essay /

Exile is seen as a dramatic experience, where a person is ripped out from his or her “home” intended as a birthplace, family, homeland.
Cicero and Napoleon are two famous personalities that, separated by centuries, felt the same way about their exile: the feeling of not being home, not feeling safe, loving something that they couldn’t be in touch with- changed their lives and their point of view.
Nathaniel Hawthorne writes about two kinds of exile in his book –The Scarlet Letter. Hester Prynne is subjected to the pitfalls of a place new and different from the one in which she has always lived. A second type of exile, less concrete, is the exile caused by alienation from society: his main character remains physically in the society itself, but is any longer part of it. This makes Hester’s condition even more difficult, and hard to live and deal with.

After having reached the New World, having lost therefore her own family and birthplace, Hester has to deal all by herself a series of problems, such as integration in the society that will kick her out, settling a place to live and how to earn bread. Although this might be a main point, the real pain is cause by Hester’s sin and her life after that.

Hester Prynne is left alone to fight the difficulties of her new life, and her husband is not there to help her. Guilty of love, her love itself will cause seclusion from society.  The punishment of carrying an ‘A’ on her bosom seems a too merciful one: people say that she should have been marked on the forehead with an iron, but to Hester it burns as if she had been scarred.
The letter seems to be a cruel mark that will never help Hester, but remind her how evil she is.  Maybe this is what makes Hester do her best to improve her condition: the ‘A’ is a constant reminder to Hester to help others and be kind in response to others’ offences.  Therefore, the letter becomes not anymore a symbol of shame and infamy, but even its meaning changes to the society’s eyes: A stands for Angel.

The exile that the society tried to punish Hester with, actually helped her to become a better, almost holy person.
If she hadn’t been exiled, or if she had stayed among her relatives, protected with familiar love, her life would have been different, her character wouldn’t have become sweeter and kinder, but Hester would have remained a normal woman who once committed a sin. But the fact that her alienation and punishment changed her soul in good, changes her figure from sinner to saint.