Should I Stay or Should I Go Now?

Hester Prynne.   Caught in adultery.   Shamed before the community.   Forced to wear a symbol of her sin on her bosom.  Raised her child in solitude.   Dealt with whispers, rumors, finger-pointing, stares and even physical suffering on at least a weekly basis.

So here is my question:  Why in the world does she stay?  Apparently there is no wording in her sentence regarding her physical location.  She could go anywhere; live anywhere.   She could leave the shame behind and start fresh somewhere new.  No one would even have to know of her sin.  I was pondering this when I came to chapter five, where Hawthorne seems to struggle with this very question.   He gives three reasons why she may have chosen to stay:

1.  First, that “…there is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghost-like, the spot where some great and marked event has given the color to their lifetime…”   He implies that her sin is the root that keeps her planted in this soil;  that she is bound by a chain of “iron links…(that) could never be broken.”  Personally, I doubt this reason.  I believe that human nature tends to choose the easy path if given a choice.   Hester must be a better person than most if she chooses voluntarily to hang around the “scene of the crime.”

2.  He also mentions that she may have chosen to stay because of the bond she feels toward her fellow adulterer.  Even if she can not be bound to him on earth, she may be bound at The Judgement.  Hmm…perhaps this is true of Hester.   Maybe just the presence in the community of her partner-in-crime gives her some comfort.   However, I think I would just feel anger and resentment toward the man who for whatever reason does not “confess” his part in the crime.

3.  Lastly, Hawthorne believes that Hester is taking up the role of martyr.   If she stays and deals with this daily punishment, it may “at length purge her soul and work out another purity than that which she had lost; more saint-like…”  In other words, she was hoping for redemption through penance.

Of all these reasons, I feel that number 3 is the most likely.   It is another human trait to think we can work out our own salvation in some way.   However, if I were in Hester’s shoes, I think I would get out of Salem as quickly as humanly possible!   Forget those judgmental gossips, hypocritical leaders and mean-spirited children!   See you later, alligator!