Jefferson, Paine, and Their Impact on American Literature

Two of the most influential political figures in the American Revolution era, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson, were more than related to in United States politics, but were related to in American Literature as well. The people of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” are represented in the ideas and works of Jefferson and Paine.

These Puritans, who existed long before Hawthorne’s time, were able to be created by reference to the writings of Jefferson and Paine. The profiling of his characters, the creation of personal motives and behavior, as well as the basic judgment of their basic character traits is enabled by the two founding fathers. By looking at the writing done of the colonists (Jefferson) as well as the writing done to the colonists (Paine’s “Common Sense”), one can derive a brief glimpse at what the people of Hester Pyrnne’s time must have been like, as well as what tribulations they must have been faced with.

Thomas Paine speaks of why the colonists first came to America, and what makes them different from the King and the English. He uses those differences to help him explain to the colonists in “Common Sense” why they should revolt and why they have a right to do so. These differences described by Paine are the grounds for Hawthorne’s characters to move to the New World in the first place, and thus a background is supplied for the characters of Hawthorne’s Puritan settlement. Thomas Jefferson speaks of what these people, once they arrived, became. He states that those fleeing England to seek toleration, created an environment that once they came to charge became intolerant as well.

The “reigning sects” as Jefferson called them, are portrayed in Hawthorne’s book. These people who have achieved power have become caught up in creating systems, administering, and following the laws. They are the ones who lost their tolerance, and they are the ones portrayed in the “Scarlet Letter”. In consequence Hawthorne may judge his characters, because he knows from Jefferson and Paine what they must have been like, what people they had been before their travels, and what people they became thereafter.