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Fitting into society is an important modern value. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s work The Scarlet Letter the main character, Hester Prynne, is outcast from a puritan society and forced to wear a scarlet “A” on her chest. This punishment is intended to imprison Hester in cage of criticism and general bad feeling from the townspeople. Although this is accomplished for a short time, because of Hester’s strength the scarlet letter she wears makes her more independent and eventually just as liked as the average person who shunned her in the first place, making her punishment very ironic. Hester’s personal strength allows her to reverse the intended punishment of the scarlet letter. As Dimmesdale remarks about Hester in the first scaffold scene “Wondrous s