Hawthorne belonged to the transcendental group, and because of that you can see him highlight the bad of the conservative religious groups. For example, Hawthorne writes about Hester’s interaction with the religious courts. According to the religious law, Hester should be killed for being an adulteress, but obviously it’s not that black and white. I think what Hawthorne is trying to say is that old religious groups try to make general rules to control the members lives, but that can’t exactly be done, rather things have to be looked at in a case for case basis.
