"Under the Heavy Weight of a Thousand Unrelenting Eyes": Nathaniel Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter and Puritan principles of Community Involvement
This 4-page undergraduate paper considers Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850) and Frederick Binder and David Reimers, The Way We Lived, Vol. I: 1492-1877 in order to explore the idea that the story of Hester Prynne reflect Puritan principles. Specifically, this paper examines the ways in which Hester’s story suggests that for the Puritans, morality, family values, and religion were never separate from public life or from communities. In brief, this paper looks at the relationships which Hester has with her lover, her husband, her daughter, and her community, and concludes that Hester’s story reflects not only some of the realities, but also some of the more problematic aspects of Puritan culture. Hester’s relationships with her husband and her lover reveal the importance of patriarchy in Puritan culture, but these relationships also suggest some of the uncomfortable spaces patriarchy may posit women. Hester’s relationship with her daughter suggests the prevalence of community involvement in family morals, but also suggests that communities may have sometimes left families to develop with only observation and not with community interference. Hester’s relationship with the community suggests that observation and judgement may have played a role in Puritan society, which was concerned with upholding religious and moral standards, but that some fluidity allowed untraditional individuals and families to exist in the economic and social fiber of Puritan society.
