Thursday, February 18, 2016

What type of person Hester has become in "The Scarlet Letter"? How do the townspeople feel about her and her letter "A"?

With equisite embroidery boldly displayed upon her breast, Hester, in her defiant pride, stands on the scaffold before the townspeople.  At this point in the exposition, Hester is yet a beautiful young woman of passion.  However, as the narrative progresses, Hester's personality, like the meaning of the letter, changes as mentioned until the letter, a mere symbol, overtakes the person of Hester. In Chapter XVII, when Hester attempts to free herself of the grey cap that dulls her once luxurious hair and when she casts off the letter that falls on the other side of the brook, she later must replace it before her daughter Pearl will return to her.  When she essays to leave her past behind and return to England, Hester finds herself returning to America and her little cottage.  As she approaches the threshold in a grey dress, she unlocks the door so long closed.

On the threshold she paused,--turned partly round,--for, perchance, the idea of entering all alone, and all so changed, the home of so intense a former life, wa more dreary and desolate than even she could bear.  But her hesitation was... long enough to display a scarlet letter on her breast.....But there was a more real life for hester Prynne here, in New Englan, than in that unknown region where Pearl had found a home

 Hester is defined by the letter A.

See the sites below, also, as similar questions have been asked.

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