religious belief

lrony is a typical rhetorical device in the Scarlet Letter. The subject matter of the work itself is a kind of irony. The love affair between the learned and devout young clergyman Dimmesdale and Hester, a married woman, was a great irony to the Puritan establishment and creed that strangled humanity and human love at the time.Because the puritans saw him as a "model of holiness."Such a burst of spontaneity in the reader produced a great deal of suspense and contrast. The reader's expectation and the actual occurrence of the formation of psychological gap, resulting in aesthetic distance; thereby strengthening the aesthetic and ironic effect. In my opinion ,the novel is a tragedy. Hester is brave enough to face the cruel reality, while her lover , Dimmesdate , was quite coward to admit his sins. In addition, as all his energy and strength had been paid in revenging , Chillingworth lost his meaning of life after Dimmesdate died. It's a story based on religious belief so it's not easy to understand.The story shows us the writer's thought in literature —Judge people and the world by the evil view of religion.