Sins In Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'The Scarlet Letter'

The Bible says, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”, therefore there is no one character in ‘The Scarlet Letter’ who is without fault or should be excluded from some type of judgement. On this note this paper will be a general documentation of the sins of the Puritan people of the town, and a brief summation of the sins of the main characters. To put the sins implicated in this book in ascending order this paper will start with explaining the sins of the young Pearl, go into that of the townspeople, and then explicate the sins of the main characters Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth--in that order. In the book Pearl, the illegitimate child of Hester Prynne, was depicted as awkward and difficult. Even with these not directly being sins, the continuation of these characteristics in a child can lead to disobedience and disrespect. Which in the bible is addressed in the Ten Commandments, in presenting children with the reward of a longer life in turn for respect and obedience towards their parents. But with her being a child that had not yet reached the age of accountability her sins were reflective of her mother’s teachings and her surroundings. …show more content…
But the sin that is evident within the people is that of judgment. In the part of the story where the women are gathered near the scaffold criticizing the church’s methods of punishment towards Hester, they state how they believe she should be dealt with. To summarize Leviticus 19:18, leave vengeance to the Lord and do not judge men but love them as you would love yourself. Therefore this means that the people should not bear judgement towards others, the way God intends to deal with a problem has nothing to do with their opinion, and that they should still treat sinners with the love of God that they wish to