Emerson’s ‘Self-Reliance’ and Reading Hester as a Self-Reliant Soul

Abstract

This essay aims to study Emerson’s ‘Self-Reliance’ and Hester in terms of Emerson’s self-reliance. Self-reliance presupposes that each man’s individuality is given by God. Because divinity resides in the mind of an individual, he should try to obey the voice heard inside the mind. From this perspective, self-reliance means that an individual trusts himself as much as he believes that Providence is working. A self-reliant man, therefore, can maintain independence unaffected by outside pressure. In The Scarlet Letter Hester is shunned by all in the Puritan society because she committed adultery. But even when (though?) she is criticized as a sinner, Hester doesn’t blame herself because she is governed by the transcendental truth. While living in solitude, she listens to the voice heard inside, and she realizes that people have their own sins. Then, she has her own judgement and she puts her notion of goodness into practice. In this way Hester is depicted as a self-reliant soul.