Free Essay on Nathaniel Hawthornes Scarlet Letter - Spiritual Growth of Hester Prynne :: Scarlet Letter essays

The Scarlet Letter The Spiritual Growth of Hester Prynne               The character of Hester Prynne changed importantly throughout the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.  Hester Prynne, through the look of the prudes, is an extreme sinner she has gone against the Puritan ways, committing adultery.  For this harsh sin, she must gestate a symbol of shame for the rest of her life.  However, the Romantic philosophies of Hawthorne put vote down the Puritanic beliefs.  She is a beautiful, young woman who has sinned, only when is forgiven.  Hawthorne portrays Hester as prophesy maternity and she can do no wrong.  Not only Hester, but the physical ruby letter, a Puritanical sign of disownment, is shown through the authors timbre and diction as a beautiful, gold and colorful piece. From the beginning, we see that Hester Prynne is a young and beautiful woman who has brought a shaver into the world with an unmapped father.  She is punished by Puritan society by wearing the scarlet letter A on the bosom of her dress and standing on the scaffold for three hours.  Her hair is a glossy brown and her eyeball deep-set, and black, her attire is rich, cargonfully caressing her slender figure.  The scaffold is a galling task to bear the townspeople gathered around to gossip and contemplate at Hester and her newborn child, whom she suitably named Pearl, named because of her extreme value to her mother.  In the put out of faces in the crowd, young Hester Prynne sees the face of a man she once was ferociously familiar with, whom we later learn is her true husband, Roger Chillingworth.  Her subjection to the crowd of Puritan onlookers is excruciating to bear, and Hester holds the child to her heart, a symbolic comparison between the child and the scarlet letter, implying that they are truly both intertwined. Prynne is imprisoned with her child, both of whom are emotionally and physically exhausted from the punishment at the scaffold.  The husband, Roger Chillingworth, passes by and is fit out to be the physician to the two, and remedy them of their sicknesses.  She is surprised he had come at such a time where she was at a point of such horrendous turmoil.  He demands that she cannot reveal his identity, yet he also wishes to feel the identity of her lover, the father of the child.  She refuses to tell him.