Fate and Free Will
...ever have the scarlet letter placed upon her bosom. “With these words, she advanced to the margin of the brook... there was a sense of inevitable doom upon her, as she thus received back this deadly symbol from the hand of fate” (Hawthorne 192). It is her doom to have this mark positioned on her breast so that everyone can see the crime she has committed. “It lies not in the pleasure of the magistrates to take off this badge... Were I worthy to be quit of it, it would fall away of its own nature” (Hawthorne 152). Free will is the power to make one’s own choices. Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne both decide to commit a crime even though they both know it is wrong. “Tempted by a dream of happiness, he had yielded himself with deliberate choice, as he had never done before, to what he knew was deadly sin” (Hawthorne 202). Even though Hester Prynne had the choice of leaving the place where her deadly sin was committed, she decided to stay and wear the symbol upon her bosom. “Here had been her sin;...She had returned, therefore, and resumed, - of her own free will,... resumed the symbol of which we have related so dark a tale” (Hawthorne 238). Hester always believes that her fate is to forever wear the symbol of shame upon her bosom. Although Hester often has the opportunity to take off the scarlet letter off her breast, she, by her own free will, decides not to take it off. In reality, both fate and free will influence in determining someone’s destiny. Hester decides to keep the sca...