Hester Prynne: Courage and Integrity in The Scarlet Letter

Introduction: Hester Prynne and the Puritan World

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne depicts the struggle of Hester Prynne as she attempts to live by the standards set by her own internal moral compass. This creates a great deal of conflict, as she is forced to confront the rigid standards of Puritan Colonial America regarding what is considered decent behavior. At the opening of the novel, much has already transpired: Hester Prynne's husband, Roger Chillingworth, was shipwrecked and captured by Native people — many believed he had perished. The town's religious leader, Arthur Dimmesdale, offers Hester a sympathetic ear and a shoulder to cry on, but this leads to an affair that results in the birth of Hester's daughter Pearl, born out of wedlock.

It is revealing about the townspeople that they offer Hester very little understanding for the ways in which she has suffered. Instead, she is condemned and meant to be humiliated for the rest of her life by wearing a red letter A on the front of her dress. Hawthorne takes great pains to illuminate the exact nature of Hester's struggle and to shed light on the quiet humanity and bravery connected to her living independently.

The Scarlet Letter as an Act of Defiance

Hester's bravery is exhibited in the way she transforms the scarlet letter into an item of ornamental quality. The red letter was intended to cause her shame. Yet rather than shrinking from her punishment — and the act that caused it — Hester appears, in a sense, to celebrate it. As Hawthorne describes:

"On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic 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 all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore; and which was of a splendor in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony" (Hawthorne, 49).

This is a striking passage. It demonstrates that Hester has no difficulty confronting her own humanity: she knows she sinned, yet she clearly possesses a sense of reason and understands that her "crime" is not as grave as many others. The ornamental quality with which she crafts and wears the letter A signals that she does not hide from her affair. One could also suggest that she does not regret what she did, even if she accepts the consequences. The highly ornate and elaborate A further implies that she does not view her child as a mistake or a shameful blight.

Finally, the conspicuous visibility of the letter A serves as a juxtaposition to all the silence Hester must maintain. She says nothing to the town about Chillingworth being her husband. She keeps the identity of her lover secret. These acts of silence strengthen Hester's internal sense of personal integrity and reveal to the reader what a strong individual she is. While the town may declare that Hester has no virtue, the reader knows with certainty that this is not true.

Conclusion: Integrity and Its Legacy

Hester Prynne's existence within this colonial town is a difficult one, but she manages to prevail through her own strength of character. Examples of her personal integrity abound throughout the text. Hester possesses a sense of morality and virtue rooted in a higher authority, and she has passed these values on to her child. It is through her integrity and her fortitude that Dimmesdale is ultimately able to find his own courage and sense of self, completing a fuller character arc within the novel.

Works Cited

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "The Scarlet Letter." Planet PDF, 2018, www.planetpublish.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/The_Scarlet_Letter_T.pdf. Accessed 18 Sept. 2018.

Wang, Yamin. "A Representative of the New Female Image — Analyzing Hester Prynne's Feminist Consciousness in The Scarlet Letter." Journal of Language Teaching and Research, vol. 1, no. 6, 2010.