Blog Post #5- Critical Lens Close Reading: Scarlet Letter

Its been seven years since Hester has had her daughter Pearl. Seven years since she was last called to shame in front of all the townspeople for her actions of adultery. In that time, Hester has become sort of a Humanitarian for the town and gives everything she can to the poor and the sick and is just an overall helpful being. The town people themselves are not just seeing her as worthless and shameful but had instead, "had begun to look upon the scarlet letter as the token, not of that one sin, for which she had borne so long and dreary a penance, but of one of her many goods since. 'Do you see that woman with the embroidered badge? they would say to strangers. 'It is our Hester,-- the town’s own Hester,-- who is so kind to the poor, so helpful to the sick, so comfortable to the afflicted'" (147). The fact that Hester was and still continuously so kind and generous to others, even after the shame trial had happened, confused the public about the symbol’s meaning on her chest. “Such helpfulness was found in her,-- so much power to do, and power to sympathize,-- that many people refused to interpret the scarlet letter A by its original significance. They said that it meant Able; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman’s strength” (146). This was an amazing turn around response from the townspeople as before people would try to break her and her child down, but when she did something to benefit the community that had turned against her, the people are quick to talk, but give nothing response. This makes me wonder how did change from a lively free spirit who know what she wanted, but now became this woman whose bosom will never be “the pillow of Affection” (148). "With nothing now to lose, in the sight of mankind, and with no hope, and seemingly no wish, of gaining anything, it could only be a genuine regard for virtue that had brought back the poor wanderer to its paths" (pg 145). Hester has given up her dreams and happiness to transform into the the women the public prefers of her-- kind, motherly, and passive. She has been transformed with the mindset that her only option is to be someone who is "good" for the community. For her to be so consumed with the thoughts of the shame that letter held for her to let herself be molded into the type of person her society wanted shows me just how serious she took the adultery claims while also willing to lose some of herself to the cause.