Hester Prynne: The Protagonist of The Scarlet Letter

. . . She . . . [believes] that "the torture of her daily disgrace would . . . work out another purity than that which she had lost; ofttimes saint-like, because the result of martyrdom" (Bloom 83).

The message of the book is that she who is branded roughshod by a self-described Christian community may, in fact, be the most Christian member of that community. In a final exam great irony, Hester herself by the end of the book becomes a exponent to others, including the very Puritans who had judged and marked her, precisely because she has accepted, endured, and transcended condemnation at the reach of their Puritan society:

. . . As Hester Prynne had no selfish ends, nor lived in any measure for her own profit and enjoyment, people brought all(prenominal) their sorrows and perplexities, and besought her counsel, as one who had herself gone through a right on trouble (Hawthorne 185).

Hester, still marked by the scarlet letter, lives her bread and butter precisely in the loving and forgiving way rescuer Christ taught his followers to live. The message of the book might be, He who is without sin cast the first stone. Tellingly, like the woman in the Bible who was about to be stoned for her sexual activities, Hester alike develops into a genuinely spiritual individual. She becomes the truly faithful Christian, breeding from her own sin and subsequent suffering and serving others with a generous compassion. The Puritans, on the other hand, are cruel traitors to the faith of love and kindness they profess to ch

Confronted with Dimmesdale's misery, coward though he be, and with Chillingworth's evil, Hester's tenderness as well as her energy for life and love are re-charged: "Hester Prynne resolved to border her former husband and do what might be in her power for the rescue of the victim" (Hawthorne 121). Of the role of gender in this transformative confrontation, Baym writes,

Bloom, Harold, ed. Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. New York: Chelsea, 1986.

Hester tries to teach Dimmesdale what she has taught herself about repentance and forgiveness: "You have deeply and sorely repented. Your sin is left tooshie you" (Hawthorne 138). However, Dimmesdale has condemned himself, a victim of the Puritanism Hester has always defied.

That " snide smile" and unashamed look are evidence that Hester stands in defiance of the harsh standards of behavior the community sets forth. However, she is not so much in defiance that she refuses to wear the letter. In fact, she has herself sewn on the letter, in accordance with the plan against her for her adultery, but she has elaborated on the judgment (and the letter) in a way which itself defies that judgment:

the dark-haired Hester Prynne, emerging to mount the pillory, babe in arms, is presented as a virtual(prenominal) madonna, despite the token of self-denunciation which she has embroidered into her attire (Levin 74).

On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and marvellous flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had the effect of a finally and fitting decoration to the apparel

When one reads the passage itself, however, suggestions of a farthest more complex and down-to-earth character appear: "She took the infant on her arm, and, with a burning blush, and yet with a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbours" (Haw
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