Scarlet letter and hypocrisy of puritans

“What is an American Puritan, Good Religion or Hypocrisy?”

What is an American Puritan? First what is an American, someone who has come from another country or origin other than the United States of America, to live, there lives. Puritan’s, a religious section of English Protestants and English Calvinists in the 16th and 17th centuries. Because of the time period and religion at this time, a lot of pressure was put on a person to live by good standards or more arguably religious standards. This is shown very well in the book The Scarlet Letter, there are many examples of this religious time period and the pressures of living in this time, to be a good person in the eye of a Puritan. In my essay I am going to talk about this standard of the church or of human standards, set by this time period, religion, people, and the hypocrisy of how some lived their lives’.

Hester Prynne, who is the main character in the book The Scarlet letter, is a perfect and great example, on how someone should have acted in this puritan community to be considered a good person, or better known as, a natural man. In the book, Hester gives birth to a child named Pearl, who is fathered by another man, not her husband. In the Puritan community this is a sin and not taken lightly, because of her adultery she is to wear a patch with the scarlet letter “A” on her chest, to show her sin to everyone who see’s her. Her sin by Puritan standards is to be known to her everyday by this patch and anyone who comes in contact with her. Hester wears this patch and is not happy about it, but does where it and does not try to hide it or her sin. The man who fathered Pearl is not known to anyone in the community, but Hester and Dimmesdale, who is the father of Pearl. Dimmesdale is a great example of hypocrisy, he is the father of Pearl and also the towns religious Reverend, but yet does not tell anyone in the town his sin. Dimmesdale sees his sin and hypocrisy as separate things not just one big sin, but as completely different sins or degrees of sin as shown here in this quote; “Be not silent form nay mistaken pity and tenderness for him; for, believe me, Hester, though he were to step down form a high place, and stand there beside thee, on they pedestal of shame, yet better were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life. What can thy silence do for him, except it tempt him- yea, compel him, as it were- to add hypocrisy to sin?”(Hawthorne pg26). This is hypocrisy at its finest in the book. And of puritan beliefs in my opinion, hide your sin don’t let anyone know but yourself, look good on the outside to the world and other people, but hide your sin so you appear a good puritan to the world.

To be an American Puritan, in my opinion in short then, is to have beliefs in a certain religion or God and to live by those standards daily. But as I have shown it is hard to live by these standards all the time, because we are human, we make mistakes, and the natural man will never be perfect. This is what make’s us human is our mistakes and the way we handle them. Hester handles her mistake with pride and honesty, she wears the scarlet letter everyday and doesn’t hide from it she embraces it and is working towards a better life daily. Dimmesdale on the other hand is a hypocrite and is hiding and running from his mistakes, and tries to cover them up. He makes up a huge scene in front of himself, of being this great person and Reverend. So, that know one will question what type of person he really is inside, they will only see the outer appearance of a good Puritan man.