d of the wife in society during her era, in spite of the fact that her rights as a human being, a human being deserted by her husband, are also being examined. Her character is designed by Hawthorne to express what he would see as the eternal philosophy of womanhood: "consistent with her maternal instincts, a woman's destiny is linked firmly with her desire to attain happiness for herself, her children, and her mate" (Stein 121).
Hawthorne says that Hester contrasts with the image of the Divine Maternity, which is the sacred image of sinless motherhood. In her case, there was the taint of deepest sin in the most sacred quality of human life. She makes a sort of penance by refusing the beautiful things of the world to make coarse garments for the poor. She also loses her faith in any good in humanity, and this is considered to be one of the saddest results of sin (Elder 125).
The Puritans of this tale are part of a society which was wracked with tensions as it found itself between permanence and flux. These Puritans were involved in a cultural transition from the old world to the new and from an Anglican past to an American Puritan present. This community pays homage to the past while turning toward the future, but to some extent it clings too heavily to the past. Hawthorne feels that a community which does this casts a pall on both present and future. The cultural encounter between present and past finds a parallel in the problems faced by Hester and Dimmesdale. They have broken the law of this community. In effect, however, the sin takes place even before the adultery committed by these two persons. In the narrative, it is noted that Hester sinned first in marrying Roger Chillingworth, and this first wrong was in betraying her youth to this aged scholar. Chillingworth represents the past, and Hester has embraced that past. The fact that she is punished by out-moded laws and a moribund community follows logically f...