All families have the stereotype of an embarrassing family member that no one wants to be associated with. But imagine having an ancestor responsible for the irrational conviction of nearly twenty innocent people. One of America's greatest authors, Nathaniel Hawthorne, did not have the luxury of imagining such a dilemma. This hypothetical situation was his reality. His great-great-grandfather was a judge for the infamous Salem witch trials. Nathaniel was so reluctant to be associated with Judge John Hathorne that he added the letter "w" to his name. But he didn't stop there. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne expresses his strong disapproval of the morally extreme Puritans through the use of characterizations, allusions, and tones. The development of each character in The Scarlet Letter was deliberate, especially that of Hester Prynne. Hawthorne made her beautiful to allow the reader to empathize with her. He says: “The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance, of great height. She had black, abundant hair, so shiny that it cast a glow on the sun...” If Hawthorne had made her ugly, or even average, the semi-Puritan reader of his day would have developed strong feelings against Hester. Hawthorne also makes her a strong and courageous woman. Once Hester was branded with her shame, she could have left Boston with her illegitimate daughter and lived a normal life elsewhere. However, if she had chosen to leave, it would only have served to concede defeat to Puritan society. Instead, she chose to live a life of ignominy in Boston in the hopes that Dimmesdale would return to her. Another strong indicator of Hawthorne's true feelings is his use of allusions. When Hester is in the middle of the paper, he could not accept anyone or anything that is different from them. Parents taught their children, who then taught their children, and so on. It was a vicious cycle of hatred. However, the Bible says to love your neighbor as yourself. Hawthorne wants the reader to see that when the Puritans taught hatred and discrimination against people with whom they disagreed, they were just as, if not more, sacrilegious than Hester and Dimmesdale were when they committed their sin. Throughout The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses characterizations, allusions, and tone to suggest his brazenly obvious disapproval of the Puritans. His ideas were incredibly revolutionary for a man who lived in 1850. He accurately predicted the mentality of a society nearly two hundred years ahead of his own. Wouldn't his great-great-grandfather be proud?