The Scarlet Letter

Outline

Introduction

Introduction of the story's creation and background.

Discussion

The novel is briefly discussed under this heading.

Narration

Hawthorne's narrative technique is discussed and analyzed under this heading.

Conclusion

the essay is being concluded here in which the story of the novel and Hawthorne's writing style has been covered.

Introduction

Started as a tale and completed shortly after Hawthorne's dismissal from the Salem surveyorship, “The Scarlet Letter” prefaced by an essay titled “The Custom House” in which Hawthorne not only gives an imaginative account of his business experience but also presents a theory of composition. In writing, however, Hawthorne exorcised his annoyance at his political dismissal, which, coupled with charges of malfeasance, instigated by the Whigs who wanted him replaced; as Arlin Turner comments, “The decapitated surveyor, in becoming a character in a semi fictional account, had all but ceased to be Hawthorne.” The writer, in short, had made fiction out of his business experiences. He also had speculated about the preconceptions necessary for the creator of romances; such a man, he decided, must be able to perceive the “neutral territory” where the “actual” and the “imaginary” meet. The result of that perception was ”The Scarlet Letter”.

Discussion

In the prefatory essay to the book, Hawthorne establishes the sophistry of “The Scarlet Letter”, in which, he says, he has in his control as an old, gray, dilapidated remainder of the history. Hawthorne brought the attention of the readers forcefully to the chief representation, not merely of Hester's infidelity or her talent, but of the mode in which the limitations of the Puritan pedigree exceeded through the affection of the person's heart. Through this symbol, then, and through its living counterpart, Pearl, the daughter of Hester and Dimmesdale, Hawthorne examines the isolating effects of a sense of sin, using as his psychological setting the Puritan ethos.

With, Hester's ...