After reading “The Scarlet Letter”, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, I composed the question, “what makes a first impression so important?”

This question ties into the novel, because the first impressions throughout the book cause the reader to misjudge characters. An example of this is when we first meet Hester she is in prison, so the reader assumes she did something bad. And we later find out that she had a baby through a sinful affair. But the readers opinions change and we slowly feel bad for Hester because of the harsh situation she is put in and the torture she is put through. We also make assumptions about Dimmesdale just being her minister and not really being involved in Hester’s life as much as he actually is. We later find out that along the whole plot of the story there were ties to Dimmesdale being the father of Pearl. These are prime examples of how my questions is exemplified throughout the book.

The article “Where do Spontaneous First Impressions Come From”, written by Harriet Over, also shows great examples of first impressions in a real life situation. This article states that our first impressions actually do make a big difference on how we view those around us. In the real world, many of these biases are based off of outward appearance or their type of people group. The appearance is the first data we can gather, which makes it a gateway for assumptions. The article also specifies that many times when we look at other people who we do not know, we feel jealous and we stop liking them before we even get to know them.