When faced with a decision in life, big or small, people try to make the best choices. However, despite good intentions, people often make poor choices. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is the story about Hester Prynne, a woman who commits adultery and is filled with many feelings, including pride, surrounding that sin. Hester Prynne, Roger Chillingworth and Arthur Dimmesdale make poor decisions repeatedly because of lack of insight and uncontrolled emotions such as anger and fear. Then these poor choices lead to other wrong actions that reflect their guilt.
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Lack of insight leads people to make bad choices, and there are several examples in the book, The Scarlet Letter. Hester Prynne and Roger Chillingworth get married even though they knew it was not going to be a truthful love relationship. Back then, women often married for stability, rather than love. Hester makes choices without using her insight or realizing the result of her actions. For example, Hester never loves Chillingworth but she marries him. She figures he would be a good companion because he is an educated man and he would be able to support her financially. Hester can not love her husband, and she can not remain faithful. She commits the sin of adultery with a minister, Arthur Dimmesdale and has a child, Pearl. .
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Roger Chillingworth is another character who does not recognize the consequences of his actions. Even though Hester tells him from the beginning that she does not love him, he still accepts her due to her youth and beauty. Hester says, "Thou knowest that I was frank with thee. I felt no love, nor feigned any"(53). Roger rebukes himself, "a man already in decay, having given my best years to feed the hungry dream of knowledge,-what had I to do with youth and beauty like thine own"(53)! Roger regrets how he did not consider Hester's feeling toward him. He misconceived that he will be able to continue his marriage just because he is a smart man.