Throughout history, people have been shaped by the society in which they live. Those who accept the imposed rules and regulations tend to embody and reflect many of the characteristics of the society that guides them. However, those who do not conform and reject society's norms are often isolated from the contrasting group. Authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne have explored this concept through literature. In his novel, The Scarlet Letter, the protagonist Hester Prynne is presented as a figure alienated from society as a direct result of an adulterous relationship that reveals the harsh and unpleasant truth of Puritan culture and provides a tool for criticism of Hawthorne. in seventeenth-century Boston, a city dominated by both men and the standards of Puritan practices. Hester Prynne, the protagonist, is punished, marked with a scarlet A, for her affair which led to pregnancy and consequently the birth of her daughter Pearl. Her lover is later revealed to the reader as Arthur Dimmesdale, the town's revered minister. Even before introducing these essential characters, Hawthorne illustrates Hester's separation and struggle through powerful symbols. The opening chapter presents the symbolism of the prison door and the wild rose bush. The prison door “seemed to have never known a youthful age,” and was called an “ugly building” (47). It represents the dark and overbearing nature of Puritan society. Hawthorne implies that this is a deeply disturbing and outdated system. Next to the ancient door a beautiful bush of wild roses, Hester Prynne, grows luxuriantly. Just as the bush is outside and isolated from the door, so Hester is isolated from society as the novel develops. Roses offer “their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner in the middle of the paper, that is, among the trees. When Hester and Pearl are free from the bondage of society's judgment, they experience freedom from society's alienation. Hawthorne uses this situation to convey that the rigid boundaries of Puritan practices are obsolete and do more harm than good. The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is full of passion and sin in a society that forbids it. The consequences and the shame reveal the flaws of this system. Hester Prynne is isolated for her actions. Although society treats her as an outcast, she is still able to survive and become a loving mother and a better person, surpassing the level that her society provides her with the education to reach. Society is an exclusive group with which not everyone is able to agree. However, while the Puritan city of early Boston should have crushed Hester, she grew stronger through isolation.