ter was forced to enter a life of isolation from the moment she stepped her delicate foot off the scaffold; she took residence in a cottage on the outskirts of the town because no one wanted to live in close vicinity of such a sinner. The remoteness of her home was only a portion of her exclusion from the “sphere of social activity” (55). Hester’s only companion was her child, and her only accepted contact with the town was her services as a talented seamstress. However, even this small sense of purpose for Hester was spoiled by her shame, as the people utterly refused that she taint the purity of a bridal garment with her needle and thread. Hawthorne explains such particular intolerance saying, “The exception indicated the ever relentless vigor with which society frowned upon her sin” (57). The ever-active punishment for adultery therefore could not be overshadowed by good deeds; humbling glares from the women in town square, fear and mockery from nave children, and being the topic of sermons to the multitudes relentlessly showed Hester’s banishment from living a normal life. Even years later, when people praised Hester’s work with the poor and commented that the “A” now stood for “able”, the negative side returned. Then society’s standards would again abide by Puritan law and cause people to snicker about the dark side of Hester’s past. The intolerance of society broke all barriers in Hester’s life; people were never able to “look past the dirt.” Intolerance of two similarly disrespected women in Salem gave fuel to the fires of witchcraft accusations; it made them easy victims of Tituba’s first charges. In The Crucible, the town did not question and almost expected the accusations of loathsome people in the town, such as “Bridget that lived three year with Bishop before she married him…[or] Isaac Ward that drank hi...
