Puritans in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Essay

The time was the nineteenth century, a time of great prudishness in America but born a man Nathaniel Hawthorne that would put the Puritan society and their way to the test. A Puritan is one who follows the English Protestant lifestyle and someone who adheres to strict religious principle; also one who has a strong regard for pleasure sex and nudity. (Webster’s Dictionary, 2003) Born on July 4th 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts and of Puritan decent himself, Nathaniel Hawthorne and his family experienced intense harassment during their time.(Hoeljte, pps 25-26) Experiences that today make Hawthorne not only a great author, but very well liked by readers as well. Nathaniel attended a prestigious school with the aid of wealthy family

In The Scarlet Letter Hester Prynne is more than a literary figure in a classic novel, she is known by some people to be one of the earliest American Hero’s. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Hester commits adultery and has a child that she must care for all alone. She is forced to wear a powerful, attention grabbing “Scarlet A” on her chest while she must try to make a living to support her and her child, Pearl. Even though she must face all the harsh judgment and stares she does not allow her sin to stop her from living a successful life. She looks past the Letter as a symbol of sin and turns it into a sign of approval. Hester

Conflict can take on many forms in one’s life, such as conflict with self, with society, with religion and with others. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, develops the theme of conflict through the moral sin of Hester Prynne. Conflict is observed through Hester’s difficulties with the townspeople, challenges with the Puritan way of life, struggles with herself and tensions with Roger Chillingworth. Committing sin in the Puritan society leads to a great deal of conflicts.

In the book The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne remarks on his thoughts of his Puritan ancestors’ in his introduction and wording throughout the novel. In his introduction, he sets the tone on Puritanism by remarking, “” In the story itself, Hawthorne writes

Hester Prynne’s isolation, though primarily inflicted by the community, was also inflicted by herself, and in her isolation, Hester became an integral community member at the cost of her femininity and passion. Hester is primarily isolated by her community as she is forced to wear the scarlet letter for the rest of her life to separate her as an adulteress. This was common practice for colony members in Plymouth in 1694 though typically a whipping or death was the punishment (Hawthorne 220). The isolation caused by her community is not destructive to herself, and in a way, is beneficial for her soul. Using her needlework as an outlet for her creativity, Hester provided clothes for the poor, embroidered clothing, and earned back her reputation. Not only would the A come to mean Able, but it also gave herself a sense of belonging. According to Jennifer McClinton-Temple, such isolation leaves that person nothing but he or she’s mind and therefore inspiring creativity (McClinton- Temple). Being left to her own faculties, Hester was able to think freely and apart from typical Puritan ideas. According to Hawthorne, for a Puritan, and a woman no less, to have broken free from Puritan conformity “would have held to be a deadlier crime than that stigmatized by the scarlet letter” in the eyes of the Puritan magistrates (Hawthorne

   Throughout The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne repeatedly portrays the Puritanical views of sin and evil.  The Puritans are constantly displayed as believing that evil comes from an unyielding bond being formed between love and hate.  For such reasons they looked towards Hester's commitment of adultery as an action of pure, condemned evil.  However, through the use of light and dark imagery, Hawthorne displays who truly holds evil in their hearts.  The one who is the embodiment of evil creates hypocrisy of Puritanical views towards sin and evil.  Hawthorne displays that those who expose sin to the public and the daylight are the most pure and those who conceal their sin under a

The Puritans would have, quite frankly, been aghast at this. In fact, the Puritans were quite forthcoming

Nathaniel Hawthorne in his novel, The Scarlet Letter, implies his views of the Puritan society by suggesting that the Puritans were theocratic, merciless, guilt-ridden and vengeful. He supports the claim that the Puritans exhibited these traits by illustrating in the text through diction, symbolism, characterization, and theme. Hawthorne’s purpose is to communicate the message that the church was very hypocritical to reveal their true nature to the world. He establishes a disapproving tone in his novel towards the church in order to convey his message.

Throughout the novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne develops compelling characters that are starkly different from the normal Puritan citizen. The novel mainly focuses on Hester, a Puritan woman living in New England, and the story of her affair and how it affects her life and the lives of those around her. Puritan citizens are illustrated as stern, dreary characters, but Hawthorne brings up sin, love, and hate even in the characters who are seemingly the most rigid when it comes to Puritan lifestyle. Chillingworth, Hester, and Pearl of the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne display complex character traits, including admiration, honesty, and loneliness.

Symbolism is often used by authors to expand and enhance their literary works. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne explores the nature of puritan societies in New England colonies. Hawthorne’s metaphorical style impacts the novel’s elements. The Scarlet Letter is about a young woman named Hester Prynne who migrated to Massachusetts from England to start a new life with her husband.

While Puritan women are weak and dependent upon their husbands, Hester Prynne is empowered and self-reliant. A character designed by Hawthorne to show 19th century women that women’s work could be valuable, Hester supports herself and her daughter by needlework. “For, as the novel unfolds, the letter, intended by the Authorities to signify harsh but just condemnation, is made by Hester to signify something entirely different—able, admirable.” (Bell 109) All aspects considered, the ability of Hester, a woman who committed sin and was publicly punished for this crime, to manipulate this punishment into a virtue

The novel, The Scarlet Letter, takes place in the seventeenth century Puritan society of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Being under Puritan rule means that each colonist had to obey by the rules set by the magistrates and were assigned a spiritual leader, which would watch over their spiritual health. Puritans society was entirely thoracic and bound by the mandates of the bible. Hester Prynne and Dimmesdale began an affair. When the pregnancy could no longer be hidden, Hester was forced to reveal the baby daddy. When she refused, she was forced to be humiliated because she had broken the sixth commandment. Moreover she was treated as an outcast, a joke. She was the topic of sermon, a laughing joke to the kids and an object of scorn to the

To begin with, Hester Prynne was a young woman born and raised in England best described by Hawthorne as a “ figure of perfect elegance on a large scale, she had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes”(Hawthorne 50). Hester was a woman with a strong character and treated everyone respectfully and kind, regardless if the treatment was returned. She is very modest and an overall survivor. Hester is not a woman or rebelling with words but with actions instead. For example, although the community had been alienating her, she was still charitable and gave a lending hand. She has a goal of not showing weakness to the puritans and being with Dimmesdale, but her determination to keep his name a secret for the protection of his reputation is in the way.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, is a historical work pertaining to the stringently religious Puritans who resided in Salem, Massachusetts during the 1600s, following a young woman who is convicted as an adulteress and abandoned by the sect for her trespasses. The novel’s setting occurs prior to the infamous Salem Witch Trial during which allegations of witchcraft, primarily based on tactless assumptions and hearsay, spread throughout the town. In wake of the scandal, the community, through the fear that the sins of others would inadvertently damage the town’s holiness, Puritans altered their path to “morality”. This lead to the punishment of those who broke religious codes by imprisonment or even more severely, death.

Within the majority of religious societies throughout history, a member's social status, and believed treatment in the afterlife depend on the rigor of which they adhere to the laws of their religion. If one strictly, and properly follows their religion, they are revered in society, and are said to be rewarded in the afterlife. If one, however, commits an atrocity against their religion, they are not regarded highly among their society, and they are said to be punished in the afterlife. In the Christian Puritan religion, this system of religious tolerance is regarded in an extremely strict manner, as the focus of the religion is to rid mankind of any impurities against Christianity. This, however, causes some people to hide their shortcomings, or sins, against Christianity, in fear that they will contract societal resentment or severe punishment. Hiding sin in this manner is regarded among Puritans as hypocrisy, which is the practice of claiming to have beliefs or moral standards that one does not actually have, and, ironically, one of the worst sins a Puritan member can commit. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book, The Scarlet Letter, there are many examples of the Puritan characters committing, and being representations of hypocrisy, which includes the hypocrisy of Reverend Dimmesdale, who hides his sin of adultery, Roger Chillingworth, who hides his torture and revenge against Dimmesdale, and the entire Puritan society, who do not give equal condemnation to those who have