The Notion of Sin in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter

Abstract

As considered one of the most prominent American literary classics, the importance of The Scarlet Letter shines on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Puritan belonging which brought him an outstanding item of invention of a story rendering an important side of identity. It is about a common Hester Prynne and a Puritan priest Arthur Dimmesdale who were put in a socio-cultural environment which devotes an inferior status to woman and an absolute rely on sinfulness and total depravity of man whose salvation as the ultimate aim is to be gained only by a severe adaptation of the Puritan ethos. Throughout a deep complex relational attitudes performed by characters who differ in characteristics and behavior; the novelist expresses an emblematic attitude towards Puritans and Puritanism. He praises the early Puritans for the sacrifices they encountered to establish New England. However, he criticized the previous generations for the level of extremity of rituals that excludes the others and bans the individual to voice the minimum right of existence. Such a black and white view is especially revealed in the present study that characterizes the contextual dichotomy between Hawthorne and the Puritan heritage through The Scarlet Letter. Firstly, it is highly essential to approach the Puritanical contextualization of The Scarlet Letter to understand the Puritanical character of the New Englander society so that to present an extrinsic view on the novel and highlight the socio-cultural era where the story took place. Then, in terms of dichotomy, the primary purpose to understand the “Sinful Hawthorne” is by the analysis of the perception towards sin he adapted in away totally different from the Puritans’. So, for characters are the author’s spokespersons, any attempt to discuss Hawthorne’s view on Puritanism as a social behavior needs a deep analysis of the basis of each character and the level of interaction within the story. Finally, the perception of Sin in The Scarlet Letter is designed via a deep portrayal of two female protagonists who can be explored in many critical views, but both of them intensify the challenging relation that bounds between the author and Puritans. Even though they can be interpreted variously, both Hester and Pearl are posited purposefully in a context of defiance to Puritans in order to explain the measure of difference Nathaniel Hawthorne contends for. Conclusively, Hawthorne exists within the artistic text as full of emblematic attitudes that typify totally a different vision of Sin. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s final aim in the romance of The Scarlet Letter is to refer to what level he claims his own place not only as a different romancer but as a different Puritan as well.