Passion and Evil in The Scarlet LetterIn Nathaniel Hawthorn's novel, The Scarlet Letter, the Puritan society of Salem excludes anyone who is deviant in any way and makes them sinful. . However, society, the townspeople themselves, are not free from flaws. However, they try to hide and contain their passions and all their faults for fear of exclusion. All the characters in the book who are excluded from society are the most “natural” and true and possess second-sense perception and almost magical intuition. Hester Prynne's separation from the townspeople is both physical and mental. She is expelled from the city as an adulterer and goes to live with her illegitimate daughter in a cottage “in the immediate vicinity of no other dwelling”. (68) They are despised by the whole city. Even children throw stones at them and chase them down the street. People don't dare go near Hester because of her outcast status. To the townspeople, Hester's character is different and uncertain from the values ​​they are accustomed to. "Wherever Hester was, a little empty space - a sort of magic circle - had formed around her, into which... no one ventured or felt inclined to intrude." (206) Hester is destined to forever wear a scarlet letter "A" on her breast - "A" for "adulterer" - a sign of her sin, shame, and separation from the righteous. However, by being separated from the Puritan town of Salem and all of its prejudices, Hester is able to look at people objectively and see many things that she was not able to see before. "Walking up and down, with these solitary steps, in the little world with which she was outwardly connected, it appeared from time to time to Hester that [the scarlet letter] gave her a sympathetic knowledge of the sin hidden in other hearts (73) The townspeople are so busy hiding their faults and hiding their human passions, that they cannot see their own faults or those of each other, who openly bears the mark of Cain's exclusion. , does not have to worry about the opinions of others, and gains insight - insight into the hearts of the people who throw her out. Hester's mark of shame becomes a mark of being different, a. mark of non-compliance..