The Puritan's obsession with perfectionism led them to drift from God as they focused more on being a certain way rather than focusing on their beliefs in God. They moved to America with the sole purpose of obtaining tolerance and freedom, yet they were not tolerant towards those who were not Puritans, particularly those who made mistakes. Hawthorne was interested in the life of the Puritans. Hawthorne was actually quite familiar with the bible and with the Puritan's concept of sin as related to love. Hawthorne thought that the Puritans as "people amongst whom religion and law were almost identical, and in whose character both were so thoroughly interfused, that the mildest and the severest acts of public discipline were alike made venerable and awful" (Harper, 4). In “The Scarlet Letter” Hawthorne utilizes symbolism, character development, and the theme of sin in order to expose hypocrisy in the Puritan way of life. “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, takes place in a Puritan colony. A woman who had committed adultery was to pay the price of her crime. The colony puts her in jail and forces her to wear a scarlet letter on her chest. Later she is forced to stand on a scaffold where everyone gawks at her. At that time her husband emerges from the woods and signals her not to tell anyone his real identity. Dimmesdale, a respectable preacher of the colony, asks her to reveal the identity of her lover but she keeps it a secret. Hester’s husband swears to find out who the father of her illegitimate child is. This leads him to create a new identity for himself as the colony’s doctor named Chillingworth. Chillingworth then realizes that Dimmesdale is the father of Hester’s child and tortures him on top of the fact that Dimmesdale is already suffering on his own for his sin. Eventually Dimmesdale and Hester begin talking again and they agree to escape on a ship to Europe and begin a new life there as a family, but their plans are ruined by Chillingworth, who seems to have arranged to be on that ship as well. At the end of the book Dimmesdale decides to go on the scaffold and reveal his scarlet letter for the entire colony to see. After revealing his secret he dies, and Hester and Pearl are back where they started. “The Scarlet Letter”, attracts the reader with its character development, symbolism, and theme of sin. Hester Prynne is a young woman who had gotten married to an older scholar Englishman. She was then sent to America with the promise that her husband will soon follow. But things did not go as planned. It turns out that, in America, she encountered a man who she cheated on her husband with. This resulted in a child, her time in prison, and permanently being an outcast in society. Hester was forced to wear a scarlet letter A on her chest as a reminder of her adultery. As time goes by Hester seems to feel less pain about being alienated from everyone in the colony. Her character develops in a unique way. At the beginning of the story she is al