"The dungeons were never empty; the streets of almost every village echoed daily with the lash; the life of a woman, whose mild and Christian spirit no cruelty could embitter, had been sacrificed; and more innocent blood was yet to pollute the hands that were so often raised in prayer." (TGB 49)
             These were the times of the disciplined Puritans, times in which individual behavior and beliefs fell under strict Puritanical, authoritarian rule. Nathaniel Hawthorne criticizes the Puritan society of the 1600's in two of his works of fiction, The Scarlet Letter and "The Gentle Boy". In both of these stories, Hawthorne sets out to show how devastating social oppression can be on individual souls, even when some are innocent of any crime.
             In The Scarlet Letter, we are introduced to certain characters who feel the overwhelming impact of social oppression. One of these characters is Hester Prynne. For her sin of adultery, she is made to wear the letter A upon her chest and stand upon the scaffold so that her shame and guilt can be observed by all. The townspeople show no sympathy for Hester. Indeed, some even feel that the punishment given is too kind, with harsher punishments of death and branding implied. Hawthorne criticizes the townspeople for their seeming enjoyment of Hester's descent into sin with the statement: "The scene was not without a mixture of awe, such as must always invest the spectacle of guilt and shame in a fellow-creature, before society shall have grown corrupt enough to smile, instead of shuddering, at it" (TSL 125). Society's judgment upon Hester's sin is an illustration of the corruption that comes with social oppression.
             Because of her punishment, Hester begins a life of loneliness and isolation, where her alienated status prevents her from having any true companions, except for Pearl, her daughter. However, even Pearl taunts Hester about the A she mu...