The Importance Of Passion In The Scarlet Letter

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Overall the puritans had a major twist for the novel and for Hester herself. Law is equal as the religion rules in people’s lives. In the novel, Hester Prynne changes from a passionate mother to a colder, austere skeptic of the Puritan society around her. The Puritans’ responsibility for Hester’s change conveys how passion cannot exist in Puritan society. Hester gains some of the community’s respect with her charity to the poor and her outward conformity to Puritan values, but the scarlet letter causes her to have a colder demeanor than before. Hawthorne writes, “All the light and graceful foliage of her character had been withered up by this red-hot brand…” (154). Hester once had the passion for her daughter and for her lover, but the scarlet letter took that passion away from her. …show more content…

The Puritans did not believe in relishing in the joys of the earth and instead looked to God and heaven for happiness. Before her punishment, Hester did not fit the mold of Puritanism, so the Puritans punished her with the scarlet letter, which irrevocably stiffened her character. In doing so, Puritans also took away Hester’s earthly passion, her defining characteristic, which demonstrates how Hester’s change conveys that passion cannot exist in Puritan society. Hester’s changing view of her own position in society and the Puritan view of Pearl also conveys the dominance that her community has over her. Even though Hester outwardly appears to be austere and pious, she becomes even more skeptical of Puritan society on the inside. She begins to believe that her life as an oppressed woman is not worth living, and wonders “whether it was not better to send Pearl at once to heaven, and go herself to such futurity as Eternal Justice should

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