Free Scarlet Letter Essay: Is Hester Patterned after Anne Hutchinson?

Is The Scarlet Letter's Hester Patterned after Anne Hutchinson?

Four Works Cited There are some things that could have happened to Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter if she had followed the footsteps of Anne Hutchinson. Anne Hutchinson believed differently from most Puritans in the 1640's. She held these beliefs with all her heart. People did not like her for that so they banished her. Hester Prynne commits adultery, but she handles it differently than Anne. She does not believe with all her heart that it was the right thing to do, so she is not punished as severely as Anne was. Hester begins by doing something against the authorities but she handles it differently than Anne did.

In chapter one of The Scarlet Letter, Anne Hutchinson is considered a heroine because of her imprisonment. The chapter describes a rosebush that grew from where Anne had stepped into the prison. Rose bushes are usually associated with passion (beauty plus pain) or the church (as in Dante). Anne had a passion about her beliefs about the church and is a heroine. This rose bush grew in memory of her.

Hester Prynne herself walks into this prison for almost the same reason as Anne Hutchinson. Hester had a passion symbolized by the rose also. She had a different kind of passion, though. It was not for her beliefs, but for a man of the church, Rev. Dimmesdale. This passion was in the church (the rose) but people in the church opposed this passion, just as they opposed Anne Hutchinson. The rose symbolizes what happened to both women.

Right away Anne was considered a threat to authority because of her growing number of followers. People said her meetings were disorderly, but she said she was following God. Mostly because she was being more than a wife and mother and going above her place as a woman, the church banished her. The church leadership was getting upset because she had said that certain pastors were wrong and that people should live only under a "Covenant of Grace," not works, something which sounded like antinomianism. They figured that getting rid of her was the only answer.

Hester had really done something wrong and deserved punishment according to the law. She had to wear a scarlet letter A. The way she handles the punishment is very different from Anne Hutchison.