Hypocrisy In The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter presents a critical, even disdainful, view of Puritanism. The narrator depicts Puritan gild as drab, confining, unforgiving, and bigoted that unfairly victimizes Hester. In the scene in which Hester is released from prison, the narrator describes the town police official every bit representing the "whole dismal severity of the Puritanical lawmaking of police," which fused religion with police. In contrast, he describes Hester as a woman marked by "natural dignity…force of character…[and] costless will." Information technology is precisely these natural strengths, which the narrator holds in high esteem, that Puritan lodge suppresses. In The Scarlet Letter, the Puritans appear as shallow hypocrites whose opinion of Hester and Pearl improves only when they become more of an asset to the customs, most notably when Hester becomes a seamstress and Pearl inherits a fortune from Chillingworth.

Puritanism ThemeTracker

The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what caste, the theme of Puritanism appears in each affiliate of The Scarlet Letter. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.

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Puritanism Quotes in The Scarlet Letter

Below you will observe the important quotes in The Scarlet Letter related to the theme of Puritanism.

On the breast of her gown, in fine cerise fabric, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of aureate-thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically washed, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that information technology ... was of a splendor in accordance with the gustation of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony.

Page Number and Citation: fifty

Explanation and Analysis:

"Be non silent from any mistaken compassion and tenderness for him; for, believe me, Hester, though he were to step down from a high place, and stand in that location beside thee, on thy pedestal of shame, all the same meliorate were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life. What tin thy silence do for him, except information technology tempt him--yea, compel him, as information technology were--to add together hypocrisy to sin?"

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Page Number and Commendation: 63

Caption and Analysis:

Thus the young and pure would exist taught to look at her, with the ruby letter of the alphabet flaming on her breast,—at her, the child of honorable parents,—at her, the mother of a babe, that would hereafter be a woman, —at her, who had once been innocent, —as the figure, the trunk, the reality of sin.

Folio Number and Commendation: 74

Explanation and Analysis:

Would not the people start up in their seats, by a simultaneous impulse, and tear him down out of the pulpit which he defiled? Not and then, indeed! They heard it all, and did but reverence him the more. They little guessed what mortiferous purport lurked in those self-condemning words. "The godly youth!" said they among themselves. "The saint on earth!

Folio Number and Citation: 133

Caption and Analysis:

"Nay; not and then, my little Pearl!" answered the minister; for, with the new energy of the moment, all the dread of public exposure, that had so long been the anguish of his life, had returned upon him; and he was already trembling at the conjunction in which—with a strange joy, nevertheless—he now plant himself. "Not and so, my kid. I shall, indeed, stand with thy female parent thee ane other day, just not to-morrow!"

Related Symbols: Pearl

Page Number and Citation: 141

Explanation and Analysis:

"Exist it sin or no," said Hester Prynne bitterly, every bit she still gazed later on him, "I hate the man!"

[…]

"Yep, I hate him!" repeated Hester, more bitterly than before. "He betrayed me! He has done me worse wrong than I did him!"

Folio Number and Citation: 163

Caption and Assay:

"'Female parent,' said litter Pearl, 'the sunshine does not dearest you. Information technology runs abroad and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom.... I am merely a child. Information technology will not abscond from me, for I wear nothing on my bosom yet!' 'Nor ever will, my child, I hope,' said Hester. 'And why not, mother?' asked Pearl, stopping curt, just at the beginning of her race. 'Will not it come of its ain accord, when I am a woman grown?'

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Folio Number and Citation: 170

Explanation and Assay:

The judgment of God is on me," answered the conscience-stricken priest. "Information technology is too mighty for me to struggle with!"

"Heaven would show mercy," rejoined Hester, "hadst k but the strength to accept advantage of information technology."

Page Number and Citation: 183

Caption and Analysis:

"Doth the universe prevarication inside the compass of yonder town, which merely a trivial time ago was but a foliage-strewn desert, as lonely as this around us? Whither leads yonder woods track? Backwards to the settlement, 1000 sayest! Yes; merely onward too! Deeper it goes, and deeper, into the wilderness, less plain to be seen at every stride! until, some few miles hence, the yellow leaves will evidence no vestige of the white man's tread. At that place grand fine art free! And then brief a journey would bring thee from a earth where thou hast been most wretched, to one where one thousand mayest still be happy! Is there not shade plenty in all this boundless forest to hide thy centre from the gaze of Roger Chillingworth?"

Page Number and Commendation: 183

Caption and Analysis:

Just Hester Prynne, with a mind of native courage and activity, and for so long a period not merely estranged, merely outlawed, from social club, had habituated herself to such latitude of speculation as was altogether strange to the chaplain. She had wandered, without dominion or guidance, in a moral wilderness.... The ruddy alphabetic character was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers,—stern and wild ones,—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.

Page Number and Citation: 186

Explanation and Analysis:

Pearl kissed his lips. A spell was cleaved. The neat scene of grief, in which the wild babe diameter a function, had adult all her sympathies; and equally her tears cruel upon her father'southward cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor for always do battle with the world, just be a woman in information technology. Towards her mother, too, Pearl's errand as a messenger of anguish was all fulfilled.

Related Symbols: Pearl

Folio Number and Citation: 238

Explanation and Analysis: