Nathaniel Hawthorne's Novel the Scarlet Term Paper

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The child is closely associated with the original sin and the symbol of it. The scarlet letter was, in fact, one of the first items that caught her eye. "One day, as her mother stooped over the cradle, the infant's eyes had been caught by the glimmering of the gold embroidery about the letter; and, putting up her little hand, she grasped at it, smiling, not doubtfully, but with a decided gleam that gave her face the look of a much older child" (95). Such duality of sin and its symbols foreshadows Hester's eventual empowerment as a result of her punishment and ostracism by the Puritan community. Her life with Pearl is indeed lonely and filled with the challenges of single parenthood, but Hester transcends her misery by employing her own mix of pride, humility, and dignity.

As seven years pass and Pearl becomes a little girl instead of a clutching baby, the daily life of Hester alters, too. Although Hester, "with the scarlet letter on her breast glittering in its fantastic embroidery, had long been a familiar object to the townspeople" (156), the sting of her sin had been assuaged by the fact that "she never battled with the public, but submitted, uncomplainingly, to its worst usage; she made no claim upon it in requital for what she suffered; she did not weigh upon its sympathies" (156).

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The fact that she had not been an irritant to the Puritan community over the years had somewhat endeared her to them. She was also quick to help others in the time of material need or desperate illness. Her hands made clothing for the indigent and tended to her fellow man in the sick room where "there glimmered the embroidered letter, with comfort in its unearthly ray. Elsewhere the token of sin, it was the taper of the sick-chamber" (157). The very word for which the 'A' had originally stood, adultery, had even altered with the passage of time. Because Hester Prynne was so helpful, "many people refused to interpret the scarlet a by its original signification. They said that it meant Able, so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman's strength"(157).

While the Reverend Dimmesdale endured a bizarre self-torture because of his hidden sin, Hester Prynne was freed physically and emotionally by the outward appearance of the scarlet letter upon her breast. The symbol that ostracized her from the community also gave her the strength and power to survive outside of it. Hawthorne's use of a symbol that employs duality and shows evolution suggests that sin and its consequences is a living thing that must be recognized, but can be transcended.

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