Scarlet Letter

This is not a poem its something for school So dont read cuz its just for school.
                                     
            “ Its better to have loved and lost then to have never loved at all.” Alfred, Lord Tennyson
      Hester Prynne, the somewhat less-then-sympathetic character that emerged from the prison in the beginning of this story, seemed almost to
be haughty and proud in her situation. She came from her prison set to hide her Scarlet letter with her child, “ But it seemed foolish to hide one
mark of shame with another.” Even as she stood before the people of her village with Pearl upon one arm and her letter on high display,
embroidered richly upon her chest, her demeanor was almost cool. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, a mix of both drama and romance,
shows a character who changes from a haughty and out of control woman to something cold and closed off, and then to someone else all together.
            In the chapters following the first to the third, Hester seemed to finally understand that her Letter kept her at arms length from her
community. She finally understood she was different because she had acted upon her lust and had therefore sinned. “ Be it accepted as a proof
that all was not corrupt in this poor victim of her own frailty, the man’s hard law, that Hester Prynne yet struggled to believe that no fellow-
mortal was guilty like herself.” Hester was alone in this place with no one to relate to her because no one had committed adultery like herself. She
was the one who let go of her passions, and realizing this Hester slowly began to change from haughty sinner to a more reserved form. Her mind
began to tell her that she had to repent for what she had done, she needed to repent here in the town with the eyes of the people staring at her with
a sort of hatred and examination in order to get back into heaven. Her time of atonement would also have her facing a demon of her own: Her
daughter Pearl, who greatly contributes to her changing behavior. 
          When Hester starts to look at her Adultery as a sin she also begins to see Pearl as an evil creature or perhaps a messenger sent from God
himself. “ Thou art not my child! Thou art no Pearl of mine!” She cries to her daughter in a “ sportive impulse” and then has to hush her child
from crying out about the fact she has no “ Heavenly Father.” Hester does not have much of a motherly spirit to her, showing in almost every way
she handles the small child, for she only looks upon her as a curse of a proof of her sin, “ It was a face, fiend-like, full of smiling malice.” She
see’s only this when looking at her own daughter though she once seemed to carry about her a bit of motherly affection before the child became
so “ elvish” and “ freakish”. Pearl has an extreme contribution to Hester’s later change, or the change she goes through so soon after Pearl’s birth.
But after Hester’s strength pulls her through these darker times we begin to see a fairly large change, and yet none at all within her own
personality.
        Deeper into the chapters Hester seems to change her situation from bad to good by helping the poor and the women of her community, but
her attitude towards many things still remains the same. She still believes Pearl to be evil, or elvish as she semi-lightens it, and yet it is also
noticed that Pearl is the only one whose been there with her this entire time. Then suddenly, everyone who once stared at the Scarlet Letter as the
mark of shame and adultery now came to see it as the initial for “ Able/Abel” because of the way she aided the poor,  “Do you see that woman
with the embroidered Badge?” they would say to strangers. “ It is our Hester-the towns own Hester,- who is so kind to the poor, so helpful to the
sick, so comfortable to the afflicted.” She effectively became the opposite of what she was branded: She was accepted by the town, welcomed,
honored, cherished. She had helped and aided in order to redeem herself, and perhaps go to heaven. But then why is she still so cold? Why has
she lost all her beauty, inside and out, “ All the light and graceful foliage of her character had been withered up by this red-hot brand, and had
long ago fallen away, leaving a bare and harsh outline, which might have been repulsive, had she possessed friends or companions to be repelled
by it?” By the end there was not much left to Hester’s spirit because the thing that had once branded her apart from society and then pulled her
back inside as an ironic kind of human, also drained her spirit from her.
      Within these pages Hester Prynne changed from her independent, haughty self to a woman lost within the shadows of her town. Everything
she did within these chapters changed her for better and worse and eventually led to the conclusion of the beloved novel. It was obvious the
largest part of her change was because of the Scarlet Letter, but the reason she received that letter was the real reason she changed. If she had
never sinned she would have never received her Letter, if she hadn’t received the letter she wouldn’t have been shunned, and if she hadn’t been
shunned she would have never changed. At the end Hester continued to help people, this time though it was women who she aided. She talks with
them about how they feel, about if they want to sin as she did. So perhaps Hawthorne and Hester are both telling us something akin to, “ Its better
to have ‘Loved’ and lost then to have never loved at all.”