Puritans In The Scarlet Letter By Hester Prynne

The Puritans of the old world envisioned a virtuous society when they landed at Plymouth but the reality of human nature would prohibit them from doing so. Puritans believed they had to be as pure and humble to god as one human being could. However, the world is not perfect, it is a part of our human nature to make mistakes and one individual, Hester Prynne made mistakes in The Scarlet Letter and her Puritan society shunned her for them, even while they know that even the most uptight Puritan is capable of committing sin. This out-casting of sinful individuals has created spheres within the text separating characters into their own spheres for better or for worse. Some learn to grow from the spheres while others are left to perish by them such as the reverend Dimmesdale.

Although Dimmesdale and Hester occupy the same sphere of sin the way they cope with their sin differs greatly. Hester is casted out due to her infidelity that has left her with a child named pearl, Hester begins to conform to her new life being labeled as an adulterer she even went as far to embroider the letter "A" on her chest as a statement of self determination. Hester being outcasted into her own sphere learns to not let the crass nature of society phase her morality as she is human and understands that in order to be human you must make mistakes.

Hester changes as a person from being in this sphere she becomes a philosopher and begins to see the flaws within in the society much better than the rest of the community. This sphere she lives in teaches her to think differently than the rest of society as shown by this quote from the text, "The scarlet letter 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." (The Scarlet Letter, Pg 196).
Dimmesdale being such a respected member of the community reacts oppositely to Hester and instead of learning from his sin he is haunted and tortured by it. He then personally extricates himself into this sphere he is constantly burdened by it and suffers emotionally and physically from it, the effects of sin are linked directly to how you view them, because we see two different individuals affected by the same sin but with two very different mentality towards it. Dimmesdale's health begins to decline and he is accompanied by a prevalent feeling of guilt and shame brought on by his need to hide the sin from the community. This sphere entraps Dimmesdale and his morality and spiritual condition suffer from it, although he may give more emotional speeches. Dimmesdale physical decline is shown here, "While thus suffering under bodily disease, and gnawed and tortured by some black trouble of the soul, and given over to the machinations of his deadliest enemy."(The Scarlet Letter, Pg 137). Dimmesdale's sin is represented by the, "black trouble of the soul" and his soul suffers because of it.
The Scarlet Letter utilizes many different spheres but those relating to sin seemed most important to address, as sin is much of what the context of this novel is about.

The characters in this novel have separated themselves into different groups and spheres sheltered from the outer world only left to their own speculations about the way society should function. Society has played a major role in the creation of these spheres, if Hester's community hadn't been so purified and harsh regarding sin they would not have shamed her and looked at her as an abomination of some sort, and thus the sphere in which she resided would have not existed for

her.