Hesters Isolation and Alienation in The Scarlet Letter :: Scarlet Letter essays

Hesters Isolation and Alienation in The Scarlet Letter             In Nathaniel Hawthorns The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmsdale have committed adultery, an unacceptable sin during the prude times.  As a result of their sin, a child is born, whom the mother names Pearl. Out of her own free will Hester has to face major punishments. She has to servicing many months in prison, stand on the scaffold for three hours chthonian public scrutiny, and attach a scarlet letter, A on her dresser every day as long as she remained in the townsfolk of Boston.   The letter A was to identify Hester Prynne as an adulteress and as an debauched human being. Thus the young and the pure would be taught to look at her, with the letter flaming on her chest, also as the figure, the form and  the reality of sin(73).  Holding on to sin can travel by to alienation and isolation.              One reason Hester was alienated was her refusal to identify the other adulterer.  When Hester is released from prison and stood upon the scaffold,  she was asked to reveal the name of whom she committed the sin with.  Having a heart blind by love Hester choose to stay in the town and toil the scarlet letter A instead of revealing the other adulterer.  She set about society only to protect and be close to the man she electrostatic loved.  The impulsive and passionate nature (54), which to Hester seemed pure and natural had to be set about under humiliation alone, without the partner of sin.  It seemed as though she was paying not only her own consequence,  but that of her lovers as well.  Saying so herself era standing on the scaffold I might face his straining as well as mine (64).  Now taking on all blame she has given up all her individuality.  Now she would obtain the general symbol at which the preacher and moralist might point, and in which they might vivify and embody their images of womans frailty  and sinful passion (73).  aft(prenominal) the sin had been revealed Hester never again felt she was accepted by society. It seemed to her as though every gesture, every word, and even the silence of those whom she came in contact,