Isolation is often the outcome when people are unwelcome in a community. No longer wanted in society, most would simply venture off to another community and start afresh with a new identity. However, in The Scarlet Letter, one woman dares to stand up to such bigotry and deals with the town's hostility with indifference. In this book, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses antithesis to express such treatment.
             Guilty of adultery, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale were emotionally isolated from the town as the two were confronted with the consequences of their mistake. Hester was subjected to stand upon the scaffold, wearing the symbol of her sin, a scarlet letter, for the public to see her for what she was, a foul creature. Bracing such humiliation, Hester held her head high even though the task was almost unbearable: "under the leaden infliction which it was her doom to endure, she felt at moments as if she needs shriek out with the full power of her lungs, and cast herself from the scaffold down upon the group, or else go mad at once." (p40). None of the women had compassion for Hester. In fear of stigmatism from being in association with Hester, none of the women dared befriend her. With no companion, save her illegitimate child, Pearl, Hester was alone in the world with no guidance or sympathy in her time of need. The only person she could depend on was Dimmesdale, though he too was forced to deny any relations with Hester or Pearl. Forced to conceal the truth, Dimmesdale isolated himself from the community besides Hester. He believed no one could comprehend him and therefore placed himself above everyone else, thinking that none could be as guilty as he. Dimmesdale tried hard to rid himself of the guilt but found it impossible without the courage to speak the truth. "More than once-nay, more than a hundred times-he had actually spoken! He had told his hearers that he was altogether vile, a viler companion of the vilest, the wo...