In "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne, what was the effect of the scarlet letter on Hester's personality, health, and abilities? If possible...

 

In terms of her
personality, the scarlet letter (and perhaps the sin behind it)
causedto be
preoccupied with punishing herself so as to be able to (hopefully) eventually

forgive herself for what she has done.

Hester did not have to stay in
the
community where everyone knew her.  She could have gone somewhere else
where her guilt would not
have been known.  But instead she chose to stay and
face the condemnation of the community.  As
Hawthorne explains ()

Here, she said to herself, had been the scene
of her guilt,
and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment; and so, perchance,
the
torture of her daily shame would at length purge her soul, and work out
another purity than that
which she had lost; more saint-like, because the
result of martyrdom.

As it turns out, she does
eventually manage to purge herself of the sin and becomes a
respected member
of the community.