The Scarlet Letter - Hester as a Community Role Model"Woman, it is your badge of shame!" (107). Governor Bellingham was describing the Scarlet Letter to Hester as they discussed whether the punishments Hester would face were sufficient for the crime, Hester lived for several years on the outskirts of town in a small abandoned cottage with the only thing that had any value monetary in his life. his son and the product of adultery, Pearl and his baby Pearl were shunned by the community for his acts. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, Hester is punished in more ways than one, and is able to face it openly. the community, in time, will forgive her. The most obvious object of punishment which Hester faced was wearing the scarlet letter "With the stitch which attracted all eyes, and, as it were, transfigured the wearer . . . it was the scarlet letter, so fantastically embroidered and lighted on her breast" (51-52). Hester worked the scarlet letter before going to the gallows. When Pearl asks her why she wears the letter, she replies that she wears it for her gold Hester wears the letter for many years, even after people in the community take better care of it, so that she is completely forgiven for her sin. As the story begins, Hester must serve the temporary portion of her sentence, standing on the gallows in front of the entire town. "It was a notable circumstance, on a summer morning when our story begins its course, that the women, many of them in the crowd, seemed to take a peculiar interest in whatever penal infliction might be upon us. wait for it to follow" (48). The citizens of the town had gathered to criticize Hester as she stood on the gallows, and many of the town's women were discussing the simplicity of Hester's sentence, since the usual punishment for committing adultery is the death penalty. Although she had to endure three hours of comments made about her while on the scaffold, the ridicule followed for many years to come. Hester and her daughter were considered sinners long after Hester had served her sentence.