What Is Hester Prynne's Role In The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter is a novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It takes place in a small village inhabited by puritans around the 17th century, in Boston. This essay will be mainly focused on the character of Hester, the holder of the scarlet letter. It will show the difference in the good and bad that happens within her life throughout the novel. Hester Prynne is one of the main characters in this novel. She finds herself in an affair with the town minister, Arthur Dimmesdale, and she later has a daughter. In the beginning of the novel we find Hester being taken from the prison and she is soon questioned by the townspeople about her husband and who the father of her child is. “She appeared to recognize him, he slowly and calmly raised his finger, made a gesture with it in the air, and laid it on his lips” (Hawthorne 70).At this time Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s thought to be dead husband, comes into the town to see who the father of Hester’s child is and to keep his name a secret as well.
Hester is forced to wear the scarlet letter “A”, which marks her sin. She then relates her child, Pearl, to the scarlet letter, “ See ye not, she is the scarlet letter, only capable of being loved” (Hawthorne 133). Within the first four chapters, we see Hester become protective or almost aggressive about the letter. “Hester caught hold of Pearl, and drew her
She is a reminder to both Hester and Dimmesdale, of their sin. Pearl is often described as wild, “ She resisted the impulse, and sat erect, pale as death, looking sadly into little Pearl’s wild eyes” (113). She is also compared to the rose bush that grows by the prison door. “With those wild flowers in her hair”(247). Wild is a motif throughout the book, and appeared early in the first chapter, “The Custom House”, as it also describes the prison door, the rose bush, and the cemetery. “But had been plucked by her mother off the bush of wild roses that grew by the prison door”