Sin And Atonement In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

In the book “The Scarlet Letter” written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne is charged with adultery in the Puritan society. The Puritan society saw her as a disgrace. Her punishment would have been death, but no one in the community knew if Hester’s husband is alive or dead. Instead her punishment is to wear a scarlet letter A on her clothing and public humiliation. Hester works through her sin and atonement in the beginning, middle, and end of the book.
At the beginning of the book, she works through her sin and atonement by taking care of her daughter and living in a secluded cottage outside of town. She dealt with her punishment without blaming anyone but herself. The first step to dealing with any sort of sin is accepting that it can be changed and taking responsibility for what is done, which Hester showed a prime example of. She didn’t show who the father is because she didn’t want to get him in trouble. She believed she did the right thing in that moment, but later the father says she should have told the community. From this moment, she did her work well as always, but she is working more and helping the poor and the sick almost as if doing this work would help make up for

The meaning of Hester’s letter has changed in the eyes of the community, from Adultery to Able because of the fact that she is there to help the poor and the sick. But she didn’t see it that way; she still saw the letter as Adultery. She also is going to run away with Dimmesdale and letting them both live together as a family with their daughter. She is going to let go of her past. Those plans are ruined however by Chillingworth as he wants to keep torturing Dimmesdale. At the end, Dimmesdale confessed his sins and then died. Chillingworth, having no one else to torture, also dies there. Hester and her child can now live and work through the sin without them getting in the