Scarlet Letter - Punishment and Death Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter deals with many themes, among those including punishment and death. Utilizing the theme of punishment, the central character, Hester Prynne, was forced to wear an embroidered scarlet letter on "her bosom" for the rest of her life as a sign of her sin of adultery. This object; however, has the opposite affect as a punishment and as people of the community begin to forget the …showed first 75 words of 612 total…

…showed last 75 words of 612 total…The mere fact that Hester can contemplate suicide indicates that "the scarlet letter had not done it's office", because suicide is an unpardonable sin in the Puritan faith. This fact in conjunction with what the scarlet letter was meant to be and was not as well as Pearl herself being quite a punishment in herself, discussed in the above paragraphs clearly supports my belief in the failure of the scarlet letter to do its work.