P5+LYou

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You, LinaPeriod 5Scarlet LetterIn his novel, The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne uses many references to religion. In Christianity, adultery is one of the ten commandments and Hester wearing the scarlet “A” is showing everyone what she had done. But even with the whole town knowing what she did, she keeps living her life the way she did before. Throughout the book, she goes through periods of shame, repentance to acceptance.When Hester came out into public with the “A” patched onto her chest, she did not shy away from people but she boldly walked out of the prison. Even as she wore her sin upon her chest people were admiring the sewing done on the “A”. The villagers believed that because of the sin she had committed, she would be broken inside, but Hester just kept on living life as before. As time went by, the community started to accept Hester despite what she had done. In most religions, people are to forgive others but even then, they can forgive but they do not forget. The townspeople knew what Hester had done, yet they still accepted her abilities to work and treated her like a normal person. This all changed when Chillingworth came to town.Although Hester didn’t give up Dimmesdale’s name, Chillingworth found out and was set to make bother their lives miserable. When Chillingworth came to the village he was viewed as the man whose wife had cheated on another man. He was pitied and because of that he became a monster. He had went out of his way to mentally torture Dimmesdale. Even though the town had accepted and just about forgiven Hester, Chillingworth didn’t. To make situations worse, all the townspeople believed that Hester’s child, Pearl, was a witch child.Religion was pretty much the town’s government, so when Hester was accused of adultery she was getting sentenced to life of shame. She was to stand in stocks in front of the townspeople just to get shouted at her that she was a disgrace. But even through this Hester didn’t stop living. Dimmesdale, the man she had the affair with, was the pastor in the town and yet he too had committed this sin. For him to have known that he had committed a sin and yet still preach to people about not doing crimes against the Lord had to have killed him. He couldn’t just tell the people of the town what he had done because then who would want to listen to the preacher who had gone and sinned against the Lord that he preaches about. His credibility would have been ruined along with his reputation. Since the town is almost controlled by religion, if he were to have said that it was him who had committed that sin then he would have just walked into his grave. But as the story progressed, the pressure Chillingworth put on him and his health, he had died anyway with everybody knowing what he had done.Hester had gone through public himilty because of her sin but she fought for repentance and got it. She was accepted back into the towns activities and was forgiven of her sins although she still had to wear the scarlet “A” that represented what she had done. But the letter that used to symbolize adultery became the letter of acceptance.