Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Those damn Puritans
In the Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne gives a good description of the Puritans and how they act towards those that did bad things. The passage on page 77, "The Clergymen paused in the street to address words of exhortation..." and a few pages later on 84, "The truth was, that the little Puritans, being of the most intolerant brood that ever lived..." gives a good sense of how they were and acted. Throughout the novel, Hester's peers and even the children all looked at her with disgrace. The beginning of the novel starts with her having to stand in front of the rest of her community with the letter A for adultery stuck on her breast, trying to make her feel shame. Even the children see Pearl and instantly think of flinging mud at her. Everyone buys what Hester creates with her needle-working skills, except bridal veils because of her sin. These people saw the sin in her and it determined how they viewed her. Today, what she did happens all the time and no one really cares, but back then they saw that she performed an act of sin and she is exiled from the rest of society. It makes me think about how insane these people were. There was no real reason to make such a big deal out of it, but crazy is what crazy does. She didn't deserve what she had to go through, but the crazy people still made her suffer due to a belief that might not even be true. I just really don't like religion, it screws everything up and makes people do things that don't make sense.
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