In The Scarlet Letter of Nathaniel Hawthorne, the Puritan community banned all forms of sin. Sin was considered evil because it was linked to the devil and his dark ways. Hester Prynne, the main character of the story, was rejected by the rest of the Puritan world after committing the sin of adultery. She lived in a world where this was not accepted. She was isolated from the world around her and had little hope. Throughout the novel, symbols such as the character of the Gentlewoman, the wild rose bush outside the prison gates, and the character of Pearl, Hester Prynne's illegitimate child, are used to show that even in a world full of sin and darkness, there is always hope. In The Scarlet Letter, hope is symbolized through characters such as the kind woman. After Hester leaves her prison cell in the early chapters of the book after spending months there during her pregnancy, she is forced to stand before the town in his arms with her illegitimate newborn. She is surrounded by people who criticize her. There is, however, one woman who doesn't give in to all the gossip. This kind woman, as she is now called, defends Hester on two occasions. For the first time, the women of the community judged Hester for the crime she had committed. Instead of joining their conversation, the young woman said to the others: "...let her cover the mark as she wishes, the sorrow will always be in her heart." (49) Later, in the same scene, the kind woman shows her compassion a second time, declaring: “Oh, peace, neighbors, peace! murmured their youngest companion; "let her not hear you! Not a point in this embroidered letter, but she felt it in her heart." (51) Once again, she is the only one to defend Hester. She becomes a symbol of hope that Hester will one day be able to return to a normal life where people will accept her as part of the community and where they will not judge her, a place where she will no longer be isolated from the outside world. . In a sense, the kind woman is Hester Prynne's hope. The second symbol of hope through sin and darkness in the novel is the wild rose bush that grew outside the prison gates..