Nature Of Purritan Societies In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a novel that takes place during the sixteen hundreds in a Puritan Boston town and incorporates love, judgment and sin. Sin is one of many things that is frowned upon in many religions. In the Scarlet Letter, Hester is in a predicament she can not escape. Hester has committed the sin of adultery and is bearing a child. Hester is put to shame by society and now she is viewed as a sinful individual.

Throughout his literary endeavors, Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes symbolism to present a certain theme that pertains to human nature and life. In his works, The Scarlet Letter and "The Minister's Black Veil", Hawthorne uses symbolism to present a common theme pertaining to religion; that though manifested sin will ostracize a person from society, un-confessed sin will destroy the soul.

Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays the ideology of Puritan society in the novel the Scarlet Letter; however reader also get to witness his characters being an illustration of hypocrisy and victims to their own guilt. In the Scarlet Letter, as in many of Hawthorne’s shorter works, he makes profuse use of the Puritan past: its odd exclusionary belief, its harsh code of ruling, its concern with sex and witchcraft. The Scarlet Letter is a story that is embellished but yet simple. Many readers may view this novel as a soap opera due to the way Hawthorne conveys this Puritan society’s sense of strictness and inability to express true emotion along with the secrecy and how deceiving the characters are being. As the story unfolds the main character Hester Prynne is bounded in marriage at an early age. She engages in an adulterous affair with an unknown member of their small village. Hester soon becomes pregnant and with her husband’s absence the chances of this child belonging to her husband are slim. The towns’ people know that she has committed a sin and imprisons her for her crime.

In the beginning of The Scarlet Letter, the letter is understood as a label of punishment and sin being publicized. Hester Prynne bears the label of “A” signifining adulterer upon her chest. Because of this scorching red color label she becomes

The burden that the scarlet letter places on Hester shows her everlasting battle with sin in the Puritan society. Yet, the Puritans seemed to be more fascinated with on its striking qualities rather than the true representation of the letter. The scarlet letter is supposed to represent shame, but as Hester evolves the symbol of the letter becomes an emblem of strength. One writer criticizes Hester's transformation by saying, “Hester’s rise takes her from low on the line of moral value, a ‘scarlet woman’ guilty of a sin black in the eyes of the Puritans, as she becomes a sister of mercy and light” (Waggoner

The Scarlet Letter is a novel about a woman named Hester Prynne that had an affair with a minister named Arthur Dimmesdale and had a baby, which caused Hester’s husband, Roger Chillingworth, which was gone at the time on business, to get revenge on both Hester and Dimmesdale. Chillingworth makes their lives miserable and soon, Hester

put down by the rest of the Puritan society.  Nathaniel Hawthorne divulges his same view about

One of the most adroit talents authors use is symbolism. Writers such as William Shakespeare, Ernest Hemingway, and Ray Bradbury have perfected this craft. One piece of literature’s symbolism I am distinguished with is Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. Specifically, the how the names of the main characters have an underlying meaning.

Symbolism is a common approach used in writing, but it is not to be taken for its exact connotation. In literature, the symbol can be a person, item, circumstance, or action that has a more profound significance in the writing. In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne there are four main symbols that the reader would notice. The symbols include, the colors red and black, the meteor, Pearl, and the scarlet letter itself. Hawthorne uses symbolism in the novel to communicate his message.

First of all, the scarlet letter stands for Hester's sin. By forcing Hester to wear the letter A on her bosom, the Puritan community not only punishes this weak young woman for her adultery but labels her identity as an adulteress and immoral human being as well. "Thus the young and the pure would be taught to look at her, with the letter flaming on her chest", also "as the figure, the body and the reality of sin." And the day Hester began to wear the scarlet A on her bosom is the opening of her darkness. From that moment, people, who look at her, must notice the letter A manifest itself in the red color covering not only her bosom, but her own character. The Puritans now only see the letter A, the representation of sin, scorn and hate

The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a story about a woman who is singled out because of the sin she has committed. She no longer has value and identity outside her letter, “A” which stands for adultery. She is associated with the scarlet letter and looked down on as if she is the only one struggling with sin. After reading the story, it became clear to me that there are many letters I could wear around my neck. Hester Prynne and I are not so different.

From afar, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne seems like a simple story, but it holds symbols that create a relatable message. In his book, How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C Foster writes, “Hawthorne is perhaps the best American writer that exploring our symbolic consciousness, at finding the ways we display suspicion and loneliness and envy.” (Foster 289). In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne uses Foster's idea of biblical symbolism to explore human loneliness, suspicion, and envy while delivering a relatable message.

Nathaniel Hawthorne uses many forms of symbolism in his book The Scarlet Letter. Symbolism is, according to Merriam-Webster, “the art or practice of using symbols, especially by investing things with a symbolic meaning or by expressing the invisible or intangible by means of visual or sensuous representations.” This means that the author was using objects to represent an action or idea. The symbols used in his book is either all physical or visible objects. Many of the symbols in the book are about characters.Nathaniel’s ideas came from his bonds with the Puritans. According to CliffsNotes, “the Puritans had great difficulty in loving the sinner and hating the sin”. With the Puritans strong hatred for sin,

In the novel, “The Scarlet Letter,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne Hester is defined through social actions and philosophies as an object, sinner, victim, and an independent women. The Scarlet Letter “A” is meant to be a symbol of shame. It was meant to single out the wearer for their sin and ostracize them from the community, although it may seem harsh and unusual, the punishment is extraordinarily lenient in comparison to the Biblical and legal punishments that were available at the time. The Bible used by the puritans states, “thou shalt not commit adultery, If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death”(Exodus 20:14-Leviticus 20:10) Hester’s pregnancy and Pearl’s subsequent birth were the reason she was publicly shamed by the Puritan community.

Society is made of many different types of people. Some people commit their lives to the church, others commit their lives to helping others. No matter how different and noble members of society may appear, they all have something in common: sin. Members of Puritan society all have this in common, and therefore should be less critical of each other. The effect of the judgemental nature of Puritans in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is demonstrated by recurring dark and light themes, representing restriction and freedom from judgement. Hawthorne’s use of the archetypal symbols of darkness and light suggests his view that the Puritan society was excessively judgemental of their members and that all societies should be less critical.