Hawthorne’s Motives for Writing the Scarlett Letter Essay

Hawthornes motives for writing The Scarlet letter were to wear out corruption in Puritan friendship, devotion, and politics. Hawthorne demonstrates both corruption and hypocrisy in Puritan society as the townspeople and even the Governor wear her ornamentation, yet banish her and ostracize her as an castaway and a sinner. The town buys her clothes for an unknown reason most likely their own curiosity, its beauty, or they just matt-up sorry for her. This shows the societys inability to follow through with their own punishments. They are willing to ostracize her and banish her, but still buy her embroidery. However much they chose to wear her embroidery on most articles of clothing, they ref utilize to wear her embroidery on wedding veils as they were created by her sinful hands, masking the relentless vigor with which society frowned upon her sin (Hawthorne 76).Religion played a major role in Hawthornes writing, even though he was not a member of any religious organization. The religion mentioned in The Scarlet Letter was Puritanism and in his writing he intended to expose the power the Puritans used to control the church and state. For example, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Roger Williams differed with the colonys leaders on the family relationship between church and state. The authorizes in the Bay feared that the foul error emanating from him could spread and corrupt the entire colony. In October 1635, the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony banished him (smithsonianmag.com).Due to the fact that Hawthorne was not a severalize of any organized religion he was able to criticize religions without the fear of repercussion. Hawthorne also wanted to expose the corruption in religion when he wrote The Scarlet Letter. In the Custom House he mentioned that he was a Democrat while the Whigs were in power. Hawthorne also said I had spent three geezerhoodin an unnatural state, doing what was really of no advantage nor delight to any human being (Ha wthorne 40). here he is saying that because he was a Democrat in a Whig society he felt he couldnt speak up and that it was unnatural.