Saint of Sinners

Ð'«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 envelopedÐ'» - this is almost the first description of the main heroin that the reader gets. Hester Prynne isn’t dispirited by the grave crime that she is claimed with. She is doing her way to the scaffold with the high lifted head and confident look. But why? Didn’t she committed an adultery 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 immutable sign of her disgrace вЂ" 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 would not have been true about her, she was not a puritan wife, widow or daughter, she was capable of strong feelings, independent, self-confident woman that discovered those sides of her own soul through “sinful passion”.

Very similar story is told about Edna. She rebels against her family, against the roles, that are assigned to her by the society, against the behavior that is expected from her, against the norms and rules that had created a gilded cage for her to live in. Edna desperately sought for the truth about her and found passion. There is a powerful moment proving the process of Edna’s awakening is in progress, when she returns from her catalytic first swim, and for the first time rests her husband: “She perceived that her will had blazed up, stubborn and resistant. She could not at that moment have done other than denied and resisted. She wondered if her husband had ever spoken to her like that before, and if she had submitted to his command. Of course she had; she remembered that she had. But she could not realize why or how she should have yielded, feeling as she then did.” This is an important step in Edna’s journey to self-discovery, from pretending being a loving mother, diligent housekeeper, devoted wife to experiencing sexual awakening, passionate interest towards art and self-discovering. And that is truth about Edna.

Through both stories we have a constant straggle of a strong individual with a different way of thinking and a strongly formed society. From the view point of the society main heroin’s passion driven actions are completely unacceptable and unmoral. But if to look deeper, it seems like the author tries to show us a society that is highly controlled by the rules, norms, and public constricts verses persons that starve for their own philosophy, seek for harmony within themselves and self-awareness. And despite the facts that both Edna and Hester had obeyed social morality, they still have natural morality, and that can be proved by Edna’s being with a friend when she is in labor and by Hester’s gratuitous help.

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