IRA#7

The Scarlet Letter by Arthur Miller


Summary: Chapter 4-5

The next day Hester is visited by that same man in the crowd, who she recognizes for some reason. The stranger who comes to visit her is actually a doctor who insisted that he check and make sure the baby is not affected by its' mother's wrong-doing. Hester finally recognizes him to be her long lost husband, who she thought died at sea. Her husband asks her who the father is, but she still will not let out the name of her partner in crime.  Hester agrees not to tell anyone in the village that   her ex-husband is alive and living among them, since she is so good at keeping secrets. She finally gets out of prison and decides to stay in the village in which she committed her sin of adultery, instead of returning home to her birth place.  The magistrate allowed her to buy a home and live in the town, but she will remain to be shunned from everybody. Her seamstress work in the village was doing really well, leaving her very busy. She spent her time making money to support her child, making clothes for the poor, and giving all her extra money to the poor. This sure sounds like a woman who is trying to turn her life around. No matter what people thought of her she just kept going believing herself to be a martyr trying not to feel vulnerable toward the devil. The scarlet letter on her chest is acting as a symbol in everyone's' hearts that she has sinned. "O Fiend, whose talisman was that fatal symbol, wouldst thou leave nothing , whether in youth or age, for the sinner to revere?" She believes that her sin was way worse than any other sin and that only she can be the guilty one. This is really sad because people are still looking down on her even though she is working, her business is great, she's feeding her kid, and she is even giving to the poor. Yet those puritan snobs just keep staring at her as if she was a museum exhibit. The theme in this chapter is faith and how it can affect people. For example, the people who are really pious look down on and make fun of Hester because she has committed a sin and therefore should not be part of the society. Another example is that Hester recovers from her downfall and she is now a working mother who is trying to get her life straight, by trying to live a better faith or at least trying to do some good that would get her back on God's side according to the puritans who believed everything was bad back then.