The Puritan Society Exposed In The Scarlett Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne in his insightful novel, The Scarlet Letter, illustrates the social issues that were prevalent in the Puritan society. While it is acknowledged that horrific events were occurring during that time, we often fail to consider the effects these events have on the recipients of the judgement of their society. These recipients that encounter this shame and judgment often repress their feelings deep within themselves. To delve into the impact the acts of repression have on individual characters and their relationships, we look to psychoanalytic criticism for the answers. Psychoanalytic criticism helps us “better understand human behavior” (Hazlet) and human behavior is one of the most complex and commonly studied topics in the
The difference is, the Puritan society does not hold him directly accountable for they know not what he did. If it as any other society, he could’ve come clean and married Hester, the love of his life, with little to no repercussions. The society is inadvertently causing his acts of repression within himself. To keep his position in the church and remain on his pedestal, he cowardly hides his crime. He represses his guilt for not being with Hester and owning up to his mistake and like Hester, this harms his physical body and heart. In the beginning of the book, his description is simply “godly” (Hawthorne 46) as of being a representative of God. At the end of the book, he is witnessed as of “intense misery” (Hawthorne 127) and of a “deathlike hue” (Hawthorne 193). Dimmesdale’s subconscious burdened his physical appearance with death and decay; his physical man has been overtaken by the uncontrollable subconscious. Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter intends to demonstrate to us that burdens placed by your surroundings can harm and afflict your subconscious, and the subconscious being uncontrollable can destroy the physique and the