How Does Hawthorne Criticize The Puritan Society

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The Puritan society is built on very strict rules and pressures because of their protestant religion. After separating himself from his puritan roots, Nathanial Hawthorne writes the romance novel The Scarlet Letter that criticizes the puritan society. In the opening in the book, Hawthorne explains that upon building the new Puritan colony that is was supposed to be a “Utopia of human virtue” (Hawthorne 36). As he tells the story of a love triangle in the puritan society of the 1630s, Hawthorne uses symbolism, hypocrisy, and irony to criticize the puritan society. Hawthorne displays symbolism to represent a safe haven away from the Puritan society in the forest and nature. The forest is viewed as a scary place because it is unknown and home …show more content…
Hester appears in front of the town wearing the “elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes” (Hawthorne 40), that made up the scarlet letter A. After her appearance that put her fine handiwork on display, other from the town wish to adorn themselves with elaborate embroidered pieces. When Hester goes to bring gloves “she had fringed and embroidered” (Hawthorne 69) to Governor Bellingham, the Governor of the village, we are given a look into his mansion. Hawthorne describes Bellingham’s mansion have walls “overspread with a kind of stucco… so that, when the sunshine fell… it glittered and sparkled as if diamonds had been flung against it by the double hand” (Hawthorne 70) and then decorated more with “cabalistic figures… drawn in the stucco” (Hawthorne 70). Also serving as decoration in Bellingham’s mansion was “a steel head-piece, a cuirass, a gorget, with a pair of gauntlets and a sword hanging beneath” Hawthorne 71) along with many other things proving materialism. Hawthorne uses the comparison that Bellingham’s house could benefit “Aladdin’s palace, rather than the mansion of a grave old Puritan ruler” (Hawthorne 70). By describing the elaborate decoration and admiration for embroidery existing in the Puritan society which is supposed to live simple lives, Hawthorne establishes hypocrisy, which criticizes the puritan society by showing the falsehood in their
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