| Hawthorne is one of the most prominent romantic novelists in the world,and his works have strong religious tones. The Scarlet Letter is Hawthorne's masterpiece. With the colonial period in New England as background, with adultery as a clue, the novel portrays in detail the Puritan's persecution towards human's spirit and flesh.From a humanitarian point of view, the author explores a variety of moral, philosophical issues on the evil of human nature, as well as the rigorous requirements and harsh penalties towards the people at that time, fundamentally reflects the defects of Puritan society and the lessons to learn for the next generations.For more than 100 years, Hawthorne and his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter have been commented from a variety of angles:social,historical, psychological and theological.In this thesis, the origin and the decline of Puritanism as well as its value systems are analyzed in depth, and its ideological roots are also explored.And then the concrete impacts of Puritanism on the main characters in The Scarlet Letter are studied, including the persecution towards the heroine Hester Prynne by Puritanism, as well as Arthur Dimmesdale'inner conflicts between the religious doctrine and the crime of adultery he committed.After that, the persecutions of Puritanism on witches are explored, and the figures in the reality and the characters in the novel are compared, for instance, the comparison between the behavior of the victims in the 1692 Witch Trials and Hester Prynne's practices in the novel,and the comparison between the judge's apology in the 1692 Witch Trials and Dimmesdale's repentance in the novel.At last, many social issues related with Puritanism are further explored, such as, the separation of church and state, the single mother, the child's guardianship as well as the immoral clergyman.By analyzing the Puritan persecution, this thesis reveals many issues in the Puritan society, hoping to enlighten people to ponder these issues in present society.
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