Scarlet Letter

I had just read this last summer, and looking at it from the vantage of what topics that we have been reading lately, one of the first things I noticed at the beginning of the story was mentioning of Queen Elizabeth. The way that Hawthorne says she is "man-like" and that the women of the town resemble such remarks in their attitude and body. Yet, he tells how later generation of females would become lighter of body and not as open in their thinking. Hester, even in being an outcast, does not lose her strength of self.