Hawthornes Portrayals

             In the opening chapters of The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne provides a detailed description of Hester Prynne, Roger Chillingworth and Arthur Dimmesdale. The reader is able to look into the souls of these characters and learn of their deepest feelings. Along with this Hawthorne uses the townspeople's reactions to show how the characters are portrayed amongst them. Every person has their good qualities and their poor qualities. The representation of these characters is neither all upright nor all immoral, for everyone has their faults.
             Hester Prynne was a woman who committed adultery. In Puritan times adultery was not tolerated. It was often a crime punishable by death. Hester was a different story. Instead of a death sentence, she was forced to wear upon her breast the letter "A," made of red cloth. Hester had come over from England, alone. Her husband planned to join her after tending to business matters. Almost three years passed and he never arrived, it was thought that he could possibly be dead; therefore her punishment was not as severe as it could have been.
             The townspeople were appalled by her behavior, especially the older matrons of the town. They felt as if her punishment was way too lenient for the crime that she had committed. "This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die." Hester did commit a sin and she owned up to it. She didn't complain about the fact that she had been caught. Instead she was "A figure of perfect elegance, on a large scale . . . She was lady-like, too. . . characterized by a certain state of dignity." Hester was free to leave Boston, but she decided to live her life there with her daughter Pearl. ". . . kept by no restrictive clause of her condemnation within the limits of the Puritan settlement . . . free to return to her birthplace . . . and hide her character and identity under a new exterior."
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Hawthornes Portrayals. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 13:43, March 28, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/52783.html