Setting And Themes In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

Setting The Scarlet Letter was a very eventful book. The Scarlet Letter was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Scarlet Letter takes place in the 1600’s. The Scarlet Letter is a story about a woman, Hester Prynne, who committed a sin which caused her to have a child. The child’s name was Pearl, she was the biggest influence on the book because she was a living representation of the scarlet letter. The book has many settings from the forest to the scaffold to the brook to Hester’s cottage plus many more. Hester’s sin and guilt were shown throughout the book within the setting. The Scarlet Letter has many different settings, one of the most important ones is the scaffold. The scaffold is where people were hung, stood in the pillory, or stood upon for punishment for a crime. The scaffold is where 2 of the most important scenes takes place. One of the scenes is when Hester first leaves the jail and has to serve her punishment by standing on the scaffold with her baby Pearl. “A lane was forthwith opened through the crowd of spectators. Preceded by the beadle, and attended by an irregular …show more content…
The Puritans were very religious people and they believed that they had to be very holy and could not break any of the rules in the bible. The puritans did not believe in fun - they could not sing, dance, the women could not show any skin, if you sinned you must be punished, etc. Within the second chapter of the book there are women talking about Hester and her punishment for her sin, Adultery, and how she should be punished. “’People say,’ said another, ‘that the Reverend Mater Dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very grievously to heart that such a scandal should have come upon his congregation’” (5). This quote is ironic because they are talking about Dimmesdale and how he is upset that something has happened in his congregation, yet he is the sinner that committed the sin with