The Scarlet Letter: Hester's Alienation Throughout his book The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne is preoccupied with the relationship between the individual and society. Hester's sin and subsequent condemnation alienate her. No where is this alienation more apparent than in Chapter 5, "Hester at her Needle". Condemned by her sin of passion, Hester is separated from her community, not only physically, as she lives on the edge of the town, and socially, as she this chapter Hawthorne presents the most profoundly destructive aspect of her estrangement in her psychological condition. Hester, deemed a social pariah, is left alone i