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Theme Of Relationship In The Scarlet Letter

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Many describe a relationship as the state of being related or interrelated to a person of importance to the individual. Relationships help guide people through the tough times, and they give people the strength to go on. Many people desire that special, once in a lifetime, a relationship filled with love and affection. Throughout "The Scarlet Letter," the main character, Hester Prynne, becomes connected to three different people and she shares a unique relationship with each. Each person teaches her a new life lesson that she can take with her always. Author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, uses his writing to show how each character shapes Hester in a particular way. In "The Scarlet Letter," Hester 's relationships with her daughter Pearl, her agape Arthur Dimmesdale, and her vengeful husband Roger Chillingworth help readers to see the maturity in Hester with each one. The mother-daughter relationship has a unique quality like no other. A mother and daughter love and support each other through good times and bad times. In an article written by Eavan O 'Brien, he talks in further detail about the dynamic mother-daughter relationships have. He states, "before sisterhood; there was the knowledge - transitory, fragmented, perhaps, but original and crucial - of mother-and-daughterhood" (JSTOR). This alludes to how people should value the first person who a child develops a relationship with. Hester and Pearl share these same qualities and more throughout the novel. Both characters

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