The Effects of the Scarlet Letter

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A third relationship that is created by the scarlet letter is between Hester and herself. The letter really shows Hester to be true to herself and to the people around her. When someone is true to themselves they can live their life without the weight of horrible sins and secrets. Hester sees the “A” as a lifechanging experience that she lives by while the rest of the towns people see it as if “the judgement of God is upon her” (43). Even though Hester knows that the people in the town shun and whisper things behind her back, she stays true to her antinomian self until the end of her long and healthy life.

In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne shows the audience the significance of the scarlet letter “A” and how the decisions of one person (Hester) can have such an effect on the people the people around. Examples include the difficult isolated life that Pearl and Hester and forced to live, the life of Hester’s true love Arthur Dimmesdale cut short because of the stress and burden of the secrets that he hid, and that if one stays true to themselves that life is much easier to live. After Hester, Pearl, and Dimmesdale’s confessions of the scaffold, Dimmesdale dies and is buried in the cemetery of the little puritan community; Hester lives the rest of her life in the cottage that provided her with safety and comfort when no one else could give it to her and close enough to Dimmesdale; and Pearl is left a significant amount of money by Chilling worth and goes on to get married and live her life fully despite her warped childhood.

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