Throughout The Scarlet Letter, the moral and social values pertaining to the discrimination of females by society is revealed through the alienation of Hester Prynne, the main character in The Scarlet Letter. During The Scarlet Letter, Hester is punished for her adulterous relationship with Reverend Dimmesdale which results in a child named Pearl. As a result of the adulterous relationship, the authorities of The Puritan society that she is residing in sentences her to wear a Scarlet Letter on her breast that is supposed to stand for adulterer, stand on a scaffold in front of the entire community for public viewing of her Scarlet Letter and Pearl, and serve a prison sentence. But in reality, Hester has a life sentence, the alienation from society because of The Scarlet Letter and how the community looks down on adulterers. Once released from prison, Hester does not try to hide The Scarlet Letter but instead, she flourishes it, separating herself from other women at the time who would be ashamed of it. Thus she is further alienated because women were supposed to conform to the society’s beliefs on how they should behave. Hawthorn chooses to discriminate Hester in The Scarlet Letter in order to ease his fear of the unrepressed female gender. Hawthorne’s feelings were common among male members of society during the time period The Scarlet Letter took place.
Hawthorne alienates Hester from society in his book The Scarlet Letter by putting her through embarrassment on the scaffold, sentencing her to wear The Scarlet Letter unless she succumbs to the masculine authorities and gives up the name of Pearl’s paternal figure, and portraying Hester as a witch who “saps the phallic power” (p.297), which Shari Benstock says in her criticism “The Scarlet Letter (a)doree or the Female Body Embroidered.” The alienation of Hester from society begins when she is placed on the scaffold in front of the entire community so they could gawk and speculate about her amongst themselves. But the worst part of Hester’s punishment was not standing on the scaffold; it was the sentence of wearing The Scarlet Letter being placed on her breast for everyone to see. Hester was sentenced to wear The Scarlet Letter to embarrass/humiliate her because she committed adultery with Reverend Dimmesdale. Hawthorne chose a woman to commit adultery and wear The Scarlet Letter because he has a fear of unrepressed feminine sexuality and in order to relieve his anxiety, Hawthorne must humiliate or repress a female. Once Hester was on the scaffold, the crowd gawked at The Scarlet Letter because they knew that it stood for an adulterous sin committed by Hester. Even though Hester wore dull, gray clothes similar to the other women of society, she always stuck out in a crowd because of the vibrant Scarlet Letter. The color of the Letter was pronounced because the Puritan’s clothing was generally dull colors and only processions of very important people like Reverends...
