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The Puritans In The Scarlet Letter

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The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, has many connections to the life style and beliefs of the Puritans. Throughout The Scarlet Letter, it is clear that the people of Salem strongly represent the Puritan way of life, which tends to often contradict the common teaching of Christianity today. The Puritans were a religious group in the late 16th through 17th centuries. Their purpose was to purify the church and remove themselves from the evils of society. They were known for their intense way of living by having “a spirit of moral and religious earnestness that informed their way of life” and sought to be “in a covenant relationship with God in order to redeem one from one’s sinful condition” (“Puritanism” Britannica Library). …show more content…

Looking at how the people of Salem take sin very seriously, it shows how much they relate to the Puritans. The Puritans seemed to have a mindset very against pleasure and things that bring humans joy simply by nature. Hawthorne shows this idea through his own Puritans in The Scarlet Letter. It has been highly supported through evidence that the Puritans were very stern people, against most anything that brought pleasure and leisure into one’s life. After Hester sins, they show no mercy by going as far as to ridicule her and make her feel like she is less of a human being because of her mistake. Hawthorne shows his very opposite view by raising the question that maybe human nature is impossible to get around and punishment of a sinful nature, something all people have in common, should not be taken to the Puritan’s extreme level (Daniels 7-9). The Puritans also believed that “God punished the whole community on the slightest provocation” (Johnson 52). This belief shows just how seriously the Puritans saw sin, likewise the people of Salem. By having this mindset, they feel it is necessary to show Hester Prynne the significance of her sin and show God that they do not allow such actions to be tolerated within their community (Hawthorne 55-57). They do this because they want to avoid punishment of the whole community, and instead inflict serious punishments on the sinner to

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Megan Parzych 4 Ms. Krygier Honors English 10 26 November 2017 Views on the Scarlet Letter In history, the Puritans were very strict and liked punishment. They looked upon people who have sinned in a very negative way. This is evident in The Scarlet Letter. The townspeople looked at Hester Prynne and her sin in a very strict way and wanted her to be punished greatly.

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The Virtue of Hester Prynne In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s highly acclaimed novel, The Scarlet Letter, a Puritan town’s reaction is described after Hester Prynne raises a scandal that goes against the town’s religious views. The Puritans believe the Bible should be translated into their life and that God should be the center of it. Many of them think of Hester as a sinful woman without virtue. They treat her as an outcast and consider that she is somehow affiliated with the Devil.

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Hawthorne’s writings reflect the Puritan culture and history in a new way. In the past the Puritans culture was one that revolved around god and god’s providence. The idea that if you believe in god and have a good moral mindset, you will prosper and god will always be by your side. Although, if you were against god and made some immoral choices god would always find you and smite or punish you. So you could imagine the change in tone when Hawthorne writes about a witch meeting.

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He shows how in the Puitan community the leaders are respected and people listen to them. This is why Hawthorne condemns them, because they are hypocritical leaders that are harsh and uses intolerant treatment; especially with Hester. Hester does not deserve the treatment she receives, and this is very clear to the reader. She tries to repay her community by giving clothes to the homeless and making garments for them but no one accepts her for what she did. These are the reasons Hawthorne shows negativity toward the Puritan society because of the way the punish Hester, and the way the treat Hester and

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Terence Martin makes an intriguing point in this discussion of Hester in Chapter 18 when he asserts his claim that “seven years of ignominy have left her a resolute priestess of a private cult”. (Martin) This is an intriguing assertion because it shows the dangers of moral ambiguity. Hester “wandered, without rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness; as vast, as intricate and shadowy, as the untamed forest”, (Hawthorne 399) and like the forest that the Puritans so greatly fear, Hester has made a pact with the Black Man in the forests of moral ambivalence. Perhaps Hawthorne would say that Hester has transcended the moral confines of the archaic and hypocritical Puritans, but clearly Hester’s venture into the moral badlands have bestowed upon her a false moral compass fashioned from “seven years of ignominy” (Martin) and guilt.

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The Puritans had a heavily important part in the formation of early America, as well as a religion that influenced our early American society. This society has been the target which many authors have picked to set their novels in. Two selections that go into detail about some of the different aspects of the Puritan people are The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, and The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. These two particular writers who wrote of Puritan times conveyed, in their text, the values of the Puritan community of 17th century.

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Throughout Hawthorne’s novel, a direct connection can be made through narration and the events that supposedly a “pure” man has to encounter. Hawthorne encourages you to take a deeper look in the nature of sin and the corruption surrounding religion. To add ingratiate his plot and to distance himself from the narrator, Hawthorne uses a story-in-story approach to further insure his credibility, increasing the author’s ethos. Regarding his position on the nature of sin and corruption of religion, Hawthorne is not for the Puritan Church of Salem because of the corruption within the system. During chapter three, with the prior knowledge of Hester Prynne’s sin, Hawthorne exposes Minister Dimmesdale as the father and lover of Hester.

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Punishment of Puritans for their sins occurred harshly and frequently, and these punishments ranged from fines, branding, and severe whippings to hanging and death. Many of these penalties involved public humiliation of some kind, which made it extremely difficult for townspeople to accept by their peers after they had sinned. Because the Puritans believed religion was immensely important, the community was often reluctant to allow citizens that exhibited sinful behavior to achieve redemption (Cox). However, in the case of Hester Prynne, an adulterer in Nathaniel Hawthorne 's The Scarlet Letter, the townspeople eagerly made amends with her. This novel narrates the life of Hester Prynne, who committed adultery and courageously accepted the repercussions

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Some may say Hester's sin was justifiable, some may say not. Either was, no one is free of sin. In this Puritan society mans law is God's law. They can’t speak to God, but they still hand out punishments for him. Roger Chillingworth’s wife that he sent ahead of him to the new world, cheated on him and had a child

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The people of Salem, while not approving of the sin, should have accepted Hester and sought for her well-being. Instead, they get the sin confused with the person. They think that Hester is just as evil as the sin itself, when really she is an ordinary person like them who gives into her nature as a human being. Through the Puritans hypocritical exhibition of virtue, Hawthorne points out that although one may sin in a terrible way, it is wrong to appear superior to the wrong-doer; but rather, one should humble themselves by realizing they too are prone to sinfulness, and serve those who need guidance and

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The traditional Puritan culture holds restrains on Hester in terms of punishment for her crime. Hawthorne connects himself to Hester being that he is a descendant of a Puritan generation and had been ridiculed himself. “A writer of story-books! What kind of a business in life,—what mode of glorifying God, or being serviceable to mankind in his day and generation,—may that be? Why, the degenerate fellow might as well have been a fiddler!”

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Throughout The Scarlet Letter, there are so many people who are so quick to judge others and their actions before even considering all the things that they have done themselves, which are often worse than the actions of those who they judge. That is one of the biggest ways in which the book is still relevant today. Another aspect of the book that is applicable to today’s society is that while most of today’s churches may not be as hypocritical as the Puritan community in Hawthorne’s novel, there are many of them that present themselves as being much more righteous than they actually are. Nathaniel Hawthorne proves that even teachers and leaders have secret sin by displaying how guilt affects an individual that is living a lie. Even though it was written 200 years ago, The Scarlet Letter is a book that is still relevant today.

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In “The Scarlet Letter” he depicts it as an oppressive 17th – century Puritan society. “The style of Puritanism that Hawthorne presents is drab and gloomy, preoccupied with judgment and punishment, unrelenting and dogmatic,”1 writes Deborah L. Madsen in her book, “American Exceptionalism.” Hester Prynne, the main character accused of adultery, is persecuted by Boston community. Not only adults despise her, but also children who, blinded by the decayed values and norms, humiliate her and her child, Pearl. The character of Hester symbolizes the fight against Puritan enslavement, the need to modernize the prevailing norms that cause nothing but harm to American society.

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The Scarlet Letter and Uses of the Puritan Past illustrate various aspects of the cultural values in Puritanism and their societal impacts. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne depicts Puritanism as a bleak, strict cultural instance in which people who do not conform to their rules are shunned and distanced from society. In Uses of the Puritan Past, Puritan culture is described as a social construct based on four primary virtues. These virtues were the main influence of Puritan activity in Uses of the Puritan Past, as they were responsible for the creation of social rules and essential morality resulting in increased power and influence of the Puritan over every day Puritan life in New England. Even though both The Scarlet Letter and Uses of the

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The Puritan society thinks that it was their job to punish people who committed crime severely because they believe they were doing god’s work. They persecuted Hester for committing adultery while they are blinded by

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