Chapter V of
portrays Hester's departure from prison as she takes now an
"unattended walk" that begins a "daily custom" which she must endure or
"sink beneath." Hester is faced with her new position in the community, realizing
that her individuality is gone. For, now she is to become the general symbol for the preacher
of the living figure of sin. And, strangely enough, it is this sin from which she could escape
by moving somewhere else that somehow fatally keeps Hester in the Puritan community:
Her sin, her ignominy, were the roots which she had struck into the
soil. It was as if a new birth....had converted the forest-land, still so uncongenial to every
other pilgrim and wanderer, into 's wild and dreary, but life-long home. All other scenes of
eartheven that village of rural England, where happy infancy and stainless maidenhood seemed yet
to be in her mother's keeping...were foreign to her in comparison. The chain that bound her here
was of iron links, and galling to her inmost soul, but never could be broken.
With this sense of doom, therefore, Hester sets forth on her new
path in life. Then, too, there is also the pull of the force of her love for the man who
has been her partner in shame; she cannot leave because of her love for him and because she
feels she may be able to purge her soul by playing the role of martyr. And, so, lonely and
friendless, Hester establishes herself on the edge of the community in a dwelling that faces the
west. Yet, she is not without means as she can do elaborate needlework. And, while ornateness
is forbidden the Puritans, those assuming power or positions of eminence have need for the
ornateness that Hester could create. Her work was evodemced on the governor and other officials,
on the baby, but never on the bride. Often, however, Hester turned her needle to the crude
handiwork of clothing for the poor, perhaps as a means of penance. As narrator, Hawthorne writes
of her talent with the needle,
To Hester Prynne it might
have been a mode of expressing, and therefore soothing, the passion of her life. Like all other
joys, she rejected it as sin. This morbid meddling of conscience with an immaterial matter
betokened, it is to be feared, no genuine and steadfast penitence, but something doubtful,
something that might be deeply wrong, beneath.
While
Hester sews, it seems, there is something of the psychological which enters into her artistic
actions. While they express her creativity, at the same time, Hester perceives her talent as
expressions of a sinful pride just as her original sin of adultery has been. This distinction,
also, sets Hester apart from the others,
She stood apart
from mortal interests, yet close beside them, like a ghost that revisits the familiar fireside,
and can no longer make itself seen or felt....
Having
become a social pariah, Hester holds the insults of others quietly in her heart. When she
attends religious services, she often finds herself as part to the text of the sermon. Children
often let her pass by, but then run after her,calling her names, and whenever she passed anyone,
they invariably stare at her letter, first with astonishment and fear, then with repulsion. So
tortured is Hester that she is anxious upon each encouter with others, more sensitive with each
"new torture." But, sometimes it seems that Hester sees a sympathetic eye. Still,
Hester believes that none are guilty but her.
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