As she stood on the scaffold she held, Pearl, the child she bore because of her sin. Hester endured this horrible punishment, but where was her partner in all of this? Mr. Dimmesdale was standing beside the magistrates watching all of this silently, not wanting anyone to know that he was also a part of this crime. Yet, what if his name was spoken and revealed? Would his punishment have been this severe? At the end of the novel, when Dimmesdale reveals he also shares Hester’s sin many citizens afterward still did not believe that such a godly man would do this. In the novel it reads, “ ...spectators of the whole scene…denied that there was any mark whatever on his breast…Neither, by their report, had his dying words acknowledged… the slightest connection, on his part, with the guilt for which Hester Prynne had… worn the scarlet letter” (Hawthorne 285). They simply remained ignorant and refused to state that they saw the scarlet letter upon his breast. Many townspeople believed that his confession of the transgression was not a confession, but rather a passionate sermon on this subject. However, if Hester would have confessed it would have been easy to believe because women were seen as weak and the main culprits of adultery. …show more content…
After Hester committed adultery and was forced to wear the scarlet letter, she could no longer go to church without the pastor speaking about adultery and using her as an example. The novel reads, “If she entered a church, trusting to share the Sabbath smile of the Universal Father, it was often her mishap to find herself the text of the discourse” (Hawthorne 95). Even when Hester walked the streets and was simply trying to live a normal life, she often ended up getting called out for the transgression she committed against her husband. She was now seen as an example of woman’s frailty and weakness. The poem also similarly shows that women are seen as weak in relationships and sin. In the poem it says, “...how, after leading them astray, can you wish them without strain?” (Cruz 296). This shows that men, and even women themselves, saw women as weak and unable to live life without a male figure in their lives. Then, if they are led astray they are severely shunned and punished. Both the poem and novel show that in the 1600’s women were seen as the weakness and more as sinners than