Hypocrisy And Irony In The Scarlet Letter

As Hester Prynne prepares to walk upon the scaffold for the townspeople to publicly shame her for committing adultery in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the narrator introduces not only the characteristics of Puritan society, but also how Puritan beliefs and ideologies affect Hester’s punishment and reputation within the community. Many townspeople believe that Hester’s punishment is not enough, one woman even going as far as to suggest that Hester “...has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die”(49). The foundation of Puritan society and its teachings has a heavy emphasis on the righteousness and salvation of God. The Puritans have a form of theocracy in which “religion and law were almost identical,” (47). As a result, Hester is not only an outcast in the community, but is also a sinner in the eyes of God. While the narrator appears to be unbiased and almost detached from the Puritan’s way of life, both the hypocrisy and irony throughout the novel suggests disapproval of the …show more content…
In spite of this, Hawthorne chooses to heavily contrast their reactions and ability to overcome difficulties, in order to reveal the hypocrisy and irony , lingering deep beneath the surface of the supposed ‘Utopia’ that is Puritan society. Hester chooses to create her own identity, rather than letting others define her. She chooses to stay in the Massachusetts Bay Colony despite being free to leave; if she left she could remove the Scarlet ‘A’ , however in her mind this would show the Puritan society's power over her. Through vivid insight into Hester’s actions and thoughts, Hawthorne allows the reader to infer that she will not wear the scarlet letter in shame, and over time, “ . . . the scarlet letter ceased to be a stigma which attracted the world’s scorn and bitterness, and became a type of something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon with awe, and yet with reverence, too”