The Conformity Of Hester Prynne

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The Conformity of Hester Prynne Melissa Cribb Baker College – Online October 25, 2011 In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne is marked as an adulteress by the Puritans for having an affair while her husband is nowhere to be found. As punishment, she is forced to wear a red letter ‘A’ on her bosom as indication of her moral weakness and to try to make her conform to their belief that women project frailty and sinful passion. Hester Prynne’s conformity is in the fact that she wears the letter and allows herself to be alienated but it is only on the surface as she uses it to create her own identity. This is proven in the care and protection of her daughter, her philosophy, her work with the town’s people and the fact that she becomes a maternal figure to the women of the community. At the beginning of Hester’s story, she is led out of the jail into the town square wearing the red letter “A” and holding her daughter. The people in the square were expecting her to be broken up about the fact that she was to be shamed in front of the whole town. However, the townspeople saw that she held herself in a regal and gracious manner, like upper class ladies of that time. According to the narrator, she had never appeared more lady-like, in the antique interpretation of the term, than as she issued from the prison (Hawthorne, 2008, p. 40). Hester did not want to be identified as weak so she kept her head held high and did not let them see that she was affected by the situation. The town’s people also spoke about her attire in that the dress that she was wearing was too nice for the situation; as well as the letter “A” being very well sewn. In this instance, Hester conforms by wearing the red letter and being put on display in the market for all to see but she refused to wear the rags that certain town’s people felt that would be more fitting of her punishment;
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