The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a tragic novel about the lives of those living in Puritan Boston in the late 17th century, especially the character Hester Prynne. Hester Prynne is a young, Puritan woman who has committed adultery and now will spend the rest of her life paying for her sin. The scarlet letter she must wear on her chest, the pain of raising a daughter by herself, and bearing the sin for Reverend Dimmesdale are all things she must face with help from no one. Hester Prynne truly was a remarkable woman who held her head high during tough times, and accepted her sin with little guilt.
             The early chapters of the novel suggest that prior to her marriage to Chillingworth, Hester was a strong-willed and reckless young woman. In one point she remembers that her parents were "loving guides" who frequently had to control her reckless behavior. Also Hester was unusually attractive for a Puritan woman. She was not the short, stubby plain Puritan-girl but in fact she was tall, slender, with beautiful dark hair. One cannot help to wonder why she married Chillingworth since she did not love him, but the fact that she had an affair shows that she once had a passionate nature. When the denizens of Boston discover her sin, they decide that instead of execution she will be forced to wear a "scarlet letter 'A' on her chest" which she boldly embroiders with gold thread, almost as if she does not care about her crime. The 'A' is understood to stand for "Adulterer" and for that she is shunned and separated from the rest of the community.
             Even her daughter Pearl is forced to suffer the comments and mistreatment from the younger children who in fact do not understand why they are stigmatizing her. While Hester is shunned from the community, she becomes more aware of the hardships she must endure when it comes to raising a child. It even comes to a point where the governo...