Sin In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his bold novel, The Scarlet Letter tackles a variety of themes that include: sin, guilt, redemption, postfeminism, and organized religion's abuse of power. Hawthorne spoke in a somber and grim tone, designed to arouse a sense of suspense for his readers. The audience in which he was addressing would have been conservative Christians and women suffragettes, all of whom reflected the ideologies during this time period. By instilling clever diction, Hawthorne exposes hypocrisy in Puritanism and objects against the religion's superfluous punishments; which force individuals to endure unnecessary and extreme suffering.

In spite of that, what makes her the protagonist of the story is how she is able to overcome her punishment that was meant to give her shame. Throughout Chapter 13 of the book, Hawthorne shows how Hester’s confidence has developed in herself and in view of the town, most noticeably when considering the meaning of the scarlet letter, “Such helpfulness was found in her ... that many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. They said that it meant Able; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman’s strength,” (Hawthorne 107). Instead of subjecting to the shame that was forced upon her, she grew above it, conveying a different aspect of the theme of guilt, which is redemption. This is not to say that Hester did not care about the sin she committed, as she is very much reminded of it every day of her life while living with the child of that sin. In fact, the author addresses this by saying, “In giving her existence a great law had been broken; and the result was a being whose elements were perhaps beautiful and brilliant, but all in disorder,” (Hawthorne 60). Hawthorne is implying how Pearl represents the outcome of a sin and arranged it so that Hester is always living with that sin, therefore, always being reminded of the shame she is supposed to

Hester Prynne, Pearl, the townspeople, and Nathaniel Hawthorne each have different views of the “Scarlet Letter” that change throughout the story. Hester begins to feel proud of her letter but then soon humbles herself when she wears it and ends up feeling the guilt of her sin towards the conclusion of the story. The letter for Hester begins to shape her life along with pearl for it is an everyday thing for her. Pearl, as a young child, is aware of her mother’s letter but doesn’t fully understand its meaning. Pearl later on begins to only see and recognize her mother with the letter on. The townspeople, in the beginning of the story, hate Hester and her letter believing her punishment should have been more harsh, but later on they find a new meaning for it. Nathaniel Hawthorne varies with his opinions and view of the letter just as each character does. Each view represents a different side to the story.

Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter in an era commonly referred to as “The Transcendentalist Movement” (“The Scarlet Letter”). “Transcendentalism a reaction against the rationalism of the previous century and the religious orthodoxy of Calvinist New England, it stressed the romantic tenets of mysticism, idealism, and individualism” (“The Scarlet Letter”). It sees God as an important part of a person and the world, God was not a “harsh distant figure” (“The Scarlet Letter”). Simultaneously, Puritan values and ideas also played a major role in shaping The Scarlet Letter. “The Puritans are all alike and, taking themselves for the standard, see all difference and variety as unnatural, bad” (Baym 53). That is, anything out of the norm, Puritans will instantaneously oppose it and disassociate themselves from it. “Because they are dedicated to forms, rules, laws, [and] structures, the Puritans have no tolerance for secrets: they take people as purely public beings, and they hate and fear anything

Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the greatest American authors of the nineteenth century. He published his first novel Fanshawe, in 1828. However, he is widely known for his novels The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables. His novel, The Scarlet Letter, can be analyzed from historical, psychological and feminist critical perspectives by examining his life from the past, as well as his reflections while writing The Scarlet Letter. In order to understand the book properly, it’s necessary to use these three perspectives.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's bold novel, The Scarlet Letter, revolves around sin and punishment.  The main characters of the novel sharply contrast each other in the way they react to the sin that has been committed

In essence, there were three main sins committed in The Scarlet Letter, the sins of Hester, the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth. Roger Chillingworth committed the greatest sin because he let himself be ruled by hatred and the consuming desire for vengeance.  The overpowering vengeance and hatred felt by Chillingworth caused his life to be centered on demeaning Dimmesdale and tormenting him until the end of time.  Both Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale committed sins for which they were deeply remorseful, Roger Chillingworth, however, committed the greater sin because he felt no guilt.

Nathaniel Hawthorne once said, “I do not want to be a doctor and live by men’s diseases, nor minister to live by their sins, nor a lawyer and live by men’s quarrels. So, I don’t see that there is anything left for me but to be an author” (Nathaniel). This statement describes Hawthorne’s personality and life in a way that no other quote could. Nathaniel Hawthorne was an Anti-Transcendentalist writer meaning that he had a negative view of all humans. The Anti-Transcendentalist movement was a pessimistic branch of Romanticism and it began in mid 1800s and lasted until late 1800s. Nathaniel Hawthorne was influenced greatly by his childhood, which is what caused him to be an anti-transcendentalist, yet in his novel The Scarlet Letter there was a bridge created between anti-transcendentalism and utopian transcendentalism.

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.

Influenced by his Puritan background, Hawthorne focused on individuals and their relationships within their community. Works by Nathaniel Hawthorne such as The Scarlet Letter and Young Goodman Brown focus on the issues and hypocrisies of a Puritan society. Hawthorne explores the view that many fundamentalist religious groups have in regard to the alienation of members of a society who have been judged as sinful, while also uncovering the hidden evil in everyone, including the most honorable of preachers. He accomplishes this by developing plot lines, which focus on interactions of ignorant but wicked religious characters with sinful but relatable protagonists.

In modern times, people are allowed the freedom of thought and expression with restrictions only in extreme cases. However, there were times where these freedoms did not exist, when there were only specific ways people were allowed to think, speak, and act. The era described in The Scarlet Letter has not had such freedoms implemented yet, and these restrictions portrayed in exaggerated ways. In the novel, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the idea of transcendentalism is depicted in a satirical manner using the plights of the Puritans in the 1600s to accentuate and criticize the transcendentalist movement of Hawthorne’s era.

The main character, Hester Prynne, had sex with the minister Dimmesdale, when she was already married. Hester has a baby from this sin of adultery, and names her Pearl. The town officials find out, and put her in prison. When she comes out, her punishment is to wear this scarlet letter A on her chest for the rest of her life. Hawthorne explains, “It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself” (Hawthorne 51).

The Scarlet Letter The Scarlet Letter is a psychological novel that delves into the depths of sin and morality. The Scarlet letter speaks of Hester Prynne, a Puritan woman who was sent to America by her then husband, Roger Chillingworth. Hester develops a relationship with a puritan minister in her town named Arthur Dimmesdale and they conceive a child out of wedlock. This leads to the public shaming of Hester Prynne and her daughter, Pearl.

One of the most important characteristics of the American Transcendentalist Movement is self-reliance. Due to the movement’s embrace of Romanticism, the importance of individuality and self-reliance are central to the transcendentalist belief system. This notion of self-reliance and individualism outweighing custom and tradition is seen many times throughout Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Hester asserts her independence as evidenced in the following description of her decision to make her punishment more bearable: “On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold-thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done…that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore…” (Hawthorne 47). Hester’s audacious decision to pardon the strict societal norms of the Puritan community that surrounded her and to embellish the epitome of her sin marks the beginning to her lifelong journey of self-acceptance. At the conclusion of her journey, the narrator comments on Hester’s decision to remain in her hometown: “But, in the lapse of the toilsome, thoughtful, and self-devoted years that made up Hester’s life, the scarlet letter ceased to be a stigma which attracted the world’s scorn and bitterness, and became a type of something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon with awe, yet with reverence too” (Hawthorne 258). As

Although Puritanism, Romanticism and Transcendentalism do not coexist peacefully, these almost worldview kind of people groups are deeply embedded into three fictional characters from the book, The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This enthralling and rich classic which takes place in Boston Massachusetts during the time of Puritanism gives the reader not only a taste of the Puritans and their staunch attitude, but also of a less common way of thinking and behaving which is expressed through a certain character in the book. The three main characters in this book are all diversely different but are bound tightly together by a long kept secret and discovering their methods of thinking and acting upon