Hester's Individualism As Present in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

In Hawthorne's revered novel The Scarlet Letter, the use of Romanticism plays an important role in the development of his characters. He effectively demonstrates individualism in Hester to further our understanding of the difficulties of living in Boston, the stern, joyless world of Puritan New England. It is all gloom and doom. If the sun ever shines, one could hardly notice. The entire place seems to be shrouded in black. The people of this society …

…of Boston think that she has submitted to their rule. Hawthorne carefully tracks Hester's plight through and emotional roller coaster of ups and downs. He shows several stages of her actions and how they were accepted by the Puritans. The author's main goal in this novel is to show that no matter what we are faced with and no matter how badly we are criticized for it, we must maintain a strict set of values.