Nathaniel Hawthorne used his writing skills to appropriately show the strict intolerant ways of the disciplined Puritan America of 1850, with his novel The Scarlet Letter. This novel has become a classic, because of the accurate portrayal of the conservative Puritan ways. His novel is one of few to tell of the true Puritan lifestyle. Hawthorne explains the ways in which society cast out any individual for standing apart from the common crowd. The ways in which a person was punished by an entire community, only because their own ideas deviated from the common morals or values. And best of all, Hawthorne shows the way a "good Christian society" would lash out at anything they were afraid of.
             The first chapter of the novel introduces the main character Hester Prynne. She is being publicly humiliated as a punishment for breaking a puritan belief and one of the ten commandments, adultery. She stands in front of the town for hours as the crowd tries to break her down with criticism and shaming words. After this she is given her punishment of being forever branded with her sin by wearing the letter "A" on her chest, as a constant reminder to herself and the town of her sin. She is thrown out of the town and is no longer a community member. She suffered these ordeals and punishments because she was a mystery to them, she was different from them all. These perfect puritans threw her out of their lives because she was not mainstream, and she dared to do something they were forced to deny themselves.
             The Puritans' fear is what drives them to outcast Hester. A group of people with such over powering ethical beliefs has to focus their anger somewhere. They all live in fear they themselves will be outcast. So when the opportunity arises, they persecute someone else. The women all see Hester as a threat, because they are unsure of who the male partner was that participated in this act of sin. So the women who push for a more harsh punishment, ...