r, one is forced to see with whom the implied author's sympathies lie. In chapter five of the novel, Hester's loneliness and sadness are especially evident: "In al her intercourse with society . . . nothing . . . made her feel as if she belonged to it." In addition, her "position . . . was often brought before her vivid self-perception, like a new anguish, by the rudest touch upon the tenderest spot." When she enters a church, she often becomes the subject of the sermon, and when strangers enter the town, they ren3ew the shame as they look upon the letter. Therefore, instead of society's fostering an atmosphere of forgiveness and thereby allowing her to forget about the letter, "the spot never grew callous; it seemed, on the contrary, to grow more sensitive with daily torture." Using words such as "deep anguish" and "sensitive" (93-95), the implied author's purpose seems quite clear to me: his treatment of Hester is obviously more sympathetic than his treatment of the judgmental
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