The romance novel, The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne depicts the Puritans to be hypocritical, harsh, and unforgiving through his use of rhetoric. Hawthorne extensively uses an impersonal tone toward the harsh judgement in Puritan society; favoring the “undutiful child” or the “bitter tempered widow” whose transgressions are treated as though they were an act of manslaughter. Hawthorne uses conversations between townspeople to further develop his tone of disapproval toward the Puritans. He speaks of the “good church women” who believe that a person who has committed adultery deserves no less than to be branded by a hot iron. Hawthorne uses emotionally loaded words and specific diction such as “grim rigidity,” “severity,” and “solemnity” to reveal the Puritans to be cold, severe and unforgiving. He mentions “jail” and “prison” twice in the opening of the passage. This sets into motion irony into the play, for if the Puritan society were the utopia they made it out to be, there would be no need for a prison. Hawthorne uses the connotative words “child,” “widow,” and “scaffold” to attain a negative emotional response toward the Puritans. The first two words contain connotations to provoke sympathy for the victims and scaffold contains connotations of public humiliation which proves torturous, unjust, and cruel. His portrayal of women undoubtably supports the idea of a cruel and unforgiving society; the gender presumed to be the loving, understanding, and caring, is obscene and robust. His rugged physical description denounces the Puritan women and paints them with “broad shoulders,” “well-developed busts,” and “round cheeks.” He uses the phrase, “their not unsubstantial persons” in the context of getting a view of an execution as a
