Critique Of The Puritans In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

Improved Essays
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne acts as a societal critique of the Puritans. Hawthorne shows them as demonic hypocrites, especially high ranking members of the town. In addition to this, he uses language that recognizes, the sin-committing, Hester Prynne as the protagonist, while Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, a pious man, is viewed as weak and afraid of the society that reveres him. The communal condemnation of Hester shows the Puritans as a singular character, rather than a society or culture, enabling the Puritans to act as a driving force; specifically, the pain and tormentation that Dimmesdale and Hester face are derived from their narrow-mindedness, hypocrisy, and conformity.
The Puritanical belief of communal conformity is made
…show more content…
While confessing, Dimmesdale states: “The law we broke I—the sin here awfully revealed!—let these alone be in thy thoughts! I fear! I fear! It may be, that, when we forgot our God—when we violated our reverence each for the other’s soul—it was thenceforth vain to hope that we could meet hereafter, in an everlasting and pure reunion. God knows; and He is merciful!” (383). By publicly confessing, Dimmesdale is relieving himself from his pain, and finding forgiveness. He has found forgiveness in this narrow-minded, sin punishing society, and thus showing the puritans that there is no need to be react like this toward sin. Lying and upholding the facade of the Puritan society is a sin, unlike Hester who has told the truth all along. Hester is not afraid of the Scarlet Letter, and knows that by covering it, she is hiding a portion of her life, thereby lying. The Puritan veneration of Dimmesdale illustrates their hypocrisy, as they are esteeming a sinner. The guiltier Dimmesdale feels, the more the Puritans appreciate his sermons. They believed that no “man spoken in so wise, so high, and so holy a spirit, as he that spake this day; nor had inspiration ever breathed through mortal lips more evidently than it did through his” (361). This critique of Puritan society allows the reader understand the narrator 's view of their culture. Their hero is a sinner, rather than Hester Prynne, the “self-enlisted Sister of Charity,” revealing their utopian facade (321). As Dimmesdale’s sermons become more powerful, the more he is forced to wear his “face to himself”

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    I would primarily like to shed light on the fact that the question says Henry James “criticized” the novel for its surplus amounts of symbolism. Perhaps, criticize isn't the correct word to use in this case because James carries on to tell that he didn't mean to “expatiate upon [Hawthorne’s] defects” he simply had an opinion. Also, he goes on to praise The Scarlet Letter saying “The Scarlet Letter has the beauty and harmony of all original and complete conceptions, and its weaker spots, whatever they are, are not of its essence; they are mere light flaws and inequalities of surface” Anyway, in my opinion, despite the overwhelming amount of symbolism jammed into The Scarlet Letter, I do believe that Hawthorne does this to make the writing his…

    • 276 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, tells the tale of a Puritan community in Massachusetts, rocked by scandal. Hester Prynne is convicted of adultery after the birth of her daughter and the disappearance of her husband three years prior. Her fellow sinner, the reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, is never discovered after Hester lies to protect him. Dimmesdale is shown under constant duress throughout the story as the guilt of what he committed builds inside of him. The pressure and stress created by Dimmesdale’s knowledge of what he did begins to unravel him until his death.…

    • 676 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dimmesdale is a Puritan minister and is supposed to be very godly and honest. But Dimmesdale knows that with the depth of this sin, he cannot admit it without being severely punished or even executed. So Dimmesdale goes on with this guilt in his heart hiding his sin, and losing more of his Puritan presence each…

    • 464 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    They are clearly an unstable society with no real morals and Hawthorne hated this about them. So, he wrote the Scarlet Letter and filled it with irony to specifically criticize the puritan ideals. The puritans believed that Dimmesdale was their holy pastor, yet he was ironically one of the biggest sinners in their colony. They also believed that sin should be publically shamed, but ironically only in Hester because they are all sinners secretly 1124124at heart. This is the world where everybody is fake, everybody wears a mask.…

    • 1006 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, was written in a time when conformity was necessary for survival, while individuality was condemned. Those who conform to society do so because they fear being different and value being accepted. Those who choose not to conform, are often punished, whether that meaning literally or socially. Those who fear differences, humiliate and ridicule those who are different and use them to scare others to stick to the social norm. It is necessary for societies to possess strong individuals even though they struggle against it.…

    • 1663 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Nathaniel Hawthorne’s masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter, focuses its attention around many predominant themes, which generate innumerable interpretations. Motifs such as adultery, revenge, and forgiveness are prevalent within the novel based on Puritan locale. The characters of Hester Prynne, Roger Chillingworth, and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, each exhibit behaviors, which have been placed upon them by the burdens in their everyday lives. The Scarlett Letter focuses on the puritanical judgment of what is deemed a sinful act and how this same act affects the three aforementioned characters who share this secret in an entirely different way. Hester Prynne impresses the reader by proving that she is unmoved by the public’s judgment, and this ability…

    • 1176 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In his final farewell to the community, Dimmesdale shouts to the people to “look again at Hester’s scarlet letter… it is but the shadow he bears in his own breast… is no more than the type that has scarred his inmost heart… die this death of triumphant ignominy before the people” (242-243). Here, the reader has a taste of Dimmesdale’s faith in his own fate. With the scarlet letter, adultery causes Dimmesdale to be secretly condemned by Puritan law, which is seen deep in his heart. He believes that the scarlet letter inflicts on him a punishment worse than Hester’s due to his increased condemnation. Dimmesdale’s interpretation of his condemnation gives an example of the role the Puritan religion has on his fate, beliefs, and lifestyle.…

    • 1363 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne criticizes the Puritan religion by telling us a story of Hester Prynne, an adulteress. The story brings to us many vivid example of the Puritans and what they did that seemed so hypocritical to Hawthorne. And he uses many rhetorical strategies throughout the novel to show his disapproval of the Puritan ways and what they stood for. Hawthorne’s disdain for the Puritans is shown through his irony and diction when he first introduces us to the colony of Boston, Massachusetts.…

    • 787 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    To the community, Dimmesdale is simply trying to convince Hester to name the man that helped her commit adultery on her husband. Through his powerful words, Dimmesdale charges Hester to speak out the name of her fellow sinner (63). However, his words inspire the crowd. For a slight moment, all listeners of Dimmesdale’s speech feel a sense of sympathy for Hester as his words vibrate through their hearts (63). In reference to the audience, Dimmesdale’s speech is an astounding success However, to Hester, his speech is not effective.…

    • 840 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Scarlet Letter Guilt

    • 908 Words
    • 4 Pages

    As a stark contrast to today’s culture having a scant amount of repercussions, the Puritans had considerably more numerous disciplinary actions that were noticeably harsher. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is heavily centered on how the Puritan people face guilt and sin in ways their religion and culture allowed. As the plot develops, the four main characters-Hester Prynne, Pearl Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingsworth- reach individual development by dealing with the effects of guilt and sin individually. Hester opposes it by flagrantly wearing a scarlet letter on her chest, Pearl manages by being a living symbol of Hester’s egregious offense, Dimmesdale confronts his transgressions privately while it consumes him, leading…

    • 908 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dimmesdale not only suffered from physical pain, but he also suffered from emotional pain, especially when the public praised him as their accomplished and innocent minister. Dimmesdale stated that it “tortured him”(Hawthorne 131) when the pure citizens of the church told him he was an outstanding man and a wise minister, because on the inside he knew that he was a dirty sinner, and did not deserve such…

    • 644 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter explores the nature of sin and redemption, especially through the character of Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, a beloved young minister in the seventeenth-century Puritan town of Boston. Contrary to his moral standing as a religious leader, Dimmesdale has secretly committed adultery with Hester Prynne, a young married woman who has come to Boston ahead of her husband. When she becomes pregnant, the Puritan officials discover her infidelity and brand her as an adulteress by forcing her to wear a scarlet letter A. Hester, however, does not reveal Dimmesdale as her partner in sin. When Hester’s husband Roger Chillingworth unexpectedly arrives, he discovers Hester’s adultery and vows revenge on her lover.…

    • 1655 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Scarlet Letter was one of the first American novels to have a central female character and showed the power of women, which was published millennia before the modern feminist movement. The Scarlet Letter is a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850. The concepts of love, devotion, sin, regret, patriarchy, and punishment are woven throughout his classic novel. Marilyn Mueller Wilton’s article, written in 1992, contends that Hester is, in fact, a rebellious hero, and subjugates Dimmesdale to the role of meek “heroine” of the story, thus defining a role reversal as one of the novel’s central themes. Hester is the hero in The Scarlet Letter and assumes the role of the typical male.…

    • 791 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The puritan worldview is taken up sternly by Hawthorne in the scarlet letter because he emphasized on the gender inequality through society’s reaction to the sin that Hester and Dimmesdale committed. Hester committed an adulterous act with…

    • 786 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    With the inner struggle of guilt, a person can either be redeemed or destroyed. In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne Hester Prynne is ridiculed publicly by the Puritan community for adultery. Mr. Dimmesdale, the man Hester cheats with is a young minister in the town, and hides his sin from the community. Together the two have a daughter named Pearl, that Hester raises. Pearl is a constant reminder of their sin, in which Hester holds onto public guilt, and Dimmesdale onto private guilt.…

    • 1450 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays