Theme Of Sinning In Scarlet Letter

In Nathaniel Hawthorne's book, The Scarlet Letter, one of the most essential ideas by the end of the book is that sin is inevitable to all. Throughout the story the Puritans are constantly enforcing the idea onto the townspeople that sin is bad, but the end of the story proves that sin can turn into something good. Puritans aim to be perfect by “not sinning” which causes them to be further from God because the townspeople do not have the opportunity to repent. But because strict Puritan rules do not allow the towns people to empathize with others, sinners end up becoming closer to God and experiencing God's mercies because the they have to repent with God which causes them to have empathy for themselves and others. By showing people that sinning is bad and …show more content…
Hester knows that the Puritans do this to people so she was looking to see if she could find any external action of someone who sinned. The narrator expresses this moment, “She shuddered to believe, yet could not stop believing, that it gave her sympathetic knowledge of the hidden sin in other hearts...Or, once more, the electric thrill would give her warning—‘Behold Hester, here is a companion!’ and, looking up, she would detect the eyes of a young maiden glancing at the scarlet letter, shyly and aside, and quickly averted, with a faint, chill crimson in her cheeks as if her purity were somewhat sullied by that momentary glance” (78). Hester could tell that she was not the only person who has sinned in the past. She knew that people in the town keep their sins on the inside because they are scared of admitting to their sins. The Puritans cause people to try to hide from their sins. There was a woman that was looking at Hester and her scarlet letter from afar. Hester had a sense that someone was looking at her, and when she saw the lady she got red and looked away fast. The Puritan lady looking at Hester proves that there are many