Hester: A Reader’s Perspective

1. Hester: A Reader’s Perspective Topic 3 By: Hannah Edgar, James Youm, Stephanie Ko, Max Muñoz

2. Characters Involved • Hester is the main focus • She is not pitied by the reader, but viewed as a symbol of strength and hope from overcoming her struggles • She should be pitied because no one respects her or treats her like a normal woman • Her sin should not be an excuse for such harsh punishment, even though Puritan society feels so

3. Themes Involved • Individual vs. society • Puritanism

4. Should Hester be Pitied? • Overall we will be examining if Hester is pitied by the reader and whether or not she should be pitied by the reader. • We would be setting out to prove that Hester is not pitied by the reader because Hawthorne portrays Hester as a strong yet delicate character. • Hester’s strength is illustrated through the way she embraces her sin and the way she carries out her life.

5. Should Hester be Pitied? • Because of Hesters delicacy and the punishment Hester receives for her crime she should be pitied however through the readers perspective she is not pitied. • Furthermore she should be pitied due to the fact that she gets punished while her partner in crime is safe from the harshness of the Puritan society.

6. Quote #1 • “On the other hand, a penalty which, in our days, would infer a degree of mocking infamy and ridicule, might be invested with almost as stern a dignity as the punishment of death itself.” Ch. 2 pg. 58 • Shows that Hester remained strong even though her punishment was harsh.

7. Quote #2 • “Hester’s nature showed itself warm and rich; a well-spring of human tenderness, unfailing to every real demand, and inexhaustible by the largest… so strong was Hester Prynne with a woman’s strength.” Chapter 13 pg. 192 • Hester did not let her sin define who she was. • Shows that Hester has the qualities of a strong and independent woman.

8. Quote #3 • “Here had been her sin; here, her sorrow; and here was yet to be her penitence. She had returned, therefore, and resumed…” Ch. 24 pg. 314 • Hester could have gone away from the town to escape her sin and sadness but instead, she remained strong and remained in the town.

9. Quote #4 • “... she perchance underwent an agony from every footstep of those that thronged to see her, as if her heart had been flung into the street for them all to spurn and trample upon.” Ch. 2 pg. 64 • Even though she was publicly humiliated, Hester still remained strong, which is why she is not pitied in the novel.

10. Quote #5 • “Standing alone in the world-alone, as to any dependence on society, and with little Pearl to be guided and protected-alone, and hopeless of retrieving her position, even had she not scored to consider it desirable-she cast away the fragments of a broken chain. The world's law was no law for her mind. It was an age in which the human intellect, newly emancipated, had taken a more active and a wider range than for many centuries before” Ch. 13 pg. 195

11. Quote #5 • Hester has to be able to protect herself and Pearl. • Strong enough to be independent and face her public shame with pride.

12. Thesis • Hester Prynne, as the socially shunned main character, under normal circumstances should be pitied by the reader; however, due to her strong and proud attitude in embracing her sin alone rather than letting it define her, while maintaining a delicate and beautiful nature she is not pitied but rather admired.