In The Scarlet Letter is Hester Prynne a conformist? If not, why does Hawthorne represent her as nonconformist?

While 's
relationship to conformity is a complicated one, Hawthorne generally depicts her as a kind of
conformist.  The key scene for this reading is in Chapter XVIII, "A Flood of
Sunshine," in which Hester throws off the scarlet A she has been ordered to wear by her
Puritan community.  In her secret meeting in the forest with ,

she undid the clasp that fastened the scarlet letter, and, taking it from her bosom,
threw it to a distance among the withered leaves.  The mystic token alighted on the hither verge
of a stream.  With a hand's breadth farther flight it would have fallen into the water, and have
given the little brook another woe to carry onward, besides the unintelligible tale which
it...