LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Scarlet Letter, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
As an adulterer, Hester has broken Puritan society's harsh and strict rules. Puritan society demanded conformity because it considered any breach of that conformity a threat to its security and its religion. Hester doesn't conform and she suffers the consequences: the townspeople punish, shun, and humiliate her. The town seeks to use Hester as an example to frighten any other would-be nonconformists from breaking the strict moral rules of Puritanism. Yet Hester's unshakable faith in herself, her love for Dimmesdale , and her devotion to her daughter empower her to resist and transcend enforced Puritan conformity.
In general in The Scarlet Letter , the conflict between individuality and conformity is also a battle between appearance and reality. Because the Puritan government is so harsh, all Puritans are always concerned about looking like conformists to best fit in. This means that they hide the reality of their human flaws, frailties, and sins in order to avoid punishment. The result are secrets that are the embodiment of the disconnect between private individual reality and the need to maintain the appearance of public conformity. And though keeping secrets provide a short-term solution for the sinner to avoid punishment, the novel argues that repression of the individual behind a mask of secret-keeping conformity will ultimately warp and destroy a person's soul.
Related Themes from Other Texts Compare and contrast themes from other texts to this theme…The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Individuality and Conformity appears in each chapter of The Scarlet Letter. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
