The Scarlet Letter: Hester's Alienation

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the delicate toil of the needle," but she feels she
does not deserve the gratification. Though sewing could be "soothing, the
passion of her life …Like all other joys, she rejected it as a
sin." Hester no longer feels worthy to wear the finery she is capable of
sewing for herself. All of the "gorgeously beautiful" things she has "a
taste for" are sold to others, they "found nothing… in…her life to
exercise [themselves] upon." Instead of applying her time towards "the
better efforts of her art", which she would enjoy, she employs in
"making coarse garments for the poor" in order to repent for her sin.
Hester's "own dress was of the coarsest materials and most sombre hue."
Through her sewing, the wretched outcast makes enough money to live in a
good deal of luxury but she feels she does not deserve it. She sought
not to acquire anything beyond subsistence, of the plainest and most
ascetic description." All her "superfluous means" were "bestowed… in
charity," ...

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her community.
Though Hester remains physically in the town, she is as good as invisible
to the Puritans and she feels she haunts the town like a ghost. She has
lost faith in her own tangibility. She stands apart "...like a ghost that…
can no longer make itself seen or felt." Though Hester is not dead, not a
spirit, she believes "it is an inevitable fatality…[of] human beings to
linger around and haunt ghostlike, the spot where some great marked event
has given color to their lifetime." She remains like a phantom, though
she is still flesh and blood. Hester's banishment and constant solitude
cause her to lose confidence in herself. She wants to leave but she
cannot. She lacks too ...

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