Hester's Transformation

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a story about in which the main character, Hester Prynne, has to deal with the effects of her sin. The story opens with Hester Prynne being placed on the scaffold and is publicly condemned by Puritan society. She is described as a very beautiful woman but the crowd makes nasty remarks about and towards her. The Puritan public sees her as unremorseful and arrogant. But after seven years of wearing the scarlet letter, Hester's physical appearance changes as well as the type of person she is. The Puritan people view her much differently and Hester's personality also changes.

After seven years of wearing the scarlet letter, one thing that changes about her is her physical appearance. Her beauty is no longer one of her top qualities and she also pays little attention to her appearance. "Even the attractiveness of her person had undergone a similar change...It was a sad transformation too that her rich and luxuriant hair had either been cut off, or was so completely hidden by a cap, that not a shining lock of it ever once gushed into the sunshine." Hawthorne uses the example of her hair to show how little focus Hester places on her physical appearance. This contrasts to her appearance at the beginning of the book when she is described as stunning and her rich and beautiful hair is just one of the many physical attributes she possessed.

After seven years of wearing the scarlet letter Hester's reputation and the way the Puritans view her changes. She is much more hardworking and very unselfish. She is quick to assist the poor in any which way she can even though they mock her and she also aids those who are sick. She keeps to herself and her sole focus becomes Pearl. The Puritan people notice these actions and she is praised for it. On page 138, Hawthorne writes "...that many people refused to interpret the scarlet "A" by its original signification. They said it meant "Able"; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman's strength. " I agree with the Puritan people when they say the scarlet letter has made her a much stronger person.

Another way Hester Prynne changes after seven years of wearing the scarlet letter is that she becomes much more isolated. She isolates from the rest of Puritan people by choosing to love in a log cabin in the forest. She also transforms her life and spends much of her life thinking. On page 140 Hawthorne writes "... that her life had turned, in a great measure, from passion and feeling to thought." This quote emphasizes the point that Hester is not the same woman who reacts by passion and feeling but instead relies on thought. This allowed her to think about the things that make her happy and how much she values Pearl.