Treatment of Sin, Isolation and Purgation in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter

Abstract

The Scarlet Letter is one of the most important and powerful novels by Nathaniel Hawthorne in which the novelist has given us an authentic picture of Puritan society. Hester Prynne, the protagonist of the novel, is the victim of rigid and repressive codes of the society in which adultery is completely banned, but Hester gives way to her repressed feelings when she is a co-partner in the sin of adultery with Arthur Dimmesdale. She commits the sin of passion and not of principle, but she feels that she had not violated the sanctity of a human heart. So, the committed sin is of no importance in itself. It is a story of sin, salvation and purgation.