Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

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Recommended: Introduction to the scarlet letter

Sigmund Freud, creator of the Freudian psychoanalysis, once said about hypocrisy, “He does not believe that does not live according to his belief.” This is essentially Freud’s loose definition of hypocrisy, a term that the Oxford English Dictionary defines as “the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform.” In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, the characters’ hypocrisy represents the pervasiveness of hypocrisy in all people. Hypocrisy is evident in all of The Scarlet Letter’s main characters: Hester, Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, the town of Boston, and Pearl.
One of the main characters in the novel, Hester, shows the pervasiveness of hypocrisy with her own hidden hypocrisy and the implications it suggests. In Chapter 13, we learn about Hester’s changes seven years after the initial scaffold scene. In particular, we learn that she believes “the whole of society” needs to be torn down and “built up anew” to allow women to assume “a fair and suitable position,” (114). Despite this ideology, she does nothing throughout the entire novel to equalize herself. Hester never seizes on the opportunity to leave the strict Puritan society that is restricting her freedoms, which is a clear indicator that she can’t act on her innermost beliefs and thoughts. Even worse, Hester becomes reattached to the town of Boston, and is even pardoned and assumes a traditional feminist role of an embroiderer. Hester’s radical thoughts about the Puritans and their view of women do not match her demure actions, which is an example of hypocrisy. In addition, Hester’s situation is an example of hypocrisy being hidden from the public eye. Hester thinks of things that the “forefathers, had they...

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...interacts well with the animals. She seems completely uncivilized and cooperates with the forest, which the Puritans view as the home of the devil and consequently go to great lengths to further their society from it. However, as soon as she is called to return, she throws a tantrum because Hester’s scarlet letter is no longer on Hester’s chest. Suddenly, Pearl becomes the voice of civilization, and demands her mother reattach the letter the way society forces Hester to. Although the hypocrisy in Pearl’s sudden switch may not be intentional, it serves to deliver a message. Pearl’s hypocrisy suggests that even children are not free of hypocrisy, and may act hypocritically without even knowing so. By addressing hypocrisy in Pearl, Hawthorne brings hypocrisy to the child of the novel, suggesting that everyone, even the young, are not free from the ubiquitous hypocrisy.

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