Woman's Fight for Survival in Novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Scarlet Letter novel tells about a young woman, Hester Prynne who had committed adultery with a young priest in Puritan, while she had a husband whom she did not love. This study discusses about the struggle of the main character fighting for survival after her alienation in Puritan society. Therefore, the study aims to explain and describe how hard the main character’s effort to begin a new life and take care of her daughter, Pearl, by herself without any helps from others. This study uses feminism theory. This study uses feminism theory. This study uses descriptive qualitative method by analyzing The Scarlet Letter novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne as the primary data source. The data analysis was taken from the quotations from the novel that could explain the effort of the main caharacter in the novel, and the effect of Hester Prynne’s effort. The result of this study indicates that Hester Prynne could live independently by building a small business that she got from her talent, embroidery, and also she was relying on her daughter strength. Hester could easily avowed by the poor people because she gave her special time to get an income from her embroidery for them. And then, Hester reputed as a heroine. The red symbol A in her chest, has a different meaning from the meaning before. The society in Puritan, label it as “Able”, because Hester can take their hearts by her effort in several years.