留不住的是人心As love for her child deepens, Hester begins to dress Pearl up, making her as beautiful and unique. Hester eventually admits her daughter publicly rather than see Pearl as her sin. When
Hester knows that governors intend to deprive her of the right for fostering Pearl, she is almost crazy and hysterical. “God gave me the child!” Cried Hester. “He gave her in requital of all things else which ye had taken from me. She is my happiness----she is my torture, none the less.”(Hawthorne, 2009:86) Pearl is her spiritual longing. As the bible says, “the kingdom of heaven is like merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it .”(Holy Bible, 1998:57)
3.3 Perseverant and strong-willed
At the start of novel, Hester’ unyielding spirit can be clearly seen from her appear. She carries a three-month baby on her arms and wears the scarlet letter “A” on the chest of her dress for the rest of her life. It is the reason that she committed the sin of adultery that has made her live an isolate life. Hester has to stand in front of the people and listens to their gossip about her scandal. In the following days she has to endure much unfair treatment and is alienated from the public. “There was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it. Every gesture, every word, and even the silence of those with whom she came in contact, implied, and often expressed, that she was banished, and as much along as she inhabited another sphere, or communicated with the common nature by other organs and sense than the rest of human kind.”(Hawthorne, 2009:63)
However, facing the humiliation and insults, Hester neither flees from the community nor gives up herself. She dares to struggle against her unfortunate fate and the men-dominated world and fights for rights. Hester’ unique appearance fully reflects her strong character. Wearing a red “A” is a great suffering mentally and physically, yet people gradually find that Hester is more beautiful with the evil wearing (Ding Meifang, 2010). These actions fully show her perseverance fighting with the Puritan and social custom. Furthermore, wearing the scarlet letter “A” does not make her life degenerate. On the contrary, she bravely fights with the strong Puritan society.
4. Hester’s feminist consciousness showing on her rebellious behavior
4.1 Hester’s courage for doubt and criticism
Neither does Hester prepare to surrender to the dark society that is full of all sorts of moral standards, nor does she want to compromise her unfortunate fate. In the patriarchal society where Puritan dominated every aspect of life and work, Hester always rises up to take control of her own destiny.
At first, Hester’ marriage is destined to be a failure, since Chilingworth is unsuitable to his beautiful wife and there is no love between them. It is can be easily seen from the portrayal of
Chillingworth and Hester. She “was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexity, had the impressiveness belonging to marked brow and deep black eyes.”(Hawthorne, 2009:42) However, Complying with her parents, Hester had to marry Chillingworth, a man “well stricken in years, a pale, thin, scholar-like visage, with eyes dim and bleared by the lamplight that had served them to pore over many pondered book…slightly deformed, with the left shoulder a trifle higher than the right.”(Hawthorne, 2009:64) From the positive commentary term to describe Hester, we can presume that Hester’s striking contrast with Chillingworth in appearance stressed her unfortunate and unequal marriage with her husband. Chillingworth sends Hester to American ahead of him as he has some personal business to be settled in Europe. While waiting for her husband, Hester meets Dimmesdale and falls love with him. Hester does not give up her pursuit of true love and happiness; she has courage to give the birth to her child----Pearl.
Hester’s rebellion against her husband is also showed by her disclosure of Chillingworth’s identity. When Hester finds that Chilligworth disguises himself as a psychiatrist and gets near to Dimmesdale with intention, she knows all what he has done is to revenge and destroy Dimmesdale. Hester has the fearless courage to criticize Chilligworth and disclose the truth. Seven years ago, Chilligworth was outraged to learn that Hester was committed adultery and put in prison, he decided to see Hester and investigate her anonymous lover. In the prison, Hester promise Chilligworth to not to expose his actual identify in order to protect her child and lover. However, it gives her great pain to look Dimmesdale driven by a sense of shame and a sense commitment to his congregation. Hester makes up her mind to come forward and prevent Chilligworth from hurting the clergymen. In the island, she answers Chilligworth:
“for the hatred that has transformed a wise and just man to a fiend！Wilt thou yet pure it out
