Blackiston 1

Gillian Blackiston
American Literature
Professor Bernath
1 April 2013
Hutchinson and Hawthorne on Tolerance
Many people came over to America from Europe to get a new start on life. They did like
how they were being treated in their home towns, so they came here to start and run their own
towns. The people are trying to live like they think they should be lived. Most all of the people
that came over to America wanted to get away from the religious problems they were facing in
Europe. However, they did not realize that some of them would be doing the exact same thing to
their people that Europe did to them. When people have different ideas about religion, the people
in the town want to put it to a stop. Some people experienced intolerance from their townspeople,
like Ann Hutchinson. Nathaniel Hawthorne wants to apologize for his ancestors intolerance of
the puritans. Both Hutchinson and Hawthorne have a say about religious intolerance.
First, the definition of the noun tolerance is a fair objective and permissive attitude
toward the opinions and practices that differ from ones own (dictionary.reference.com). This
definition can be used to define religious tolerance. The same can be said about the early
Americans that came to live here in America. They came over here to be able to practice their
own religion without being looked down upon. However, they were not tolerant of each other ,
when one wanted to move away from the practiced religion.
Ann Hutchinson is an American writer, who is experienced with religious intolerance.
When she came to the new world in the 1600s, the men were the ones in charge of the religion.
The men were the ones being called to be ministers and conducting all the religious stuff in the

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new settlements. However, Hutchinson did not agree with everything that the men would say,
and would have small gatherings in her house to talk about what she thought. She was tolerant of
their beliefs even though they were intolerant of her own beliefs. She was preaching in her home,
but she was showing the other side of the beliefs that the men were telling everyone. Hutchinson
just wanted to tell people that there is more than one way of thinking. During the cross
examination that happened in The Examination of Mrs. Ann Hutchinson, the governor is
questioning Ann about why she was teaching other women in her house. In the introduction of
the examination, Mr. Winthrop clearly states the intolerance that the court has with Hutchinson:
...and you have maintained a meeting and an assembly in your house that hath been condemned
by the general assembly as a thing not tolerable nor comely in the sight of God nor fitting for
your sex...therefore we have thought good to send for you to understand how things are, that if
you be in an erroneous way we may reduce you that so you may become a profitable member
here among us...(Early American Writing 159). Ann Hutchinson is being tried for experiencing
religious intolerance from her fellow townspeople. She keeps firing questions back at the court to
make them see the intolerance that they are causing her to experience and to practice her
tolerance towards them.
Nathaniel Hawthorne wants to apologize for his ancestors intolerance of puritans. When
he was learning about what his family has done, he was ashamed of them and wants to make up
for the things they did. He was so ashamed that he changed the spelling of his last name to
distance himself a little more from them. Hawthorne ends up writing The Scarlet Letter to set his
own actions apart from the ancestors and presenting his view of the intolerance that the ancestors
practiced. In the novel, Hawthorne uses the character Hester Prynne to portray the intolerance
that she had to experience from his ancestors. As Hester is preparing to come out of the

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courthouse, several older women in the town are standing in a huddle not far from the door
gossipping away. They bash Hester and the horrible sin that she committed against the religion:
Goodwives, said a hard-featured dame of fifty, Ill tell ye a piece of my mind. It would be
greatly for the public behoof, if we women, being of mature age and church-members in good
repute, should have the handling of such malefactresses as this Hester Prynne (Hawthorne 35).
Hester committed adultery and is now experiencing intolerance from the other townspeople by
having to listen to them talk about her. Hawthorne uses Hester to show the kind of intolerance
that people back in his ancestors time had to deal with. He also uses Hester as a way to show
that he is ashamed for what his family has done in the past.
In conclusion, Hutchinson and Hawthorne have an idea of what experiencing intolerance
is like. For Hutchinson, it was personal and actually happened, where Hawthorne had to pretend
what it was like based on family stories and records. While these two dealt a little with the
intolerance of other people, they were not alone. Many other people that were in America had
also experienced intolerance from others. Some of the people may not have tried to be intolerant
to others, but it just somehow managed to come out while they were focused on building their
community in America.

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Works Cited
Gunn, Giles. Early American Writing. London: Penguin, 1994. Print.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter Unabridged.NY: Dover Publications, 1994. Print.
"Tolerance." Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 03 Mar. 2013.

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The first thing that I changed was the introduction paragraph. I basically dumped the old one and
made a new one from scratch. I tried to not be as vague in this one. For the second paragraph, I
kept most of it, but replaced two sentences with This definition can be used to define religious
tolerance. For the third paragraph, I dumped the majority of it out. I kept some sentences about
the background. For the rest of the paragraph, I added a quote and explained how the quote
relates to Hutchinsons experience with intolerance. For the fourth paragraph, I got rid of all the
false statements that I had in the original, and replaced them with statements that are true or more
accurate. I changed the quote from the original one to go with the idea about how Hester
experienced intolerance in the town. I dumped the rest of original paragraph entirely. Finally, I
completely redid the conclusion paragraph. I tried to not be as vague in closing out the paper.