"Were I worthy to be quit of it, it would fall away of its own nature, or be transformed into something that should speak a different purport."
             Hester Prynne, the main character in The Scarlet Letter, accepts the punishment of the adultery she committed against her husband. Hester, throughout the book, lives with and takes crap from everyone because of her crime, rather than running and hiding from everything. At the same time, she still must show her sin through the bright red A and through her daughter Pearl. Hester realizes she committed adultery, and being the strong individual that she is tries to make the best of her mistake, and make things normal for her child.
             However, most of the suffering from Hester's sin comes from her own actions. By her own choice, she wears boring clothes, moves to the outskirts of town, and refuses to run away to a place where no one knows of her crime. She totally excludes herself from the townspeople, while the townspeople don't always exclude her. Instead of escaping her crime, Hester embraces it. She declares, "It lies not in the pleasure of the magistrates to take off this badge... Were I worthy to be quit of it, it would fall away of its own nature, or be transformed into something that should speak a different purport," understanding the crime she committed and the fairness of her punishment, the letter she wears on all her clothes.
             Hester goes so far as to live around the letter as a symbol of her guilt. The beautiful red A is stitched on her chest, making the letter stand out all the more. Pearl, the child of sin, is always beside her mother, dressed in spectacular clothing "abundantly embroidered with fantasies and flourishes of gold thread," in a way doing the same thing the scarlet letter does. In each case, Hester advertises the fact that she has sinned and that she is paying for her crime, again bring more suffering upon herself. And again...