The adulteress, Hester Prynne, shows a combination of an unrelenting sinner and sainthood, but which one prevails; or do they coexist? In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Hester commits adultery with the town minister and bears a daughter along with the scarlet A on her bosom so everyone can see her sin and shame. Hester undergoes a dramatic change throughout the seven years the book takes place in Boston during the Puritan settlement days, in …
showed first 75 words of 465 total

showed last 75 words of 465 total
…her time because of the strict religious beliefs of the Puritans. Hester is both a sinner and a saint. Hawthorne's Hester Prynne shows a coexistence of sin and sainthood. She is not one, but both. She was immediately depicted as a hussy in the first few pages of the book, but as her character develops in the book she shows that she is not evil. Hester Prynne is a little of both sinner and saint.