In The Salem World of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret Moore comments upon Hawthorne's sympathy toward and admiration of women, as shown in his treatment of Hester Prynne.

Hawthorne was certainly aware of and sympathetic to the restrictions on women. . . . He admires Hester in The Scarlet Letter, who despite her sin grows from that experience into helping others. He depicts the women "wounded, wasted, wronged, misplaced, or erring" who "with the dreary burden of a heart unyielded, became un valued and unsought," came to Hester's cottage, "demanding why they were so wretched, and what the remedy!" (CE1:263) [250-51].