It is clear from our first introduction to Hester Prynne
and her daughter that victimisation is a key theme of this novel based in Puritan New
England. As Hester, defenceless and by herself, bearing her babe in her arms, walks
through the crowd and mounts the scaffold for her punishment, it is clear that the
victimisation of individuals in this Puritan society for their "sin" is accepted and not
rejected by this society. Note how Hawthorne describes Hester's
punishment:
The unhappy culprit sustained herself as best a
woman might, under the heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes, all fastened upon
her and concentrated at he bosom. It was almost intolerable to be borne. Of an impulsive
and passionate nature, she had fortified herself to encounter the stings
and venomous stabs of public contumely, wreaking itself in every variety of insult; but
there was a quality so much more terrible in the solemn mood of the popular mind, that
she longed rather to behold all those rigid countenanced contorted with scornful
merriment, and herself the
object.
It is deeply unjust
and unfair, of course, that it is just Hester, as the woman, who has to endure this
punishment for her "sin" alone, without her partner in crime, who, ironically, we later
see asking Hester to reveal the name of her partner. Hester, as a woman who has had a
child out of wedlock, is isolated and rejected by her society for the rest of the novel,
and this rejection stretches as well to her daughter, Pearl, who is feared and shunned
by Puritan society. Hawthorne presents us with an image of a civilisation that, once you
have been deemed not to fit into it, rejects you and victimises
you.
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