The Scarlet Letter as a Christian Novel

This novel The Scarlet Letter is based on the context of Puritan society. The Puritans were most religious person. They believed that in Christian myth all mankind was depraved and sinful because of Adam and Eve's fall from the Garden of Eden. Because Adam and Eve were willful and disobedient to God, they brought upon mankind the course of depravity sometimes called origin of all sin.

According to Puritans, a merciful God has sent His son Jesus Christ, to earth to die for the sin of man. This novel shows the novelist's attitude towards these Puritans of Boston in his portrayal of characters, his plot and themes of his story. In the case of sin, it is closely associated with Christianity. The experience of Hester and Dimmesdale recalls the story of Adam and Eve because in both cases, it results in suffering and agony. Adam and Eve, the hero and heroine of Christian were also situated in law-based Eden Garden. In the same way, here too Hester and Dimmesdale are in the law-based puritan society.

Adam and Eve were in the strict law of God. Once when they disobeyed the rule of God, they became sinners. As a result, they had to give up the Eden Garden and brought into the mankind. It is said to them that they have to do so much labor and they have to get more sufferings in the earthly world. So, in the Christianity man is the product of sin. Like in the Christian myth, Hester and Dimmesdale of this novel became sinners because of their adultery, which was a disobedient of seventh commandments. As a result, they also suffered all kinds of agony. The puritans had great difficulty in loving the sinner like the God of Christian myth.

So, the sin for adulteress became the reason of their fall. As a punishment, they have experienced too much agony physically and psychologically. Yes, Hester is publicly sinner, she has given the letter as her sign of sin, but Dimmesdale also suffers in his own position. So, in puritan society puritans' view sin as a threat to the community that should be punished and suppressed. The experience of Dimmesdale and Hester shows that a state of sinfulness can lead to personal growth, sympathy and understanding of others. But it can be accepted that before the fall of Adam and Eve ignorance was there in the world, but in the earth after their fall, they got knowledge specially the knowledge of what it means to be human.

On the other side, to some extent, Chillingworth, the evil character of the novel might have been taken as the representative of Satan as it has been depicted in Christian mythology. Like Satan in Christian myth which wants to take revenge against god, Chillingworth also wants to take revenge on the man who has betrayed him. In that sense too, this novel is related to the Christian myth.