Justice System In The Scarlett Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

As years have gone by and cultures have changed, the religious justice systems have evolved just as quickly. The book, The Scarlet Letter, emphasizes the harsh justice system of the Puritan lifestyle. The author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, uses his creativity to throw a spotlight on Puritan ideals and political systems. These ideals and political systems have shaped a large portion of our current cultural and moral expectations. For instance, the puritan forms of discipline, which Hawthorne hopes to detract from, including public shame, being set apart from the rest of society, and the shame that the main character’s daughter would carry because of her mother. The Puritan religion began when a group of people from the Church of England decided
If a person committed a sin, especially adultery, the guilty was shunned and rejected from society. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester’s daughter, Pearl, was shunned like her mother because she was born out of wedlock. Unlike her mother, Pearl would often fight back at those who ridiculed her mother and herself. Many of the townspeople and Hester Prynne believed that Pearl was devilish and had no good in her. “Brooding over all these matters, the mother felt like one who has evoked a spirit, but, by some irregularity in the process of conjuration, has failed to win the master-word that should control this new and incomprehensible intelligence. Her only real comfort was when the child lay in the placidity of sleep.” (Hawthorne 63). The child had witnessed and felt the rejection and shame that was cast upon her mother and grew a violent temperament towards those who mocked her mother and the children who would not include her. “If the children gathered about her, as they sometimes did, Pearl would grow positively terrible in her puny wrath, snatching up stones to fling at them” (Hawthorne 64). If a child grows up in a world of shame and hatred towards her, that is the behavior she will always know to be