Essay Database

        Throughout Nathaniel Hawthorne's book The Scarlet Letter, Hester's attitudes toward her adultery are ambivalent. This ambivalence is shown by breaking the book into three different parts. In each part her attitudes change significantly. Hester starts by seeing her act as a sin that she is sorry for committing. She changes and no longer feels sorry for the sin. Finally, Hester sees the act as not sinful, but she regrets committing it.                  In the first part, …

…is actually feeling. She moves from showing only Puritan attitudes, seeing her act as a sin, to showing her inner thoughts, not seeing her act as a sin. She does, however, regret the adultery at the end because it damaged her and she feels she could have brought more to the world if she had not committed the act. Hester went through many struggles to finally show her inward feelings and deny the Puritan beliefs.