Women have always struggled to establish their own foothold in a patriarchal world, and colonial America was especially no different. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne is publicly humiliated for her crime of adultery, and the novel tells the tale of her ostracization and eventual re-admission into the town. Hester is cast out of Puritan society for the ultimate woman’s sin. She faces many obstacles, as a single mother lacking a support system, having to provide for her daughter despite the challenges ahead. Regardless, she acts in spite of the limitations put on her and is able to fulfill her duties as a mother and eventually reclaims her identity through her defiance of what should have doomed her—showing that Hester is a strong female character.
Despite Hester being outcast and shunned from society, through her dedication and resilience, she regains her status and reclaims her identity as a respectable woman in the community. After Hester is publicly humiliated on the scaffold, she is completely ostracized from the Puritan community. The Puritan community has duly set her up to fail, and she is forced to “give up her individuality” and “became the general symbol at which preacher and moralist might point, and in which they might vivify and embody their images of woman’s frailty and sinful passion” (75). Hester is a sociopolitical martyr, a cautionary tale, an example for “young and pure [to] be taught look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast” (76). However, through her acceptance of her punishment and her subsequent perseverance, there is a gradual shift in the perception of Hester in the community.
Through Hester’s helpfulness and humility in being “kind to the poor, so helpful to the sick, so comforting to the afflicted” (153), and her acceptance of her punishment of wearing the scarlet letter ‘A’ on her chest, its interpretation slowly started to evolve. With her dedication to being a charitable and benevolent character, the community’s previous disdain was “by the gradual and quiet process transformed [in]to love,” no longer being “irritation nor irksomeness” (151). Instead of seeing the “A” as a representation of her sin, it came to mean “Able,” due to her strength of character. As Hester regained acceptance, she was transformed once more into an even more respected member of society. Despite what could have been seen as insurmountable obstacles, she surpassed any limits the community could have dreamed of, and in her defiance builds a stronger identity than before.
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Hester further exemplifies herself as a strong and self-sufficient female character, in raising Pearl as a single mother rebelliously against societal norms. Feminism was non-existent in the Puritan era—as women were prohibited from having individuality and their own free-thinking, instead living as two-dimensional members of society. However, Hester defies these constrictions through her rebellion against societal barriers. When Dimmesdale pressures Hester to confess her adulterous counterpart on the scaffold, she refuses to name him. Though she is further punished for that disobedience, she still refuses to reveal her secret, retaining her dignity in her moment of ignominy. Despite her opportunity to escape the punishment of wearing the scarlet letter if she were to reveal Dimmesdale and “share the pedestal of shame” (65), Hester’s firm desire to not disclose his identity not only shows her resilience and determination to overcome the temptation of gaining these benefits, but also shows her thoughtfulness and love for Dimmesdale in hopes of protecting his character as the reverend.
Furthermore, Hester most subtly subverts the Puritan archetype of a submissive woman through her caring of Pearl. As a dedicated mother, and with her sewing profession, she still embodies superficially respectable female qualities at the time. However, she had to struggle as a single mother, working diligently for her daughter but also embracing her opportunity to raise Pearl freely. Entirely independent and self-reliant, she was also free to examine the society from which she had been exiled: “The scarlet letter was her passport into regions which other women dared not tread” (190). Having already broken those boundaries, she looks further and starts to understand the oppressive restrictions within Puritan society. Briefly, she demonstrates this when she rips off her scarlet letter and frees her hair while talking to Dimmesdale. She rejected the letter, her personal punishment, but also her cap, a common requirement of Puritan women, and thus rejected all the controls that women faced as a symbol for liberty. And the difference is obvious: “Her sex, her youth, and the whole richness of her beauty came back” (193).
Hester eventually wears the letter purely out of personal choice, choosing to demonstrate her radical ideas of female choice. By the end, she is one of the most important female supporters in the community, carrying on her dedication to showing other women their own potential through advising them. She fully embraces her own agency, in all manners big and small, boldly living a life of her own choosing.
References
- https://scholarship.richmond.edu/honors-theses/1400/
- https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm
- http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis64.htm
- http://thenewinquiry.com/features/policing-libido/
- http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/Pincus/topictwo.html
- http://marxists.architexturez.net/history/usa/workers/auto/chap07.htm
