Scarlet Letter Puritan Society

The Puritans were a strict and harsh society. Citizens were punished with public shaming if they committed a sin. The novel The Scarlet Letter is set in Boston, Massachusetts between 1642 to 1649. It shows how the Puritan society with the ignominy of the protagonist Hester for the sin she and Rev. Dimmesdale have committed. The novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne displays how the different settings affect the feelings of Hester, Dimmesdale, and of Pearl. Throughout the novel, Hester acts differently in both the town and the forest. The result of the sin, she isolates herself “on the outskirts of town … [in] a small thatched cottage”(74). She lives on the outside of town because she is an outcast. Like the town where Hester is judged by the people, in the forest Pearl declares to Hester that “‘the sunshine does not love you … because it is afraid of …show more content…
When Pearl and Hester walk into town, children start throwing mud at them. Pearl, “after frowning … made a rush at the [children]”(93). Since she is not well associated with others, she does not know how to act with them. In the forest, she is close to nature. While Pearl is wandering through the forest, it “becomes the [only] playmate of the lonely infant” (184). Pearl feels that the only friend she has is the forest. Pearl knows that Dimmesdale is her father and she wants him to reveal it. On the last scaffold scene, after Dimmesdale is, “[Pearl’s] tears fell upon [his] cheek. It was the first time she has shown emotion in the novel. Indeed, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, shows the different emotion of Hester, Dimmesdale, and of Pearl in the town and the forest. Living in the Puritan society, Hester’s ignominy shows that they were strict. The town was not as free and the forest but the forest was a gloomy place. The novel shows the differences of both places and how they affect the emotions the