Although Hester has swung the book many times from a brooding to optimistic romantic book and back, Hester is at this point a brooding romantic because she has decided she is not the only sinner, the A has taken control of her and the nature of the A causes changes in her mood.
Throughout the book we continuously see Hester switching from being an optimistic romantic to a brooding romantic and then right back again. However when we get to this point in her story, she is clearly a brooding romantic. A brooding romantic is described as someone who has a tragic confrontation with the universe, and here we see Hester go through that same thing here. After being told over and over again that she is a terrible person she was almost convinced that she…show more content… She has just now come to this conclusion, “she shuddered to believe, yet could not help believing, that it gave her a sympathetic knowledge of the hidden sin in other hearts.” It had given her or forced her to believe that she could see that she was not the only one to sin. Hawthorne uses the words “sympathetic knowledge.” She resorts to the letter for everything now, for example, pity on her poor mental state. She truthfully believes that the A is helping her and giving her this sympathy when really all it is doing is bringing her towards a mental break. At this point she may not be able to go places if she did not have the A. It gives her a sense of stability as though she is relying on it to help her live with what she has done instead of it being a punishment. She “shuddered to believe” this. She may know how the A is changing her, it is not natural for her to change like this. Nature has nothing to do with it, it has to do with people putting down other people hypocritically. She thinks that other citizens of the town too should wear the letter in shame for what they have done to
