The Scarlet Letter is Nathanial Hawthorne’s most famous work. The book tells the tale of Hester Prynne, a woman who is shunned by the Puritan Community of Massachusetts and forced to wear a scarlet letter “A” to identify herself as an adulterer. In the process of writing the book, Hawthorne creates a social community on the Puritan Community which he felt was hypocritical and repressive. An aspect of the religious community that contributed to the accusations of witch craft during the Salem Witch Trials, a historical event that Hawthorne uses as a reference in The Scarlet Letter.
Nathanial Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1804, he is a descendant of John Hathorne, one of the lead justices in the Salem Witch Trials which condemned many woman for practicing witch craft. Nathanial added a ‘w’ to his name to try and distance himself from them. In 1846, Hawthorne writes Mosses from an Old Manse, but doesn’t earn enough money from it. To supplement his income, he goes to work at the Salem Custom House in Salem, Massachusetts. He works there for 3 years and ends up losing his job in June of 1849 due to political shakeup. A few weeks after he was fired his other died. As a result of his mother’s passing, he goes into a state of depression and feels furious against those in Salem. To calm his feelings down, he starts …show more content…
The Puritans were religious reformers who arrived in Massachusetts in the 1630s on the Mayflower with John Winthrop. The name comes from Puritanism, since they tried to purify the Church of England under Queen Elizabeth’s rule. Hawthorne uses the extremely conservative and repressive government style for the Puritans in the book to also show his idea of human intuition. The book depicts the communities highly superstitious ideas, such as, not going into the forest because they are scared of the unknown and using the bible to justify their fears of the New