The Scarlet Letter Chapter 13 Another view of Hester

In today's class we read Chapter 13 of The Scarlet Letter. This Chapter describes the change of Hester's position in the Puritan village over a long period of time. Hester is no longer beautiful as she used to be. She either cuts her hair or wears in under a hat so nobody can see it. As the time passes she gets more and more respected in the village and people forgive her for her sin. When strangers come to the village the people show them Hester and tell them how nice and kind she is. Since Hester lives outside the village she has a lot of time to think about her life and she realizes how she cares about Dimmesdale. She feels responsible for him and wants to help him. Since Chillingworth kind of terrorizes Dimmesdale, she decides to talk to him. The leaders of the village, however, still do not really forgive Hester for her sin. A reason therefore might be that they take their role as a leader very serious and do not want other people think they could do the same what Hester did and "only" get disrespected for a few years.