The Scarlet Letter

"She was ladylike, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days; characterized by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace which is now recognized as its indication. And never had Hester Prynne appeared more ladylike, in the antique interpretation of the term, than as she issued from the prison. Those who had before known her, and had expected to behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped" - this is almost the first description of the main heroine that the reader gets. Hester Prynne is not dispirited by the grave crime that she is claimed with. She is going her way to the scaffold with a high lifted head and confident look. But why? Didn’t she committed an adulterous act, that came to light to all the society she had lived in? Didn’t she give birth to illegitimate child? Didn’t she have to wear on her breast the immutable sign of her disgrace – scarlet letter A? She did, but she still had a reason to be proud and graceful. Hester was in the middle of her journey to self discovery.

Hester was a passionate person and being passionate about someone or about something was a natural state of being. But according to the Puritan society where “religion and law were almost identical” passion is sinful. And how the denial of something that she felt could be true? Didn’t the denial of passion deny the truth about Hester? Not letting the passion go, not committing the “crime” Hester had committed, she would have became one of the “matrons” with the “well-developed busts and round and ruddy cheeks”. And that w...

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... But the very passions themselves were aroused within her soul, swaying it, lashing it, as the waves daily beat upon her splendid body. She trembled, she was choking, and the tears blinded her”

Literature knows some more examples of the stories that also describe women desire for self realization, independence and self-confident. Edna’s story is very similar to the story of Anna Karenina, for example. But as for me, I rather prefer reaching self-discovery not through passion towards men – I desire independence to be with the man I want to be -, but through self motivation, hard work and persistence (great example of that would be Jane Austin). I’m not stating that our heroines didn’t posses those features, but for the most their lover were number one for them, and only at the end of the stories, they reach the level of self-confidence even without their man aside.