Nathanial Hawthorne uses imagery of things such as heat, fire and burning to imitate the Puritan’s beliefs of harsh punishment being used on those who have sinned and done wrong. Throughout the beginning of Nathanial Hawthorne’s novel “The Scarlet Letter” he uses the burning imagery associated with the letter ‘A’ when the narrator of the novel first comes across it. As the narrator holds the letter A to his breast he “experiences sensations... Of burning heat” which perhaps portrays how the letter is used as a form of punishment and which is therefore why one can associate it with heat and fire and burning images. This demonstrates how strong god’s anger was towards Hester Prynne meaning that the letter still burns other people who come across it and pick it up... not just the sinner themself .This can relate to Edward’s Sermon as he says that gods anger “burns like fire” One could read this as a supernatural reading, this letter clearly has an almost magical feel to it in the sense that the effect of it still remains , and will continue too. This is very similar to Rev. Edward’s sermon as he says that god’s wrath “burns like fire” towards you.

The women of Salem see Hester’s crime as so awful and terrible that she should have a “brand of a hot iron” on her head. This shows us as the reader that even though Hester is the same gender as them, they have no sympathy or helpful comments to make. It also shows how strong their puritan views and how they felt no commiseration to those who have done wrong. Edward’s sermon shows why the puritan faith is so harsh as he expresses how badly god will punish those who do wrong. This consequently causes everyone to be terrified to do wrong and therefore they feel no sympathy, as they know that if they were to do something sinful the rest of the puritan society would treat them in the same way. “It is nothing but his hand that