"We have two kinds of morality side by side: one, which we preach but do not practice, and another, which we practice but seldom preach." These words of British philosopher Bertrand Russell captivate the Puritan character as portrayed in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne was a man of Puritan decent yet he had the ability to remove himself and examine the practices of this Christian sect with an analytical eye. In The Scarlet Letter Hawthorne criticizes the hypocrisy and points out the irony in Puritan society through setting, reflections from objects, and the views of the people of Boston.

Often in the Puritan settlements of the seventeenth century New England, the clergymen, the most revered, respected, and honored men of their time, were frequently the members of colonial society with the most despicable moral character. Hawthorne blatantly states this in his detailed commentary of Governor Bellingham's home...