that he, as Hester, is guilty), Hester returns to her village after leaving at the end of the book after all of the story's events have taken place, still bearing the scarlet A, even though both Dimmesdale and Chillingworth had been dead for quite some time. The people of the village see this, and how she had managed to take care of Pearl, herself, and others throughout the year, thus seeing the red A as now representing 'Able'. Able to manage to take care of herself, able to live with this guilt and shame for so many years. Although they now see the letter as Able, Hester refuses to see it this way. She bears it as her past sin and wrongdoing, and also as a symbol of the evil that society can do.

It may seem at first glance that Hester's punishment is not extremely horrible, but many more things go hand in hand with her outer shame; for one, Pearl. Pearl is an even greater symbol of Hester's sin than the letter, as she is the daily, living, breathing reminder of Hester's sin. Not only is Hester cursed with people always saying that Pearl is a 'devil child', but she's also the object of scorn and ridicule among the town's people. She can't go anywhere