Nathaniel hawthorne’s grandfather was directly involved with the hangings at the salem witch trials. how might that familial guilt have influenced hawthorne’s depiction of the puritans?

Hawthorne's most famous work was The Scarlet Letter.  In this novel, he decries Puritan society and exposes the hypocrisy in it.  The story follows a woman who is found to be an adulteress and is subsequently shunned from society.  However, each of the other members of her community are also sinners; they are quick to persecute her whilst not acknowledging their own flaws.  Hawthorne's leftover guilt from the Salem Witch Trials caused him to show the Puritans not as immaculate angels but as sinners like the rest.

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