Corruption In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter is an intriguing yet somewhat gloomy story of an adulterous named Hester Prynne who has a child, Pearl, born out of wedlock. Her punishment is to wear a letter A for “adulterous” on her chest for a lifetime as well as imprisonment.

The setting takes place in dreary Boston, Massachusetts during the seventeenth century. It starts off outside the colonies prison, with the townsmen and women awaiting the exit of Hester Prynne, the adulterous of the town. As she walks out of the heavy prison door with infant in hand, she reveals to the crowd something far from ordinary. If a woman is told to wear the letter A as a form of punishment, she is usually very discontent with the unsettling public form of penalty. Hester, on the other hand, shows that she has decorated her A with scarlet and gold fanciful embroidery, proving that this sin is one she is not to be ashamed of. As she makes her way from the prison doorway to the scaffold to be publically looked down upon and humiliated for three hours, the crowd of men, women, and children yell at her with harsh words and rude language. In front of the public, a few of the town council members ask her
After a few harsh months, Hester is released from prison. It seems as if Hester is foreign to everyone in the town. She is allowed to leave, but instead she moves into a cabin away from the town center. She is doing well for herself. She is busy working as a seamstress for many locals and events. It seems that her impeccable needlework isn’t overseen due to her sinful crime. There is much detail given about Pearl. It is obvious that her mother really loves her, despite what unfortunate mishap that has been brought onto Hester. What I take from the readings, is that Pearl is also looked down upon because of her circumstances. She is ridiculed, which Hester worries