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"Nathaniel Hawthorne." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 07 Sept. 2018.

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New England writer Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, where his paternal ancestors had been prominent since the founding generation (who then spelled their last name Hathorn). When he began writing fiction, he was drawn into a search for material in the careers of his early ancestors and in the history of colonial New England. While attending Bowdoin College, Hawthorne began writing tales or a romance or both. He would go on to write many American stories and novels, including "Young Goodman Brown" (1835), Twice-Told Tales (1837), "Ethan Brand" (1850), The Scarlet Letter (1850), The House of the Seven Gables (1851), and The Blithedale Romance (1852).

In sketches, tales, and romances published in the second third of the 19th century, Hawthorne chose mainly American materials, drawing especially on the history of colonial New England and his native Salem in the time of his early American ancestors. Heir to the Puritan tradition and alert to the transcendental thought prominent in his region and time, he subjected both to his skeptical, questioning scrutiny in the moral and psychological probing that is characteristic of his fictional works. Considering guilt-actual or imagined, revealed or concealed-to be a universal human experience, he traced out in his characters the types and the effects of guilt. The seriousness of his literary purpose, his independence of mind, and his intellectual and artistic integrity were recognized by Herman Melville and others of his contemporaries. He placed a number of characters and scenes among the most memorable in world literature; he was master of a prose style that is individual, simple and direct, and yet richly varied. Hawthorne's writing influenced Melville, who dedicated Moby-Dick (1851) to Hawthorne, as well as Henry James and William Faulkner; they were drawn particularly by his symbolic method and his attention to the dark elements in human experience. Through both direct statement and example, he helped define for his age the literary sketch, the tale, and long fiction that fuses romance and psychological realism.

Hawthorne lived in New England most of his life, and at one point lived in Concord, Massachusettes, where he lived near Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. He died on May 19, 1864 and was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts.

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New England writer Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, where his paternal ancestors had been prominent since the founding generation (who then spelled their last name Hathorn). When he began writing fiction, he was drawn into a search for material in the careers of his...

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Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Nathaniel Hawthorne." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 30 June 2018. Web. 07 Sept. 2018.

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Nathaniel Hawthorne (born July 4, 1804, Salem, Massachusetts, U.S.-died May 19, 1864, Plymouth, New Hampshire) is one of the greatest fiction writers of 19th-century American literature. A master of the allegorical and symbolic tale, he remains best known for the novels The Scarlet Letter (1850) and The House of the Seven Gables (1851).

Ancestry and early years

Hawthorne's ancestors had lived in Salem, Massachusetts, since the 17th century. His earliest American ancestor was William Hathorne, a magistrate who was a staunch defender of Puritan orthodoxy, with its zealous advocacy of a "pure," unaffected form of religious worship, its rigid adherence to a simple, almost severe, mode of life, and its conviction of the "natural depravity" of "fallen" humankind. (Hawthorne added a w to his surname when he began to write.) Among Hathorne's actions as magistrate was sentencing a Quaker woman to public whipping.

Hawthorne was later to wonder whether the decline of his family's prosperity and prominence during the 18th century, while other Salem families were growing wealthy from the lucrative shipping trade, might not be a retribution for this act and for the role of William Hathorne's son John as one of three judges in the Salem witchcraft trials that began in 1692.

When Nathaniel's father-a ship's captain-died during one of his voyages, he left his young widow without means to care for her two girls and Nathaniel, who was four years old. She moved in with her affluent brothers, the Mannings. Hawthorne grew up in their house in Salem and, for extensive periods during his teens, in Raymond, Maine, on the shores of Sebago Lake.

He returned to Salem in 1825 after four years at Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Maine. Hawthorne did not distinguish himself as a young man. Instead, he spent nearly a dozen years reading and trying to master the art of writing fiction.

First works and the Transcendentalists

In college Hawthorne had excelled only in composition and had decided to become a writer. Upon graduation, he wrote Fanshawe, a novel that he published at his own expense-and then tried to destroy all copies after deciding it was unworthy of him.

Hawthorne, however, soon found his own voice, style, and subjects, and within five years of his graduation he had published "The Hollow of the Three Hills" and "An Old Woman's Tale", both notable short stories. By 1832, "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" and "Roger Malvin's Burial," considered two of his greatest tales, had been published. "Young Goodman Brown," a gripping tale of witchcraft, appeared in 1835.

His increasing success in placing his stories brought him a little fame. Unwilling to depend any longer on his uncles' generosity, he turned to a job in the Boston Custom House, which he held from 1839 to 1840, and for six months in 1841 he was a resident at the agricultural cooperative Brook Farm, a utopian experiment in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. Even when the first book to be published under his name, Twice-Told Tales, was released in 1837, he gained gratifying recognition but no dependable income.

By 1842, however, Hawthorne's writing had brought him a sufficient income to allow him to marry Sophia Peabody. The couple rented a house called the Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts, and they began a happy three-year period that Hawthorne would later record in his essay "The Old Manse."

The presence in Concord of some of the leading social thinkers and philosophers of his day, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, and Bronson Alcott, made the village the center of the philosophy of Transcendentalism, which encouraged individuals to transcend the materialistic world of experience and facts and become conscious of the pervading spirit of the universe and the potentialities for human freedom. Hawthorne welcomed the companionship of his Transcendentalist neighbors, but he had little to say to them. Artists and intellectuals never inspired his full confidence, but he thoroughly enjoyed the visit of his old college friend and classmate Franklin Pierce, later to become president of the United States.

At the Old Manse, Hawthorne continued to write stories, with the same result as before: literary success, monetary failure. His new short-story collection, Mosses from an Old Manse, appeared in 1846.

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Nathaniel Hawthorne | Biography, Books, Short Stories, & Analysis

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Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-64) is one of the greatest fiction writers of 19th-century America. A novelist and short-story writer, he was a master of the allegorical and symbolic tale. Hawthorne is best known for the novels The Scarlet Letter (1850) and The House of the Seven Gables (1851).

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Why Nathaniel Hawthorne was such a good writer 

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Why Nathaniel Hawthorne was such a good writer 

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- skillful craftsman
-- all of the characters and their experiences are so increadibly wound together that everypat of this story if part of the plot line - theres nothing that goes off topic. every single thing that is done has a special purpose to tell the readers his ideals through the firm of a story.
- moral insight
-- he grew up knowing and learning the puritans ways and used his own opinions in the books he wrote.
- mastery of allegory
-- the characters actions and emotions represents generalizations about the problems of human existence.

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Nathaniel Hawthorne (born July 4, 1804, Salem, Massachusetts, U.S.-died May 19, 1864, Plymouth, New Hampshire) is one of the greatest fiction writers of 19th-century American literature. A master of the allegorical and symbolic tale, he remains best known for the novels The Scarlet Letter (1850) and The House of the Seven Gables (1851).

Ancestry and early years

Hawthorne's ancestors had lived in Salem, Massachusetts, since the 17th century. His earliest American ancestor was William Hathorne, a magistrate who was a staunch defender of Puritan orthodoxy, with its zealous advocacy of a "pure," unaffected form of religious worship, its rigid adherence to a simple, almost severe, mode of life, and its conviction of the "natural depravity" of "fallen" humankind. (Hawthorne added a w to his surname when he began to write.) Among Hathorne's actions as magistrate was sentencing a Quaker woman to public whipping.

Hawthorne was later to wonder whether the decline of his family's prosperity and prominence during the 18th century, while other Salem families were growing wealthy from the lucrative shipping trade, might not be a retribution for this act and for the role of William Hathorne's son John as one of three judges in the Salem witchcraft trials that began in 1692.

When Nathaniel's father-a ship's captain-died during one of his voyages, he left his young widow without means to care for her two girls and Nathaniel, who was four years old. She moved in with her affluent brothers, the Mannings. Hawthorne grew up in their house in Salem and, for extensive periods during his teens, in Raymond, Maine, on the shores of Sebago Lake.

He returned to Salem in 1825 after four years at Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Maine. Hawthorne did not distinguish himself as a young man. Instead, he spent nearly a dozen years reading and trying to master the art of writing fiction.

First works and the Transcendentalists

In college Hawthorne had excelled only in composition and had decided to become a writer. Upon graduation, he wrote Fanshawe, a novel that he published at his own expense-and then tried to destroy all copies after deciding it was unworthy of him.

Hawthorne, however, soon found his own voice, style, and subjects, and within five years of his graduation he had published "The Hollow of the Three Hills" and "An Old Woman's Tale", both notable short stories. By 1832, "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" and "Roger Malvin's Burial," considered two of his greatest tales, had been published. "Young Goodman Brown," a gripping tale of witchcraft, appeared in 1835.

His increasing success in placing his stories brought him a little fame. Unwilling to depend any longer on his uncles' generosity, he turned to a job in the Boston Custom House, which he held from 1839 to 1840, and for six months in 1841 he was a resident at the agricultural cooperative Brook Farm, a utopian experiment in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. Even when the first book to be published under his name, Twice-Told Tales, was released in 1837, he gained gratifying recognition but no dependable income.

By 1842, however, Hawthorne's writing had brought him a sufficient income to allow him to marry Sophia Peabody. The couple rented a house called the Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts, and they began a happy three-year period that Hawthorne would later record in his essay "The Old Manse."

The presence in Concord of some of the leading social thinkers and philosophers of his day, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, and Bronson Alcott, made the village the center of the philosophy of Transcendentalism, which encouraged individuals to transcend the materialistic world of experience and facts and become conscious of the pervading spirit of the universe and the potentialities for human freedom. Hawthorne welcomed the companionship of his Transcendentalist neighbors, but he had little to say to them. Artists and intellectuals never inspired his full confidence, but he thoroughly enjoyed the visit of his old college friend and classmate Franklin Pierce, later to become president of the United States.

At the Old Manse, Hawthorne continued to write stories, with the same result as before: literary success, monetary failure. His new short-story collection, Mosses from an Old Manse, appeared in 1846.

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Nathaniel Hawthorne | Biography, Books, Short Stories, & Analysis

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Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-64) is one of the greatest fiction writers of 19th-century America. A novelist and short-story writer, he was a master of the allegorical and symbolic tale. Hawthorne is best known for the novels The Scarlet Letter (1850) and The House of the Seven Gables (1851).

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"Themes in The Scarlet Letter." Dramatic Technique in Death of a Salesman. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Sept. 2018.

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Different themes have been treated in The Scarlet Letter. Among other things, the novel deals "with normal guilt, with genuine passion, with the operation of recognize mind." One obvious reason for The Scarlet Letter working on so many different levels is that it abounds in Symbolism, which gives the author an opportunity to make meaningful utterances.

The Scarlet Letter

"Thus the basic theme of The Scarlet Letter seems to be man's moral struggle directed towards transcending human limitations. It is the recovery of affections, or the assertion of the basic principle of being. It is sad and somber tale, tells about the struggle of morally and emotionally starved individuals, literal personifications of abstractions like knowledge and virtue, seeking for fullness of being."

Having made certain general observations about the themes of The Scarlet Letter, we shall now study them one by one. They are to be studied under the following heads:-

1. The theme of Damnation

2. The theme of Frustration of Guilt

3. The theme of Sin, Crime and Punishment

4. The theme of Passion or Love
1. The theme of Damnation
The theme of Damnation is one of the dominant themes in The Scarlet Letter. The description of the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale in it is quite in keeping with the oldest and most full authorized principles in Christian thought. His 'Fall is, to be sure, a descent from a state of apparent grace to damnation; he seems to begin in purity-he ends in corruption; he may have been a whole man- at his death, he is in a state of spiritual disintegration. The subtlety of Hawthorne's view seems to be that the minister is his own deceiver; he is that truly damned man who convinces himself at every stage of his spiritual pilgrimage that his is really "saved". More terrifying still, he is that rare man who is gifted with unusual powers of penetration into his own mind and soul. He constantly pries into his private world. He moves steadily towards his doom quite unaware of where he is, going. His fall is therefore, dire and irrefutable: by a sin of the flesh which he did not expiate; he corrupted his whole being. He becomes, at the last, his own saviour and god, as well as his own demon and destroyer.

Dimmesdale is more wretched for the simple reason that he puts, up a false appearance-throughout his life. He is really a fallen angel trying to maintain divinity, though he has primarily lost it. His innocence is conscious and manipulated. His first words to Hester are in the form of an admonition to reveal, and yet not to reveal, the name of her fellow sinner. He has no courage to face the condemnation of the people. He is thus morally a coward.

Dimmesdale is, therefore, a ceaseless sufferer. On many occasions, he tries to confess his guilt: he pronounces from his pulpit his vile and degraded state; he confesses that he is the "the worst of sinners and abomination, a thing of unimaginable iniquity" - and the people but "reverence him the more". The supposed confession is meaningless for the words are mere utterances of breath, of the flesh; they are but body, not 'soul.'
2. The theme of Frustration of Guilt
The theme of Frustration and Guilt is operative in The Scarlet Letter. Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale in the protective gloom of the forest surrounding Boston have had their fateful reunion. While Pearl has been discreetly sent out hearing range, the martyred lovers have unburdened themselves. Hester has revealed identity of Chillingworth and has succeeded winning Dimmesdale's forgiveness for her previous secrecy. Dimmesdale has explained the agony of his seven torment. Self-pity and compassion have led unexpectedly to a revival of desire; they affirm the purity of their deed.

This is what actually, apart from charting out the plan of escape, happens in the forest-scene. The sinful act of adultery, which is a guilt indeed, generates frustration in the lovers. Dimmesdale is tormented inwardly, while Hester is tormented outwardly. Frustration, of course, is not the lot of Hester; it falls also on the head of Mr. Dimmesdale intolerably. But even Hester is not free from it. One may mark her nervous breakdown in the prison after she had stood, along with her child, on the scaffold. She is frustrated for a while in that the citizens of Boston have planned for the removal of Pearl from her guardianship. But the timely and passionate interference of the young minister averts the fate. She is greatly shocked to see the reduced health and agonized heart and mind of the 'minister standing on the scaffold on the night of vigil. The greatest part of her frustration is the failure of her plan of escape because of Mr. Chillingworth. She fails to understand what to do until by way of luck, she finds herself joined by Mr. Dimmesdale, who makes revelations of the scaffold in the presence of the crowd.

As regards the guilt of Mr. Dimmesdale, it is more tortuous to him and sits very close to his heart. Only once is his life, he accepts, he has committed a crime against the law of society. He can find no rest, no mental peace. The sin of adultery sends him to fasts, vigils, scourging, and penance, but his anguish is not abated. In the forest-interview he acknowledges the fact that he has had enough a penance but little of penitence.

The worst kind of guilt on the part of Mr. Dimmesale is that though he knows he is sinful, he leads the life of a hypocrite in complete disguise. He does not speak aloud of it to the public in general. And when by the way, he does so out of remorse he is taken in a different light.

Chillingworth's guilt is diabolical and intellectual. He eggs on his enemy dwelling always beside him. He has wronged his wife, a young girl of f Hester's nature, by enticing her to marry him not out of love but out of greed and possession. He adds to the misery of the minister every day. He goes as Dimmesdale's friend though he is his worst revengeful enemy. He can't let him have his way. He keeps a close watch on his movements. He frustrates the plan of the lovers to 'flee' to another country. His life is revenge. The moment Dimmesdale, the harassed pry of his revenges dies, Mr. Chillingworth feels miserable. He dies within a year of Dimmesdale's death; for the Devil has none to work his evil designs on. Whatever Chillingworth does is out of the feeling of guilt and revenge; he is greatly frustrated in his domestic life.

So we see that each of the three main characters suffer, in some degree, from the sense of Frustration and Guilt in the novel, The Scarlet Letter, which may be said to form an important theme of it.
3. The theme of Sin, Crime and Punishment
The most dominant theme in the novel is that of Sin. By committing the crime of adultery, Hester Prynne has broken a great moral law and a long-established social convention. Society, therefore, condemns her with the three hours standing on the scaffold and with the life-long wearing of the scarlet letter on her bosom. Hester is put to public disgrace and social boycott, her isolation leads to a moral deterioration. Her acts of charity are not inspired by any sincere penitence.

Dimmesdale's sin lies primarily in his concealment of the act of adultery with Hester Prynne. He is very much disgusted of it. He feels that he has broken a great law of morality and social code of conduct. No fewer than three times in the course of the novel does he repeat that idea. The sin saps his moral, spiritual and physical energies. It sits so heavy on his heart that his peace is gone. His fasts, vigils, flagellations and scourging are of no avail. His sin leads him astray form the course of priesthood, and he becomes a victim of his own morbid imagination.

Chilingworth's sin is of a different nature. His vindictiveness dehumanizes him and turns him into a devil. He is a worse sinner than either Hester Prynne or Arthur Dimmesdale, for his design is retaliatory and he knows no forgiveness. A good-natured man would have easily pardoned a remorseful man like Dimmesdale. Instead, he tempers with the delicate springs of Dimmesdale's nature and thereby violates, in cold blood, "the sanctity of a human nature". He is guilty of the Unpardonable Sin for which he pays the terrible price of complete physical and spiritual breakdown. For him there is little hope of regeneration.

As regards Dimmesdale's crime, it is certainly of the same nature as that of Hester. But his punishment is surely more severe than that of Hester. His is the inner punishment as against the outer punishment of Hester. He suffers deep down in his heart.

Dimmesdale is a greater sinner than Hester. First, he defiles the purity of his profession; secondly, he tries to conceal his crime from the public. He adds hypocrisy to his sin. But though hypocrisy can save him from social dishonor into which he is afraid he might fall after the exposure of his crime, it is helpless in remedying his spiritual hurts.

Dimmesdale's conscience allows him no rest; it is rather source of his constant trouble. He can't sleep soundly, he can't sit or study peacefully in his room; he burns midnight oil over the writings sermons; he keeps fasts and vigils; he scourges himself when he is all alone. But these things do not give him any peace of mind.
4. The theme of Passion or Love
The theme of passion or love is also significant in The Scarlet Letter. The novel may be seen as 'a love story' or as a tragedy of grand passion rather than as a tale of sinful passion". The novel is haunted by "the mystery of erotic passion".

Quite different is the relation between Hester and Dimmesdale, or between the beloved and the lover. They have deep love for each other to unite them together. Although different agents - Chillingworth, society, law, morality - try to bring their real love to a disaster, they succeed but little in it. On the other hand, it makes the two lovers strong - morally and spiritually. Under the influence of this love, they grow to a tragic height of character which they otherwise would probably not have attained to. Of course, they have to suffer a lot in the pursuance of their heart-felt love for each other. But the course of life, it is said, never runs smooth. The true test of a lover is in the fact that he or she does not waver in his or her love even though the world around murmurs in a hostile tone. Hester and Dimmesdale, no doubt, come out with flying colors through the test through their unflinching devotion to each other.

The intensity of love reaches its height in the forest-interview between the lovers. Here the expression of Dimmesdale is deeply moving: "Art thou in life?" "Dost thou live?" "Hester, hast thou found peace?" And in reply Hester says, "Hast thou?" These are marked by intensity of feeling. After disclosing the identity of her husband to Dimmesdale, Hester assumes the role of a true beloved. She asks a thousand pardons for concealing Chilingworth's identity from Dimmesdale, and the love pardons her freely. She presses his head against her bosom until he grants pardon to her. Then she talks of The consecration of their love-affair. Suddenly the sun shines on her Womanhood return. She throws away the scarlet letter and lets her lustrous hair fall that had been so far hidden under the cap. The lovers evolve a new strategy to escape the revenge. The strategy fails, and the tragic end is inevitable. Thus, the novel may be said to have love or passion as one of its themes round which its plot and events revolve.

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Different themes have been treated in The Scarlet Letter. Among other things, the novel deals "with normal guilt, with genuine passion, with the operation of recognize mind." One obvious reason for The Scarlet Letter working on so many different levels is that it abounds in Symbolism, which gives the author an opportunity to make meaningful utterances.

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Shmoop Editorial Team. "The Scarlet Letter Themes." Shmoop. Shmoop University, 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 04 Sept. 2018.

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Struggling with the themes of Nathaniel Hawthorneâ€™s The Scarlet Letter? Weâ€™ve got the quick and easy lowdown on them here.

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Shmoop Editorial Team. "The Scarlet Letter Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory." Shmoop. Shmoop University, 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 07 Sept. 2018.

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The Scarlet Letter Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory

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(Click the symbolism infographic to download.) If you snoozed through the little introductory appetizer to The Scarlet Letter, we won't tell. (Shmoop will never tell.) The language is particularly...

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"ErichMusick.com." Symbolism in The Scarlet Letter // ErichMusick.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Sept. 2018.

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Throughout the novel, The Scarlet Letter, the author, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses a few key symbols to represent major themes in the book. The most obvious and well known, as it is in the title, is the scarlet letter Hester is forced to wear. Three other symbols are the scaffold, the sun, and the forest.

To begin with, the most important and influential symbol in the entire book is the infamous scarlet letter, hence the title, The Scarlet Letter. In the second chapter, Hester walks out of the prison, wearing the infamous scarlet letter 'A'. During the first few years of Hester's punishment, the letter was a daily reminder of shame. In chapter five, Hawthorne writes,, "...Hester Prynne had always this dreadful agony in feeling a human eye upon the token; the spot never grew callous; it seemed, on the contrary, to grow more sensitive with daily torture." As the story unfolds, though, this letter comes to mean other things to Hester and the people. Rather than bringing torture to Hester, it eventually becomes a symbol to some people meaning "able." In chapter 13, Hawthorne writes, " They said that it meant 'Able'; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman's strength." A few pages later, Hawthorne writes, " The scarlet letter had not done its office." The scarlet letter was meant as a punishment for Hester, and yet here we see that it hasn't punished Hester. Then, in chapter 18, Hawthorne writes, " Thus, we seem to see that, as regarded Hester Prynne, the whole seven years of outlaw and ignominy had been little other than a preparation for this very hour. " Although the scarlet letter does bring shame to Hester, as Hawthorne writes, it has not performed its duty. Hester plans to skip town and go back to Europe with Dimmesdale. If she had learned anything from the letter, she would have known better than to run away with a man who wasn't her husband.

Throughout the book, there are various meanings to the scarlet letter. It means different things to different people - a sign of wealth to the butler, curiosity for Pearl, guilt for Dimmesdale, rebelliousness, revenge or motivation for Chillingworth, and betrayal of one's spouse, to name a few. Regardless, the true duty was to punish and teach a lesson, neither of which the letter performed successfully.

The scarlet letter is only one of the symbols representing Hester's shame and punishment. Another one we see early in the novel, at about the same time we see Hester wearing the scarlet letter for the first time in public, is the scaffold on which she stands after walking out of the prison. In the second chapter, Hawthorne writes, " It was, in short, the platform of the pillory; and above it rose the framework of that instrument of discipline, so fashioned as to confine the human head in its tight grasp, and thus hold it up to the public gaze. The very ideal of ignominy was embodied and made manifest in this contrivance of wood and iron. " These few sentences pretty much sum up the significance of the scaffold in the story. The scaffold, like the scarlet letter, to the Puritans, is a place of public shame for those persons who decide to break the Puritan Law. It represents the sin of the person standing upon it and it shows the Puritan way of dealing with sin.

Among the other symbols we see in the book is the sun and its shining. Its importance becomes more evident as the book comes to a close, but the earlier parts of the book are used to build up its significance. Throughout the book, we see that the sun shines on Pearl quite often, but never on Hester. Then, in chapter 18, we see Hester and Arthur talking in the forest. After deciding to go to England and live as a family (Arthur, Hester, and Pearl) there, Hester takes off the scarlet letter, to show that she is no longer bound by it. Hawthorne writes that after she had taken off the letter, " All at once, as with a sudden smile of heaven, forth burst the sunshine, pouring a very flood into the obscure forest, gladdening each green leaf, transmuting the yellow fallen ones to gold, and gleaming adown the gray trunks of the solemn trees. The objects that had made a shadow hitherto, embodied the brightness now." This can be interpreted to mean that nature is happy with Hester and Arthur (as well as Pearl). According to Natural Law, Hester and Arthur aren't guilty, since they are no longer oppressed. Because God has control over nature, He is happy with them. Although I think this is what Hawthorne tries to convey when he mentions sunshine over and over, his reasoning is incorrect. In the Ten Commandments, God tells His people it's wrong to commit adultery. Many people say that Hester and Arthur never committed adultery because Hester, in their minds, was never actually married. Even if they weren't, those saying Hester and Arthur are not guilty would still be wrong. Elsewhere in the Bible, God says fornication (sex between two people who aren't married to each other) is wrong. Although the sunshine is meant to signify nature's, and, consequently, God's, happiness with Arthur and Hester, the reasoning behind it is incorrect. The Bible says in Matthew 5:45, " ... for He [God] maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."

This verse shows that just because God makes the sun rise or the rain fall for a person doesn't mean that he likes what they are doing.

The last of the four major symbols in the book is the forest. Hawthorne writes in chapter four, " Art thou like the Black Man that haunts the forest round about us?" By saying this, Hester is continuing the belief of the Puritans in the story, who see the forest as dark, or evil, as the place where the witches go at night to have meetings, and a home of the devil. A possible interpretation of why the Puritans made up things about the forest could be that they were trying to keep the people from the Natural Law - they wanted people to be subject to the Puritan Law. I think this is what Hawthorne is trying to get across, but, as with the last symbol and the common interpretation of it, I think he errs in his point. As we discussed in class, Hawthorne tries to make the Puritans look bad. (For example, in chapter 21, Hawthorne writes, " Their immediate posterity, the generation next to the early emigrants, wore the blackest shade of Puritanism, and so darkened the national visage with it, that all the subsequent years have not sufficed to clear it up.") The common interpretation Hawthorne tries to get across implies that Natural Law (as seen in the book) is equal to God's Law, and that the Puritans have all their beliefs mixed up and they're wrong. This is where Hawthorne errs. In reality, Puritan Law is closer to God's law than is Natural Law, as we see it in the book. The Puritans base their law on God's Law, but the Natural Law portrayed in the book isn't based on God's law.

In closing, Hawthorne uses several symbols to portray themes and ideas in this novel. Each of these has common interpretations, many of which aren't completely accurate.

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Throughout the novel, The Scarlet Letter, the author, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses a few key symbols to represent major themes in the book. The most obvious and well known, as it is in the title, is the scarlet letter Hester is forced to wear. Three other symbols are the scaffold, the sun, and the forest.

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Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Massachusetts Bay Colony." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 18 July 2017. Web. 07 Sept. 2018.

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When was the Massachusetts Bay Colony founded, and how long did it last?

What was the purpose of the Massachusetts Bay Colony?

What is the importance of the Massachusetts Bay Colony?

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Massachusetts Bay Colony, one of the original English settlements in present-day Massachusetts, settled in 1630 by a group of about 1,000 Puritan refugees from England under Gov. John Winthrop and Deputy Gov. Thomas Dudley. In 1629 the Massachusetts Bay Company had obtained from King Charles I a charter empowering the company to trade and colonize in New England between the Charles and Merrimack rivers. The grant was similar to that of the Virginia Company in 1609, the patentees being joint proprietors with rights of ownership and government. The intention of the crown was evidently to create merely a commercial company with what, in modern parlance, would be called stockholders, officers, and directors. By a shrewd and legally questionable move, however, the patentees decided to transfer the management and the charter itself to Massachusetts. By this move, they not only paved the way for local management, but they established the assumption that the charter for a commercial company was in reality a political constitution for a new government with only indefinable dependence upon the imperial one in England. Among the communities that the Puritans established were Boston, Charlestown, Dorchester, Medford, Watertown, Roxbury, and Lynn.

The Puritans established a theocratic government with the franchise limited to church members. Winthrop, Dudley, the Rev. John Cotton, and other leaders zealously sought to prevent any independence of religious views, and many with differing religious beliefs-including Roger Williams of Salem and Anne Hutchinson of Boston, as well as unrepentant Quakers and Anabaptists -were banished. By the mid-1640s Massachusetts Bay Colony had grown to more than 20,000 inhabitants.

Massachusetts Bay Colony Quiz

Increasing estrangement between the colony and England resulted in the annulment of the company's charter in 1684 and the substitution of royal government under a new charter granted in 1691. The charter of 1691 merged the Plymouth colony and Maine into the Massachusetts Bay Colony. See also Plymouth.

Jeff Wallenfeldt.

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Massachusetts Bay Colony | Facts, Map, & Significance

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Massachusetts Bay Colony, one of the original English settlements in Massachusetts.

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"History of the Massachusetts Bay Colony." History of Massachusetts. N.p., 13 Aug. 2018. Web. 07 Sept. 2018.

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" THE SCARLET LETTER " By : Nathaniel Hawthorne 

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" THE SCARLET LETTER " By : Nathaniel Hawthorne 

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Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New York: Harper, 1950. Print.

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Starting of the Massachusetts Bay Colony 

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Starting of the Massachusetts Bay Colony 

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- one of the 4 main colonies : Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Conneticut, and New Haven
-- each colony had several villages - and for every 50 people there was one school
-- the colonies created the New England Confederation to defend themselves against the Native Americans
-- the puritans had thir first witch burning in 1648 and alter after rising tensions the King Phillips War started between the colonials and the Native americans
-- the Bostons flourished after that - but they still waged a war on the surrounding wildlife because they could.
-- their first government both was efficent and reflected their religious ideals - only the most devout Puritans could participate in governmental affairs and persecuted others who didn't share their ideals.

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The difference in ideals of the Massachusets Bay colony and England 

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The difference in ideals of the Massachusets Bay colony and England 

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- The Massachusetts Bay Colony was originally made to become a commercial trade company but instead - the putitans took the money and made their own colony - angered the English and their company's charter was annuled in 1684 so it merged with the Plymouth colonyand Maine in 1961 as a new charter.

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When was the Massachusetts Bay Colony founded, and how long did it last?

What was the purpose of the Massachusetts Bay Colony?

What is the importance of the Massachusetts Bay Colony?

This article was most recently revised and updated by

Massachusetts Bay Colony, one of the original English settlements in present-day Massachusetts, settled in 1630 by a group of about 1,000 Puritan refugees from England under Gov. John Winthrop and Deputy Gov. Thomas Dudley. In 1629 the Massachusetts Bay Company had obtained from King Charles I a charter empowering the company to trade and colonize in New England between the Charles and Merrimack rivers. The grant was similar to that of the Virginia Company in 1609, the patentees being joint proprietors with rights of ownership and government. The intention of the crown was evidently to create merely a commercial company with what, in modern parlance, would be called stockholders, officers, and directors. By a shrewd and legally questionable move, however, the patentees decided to transfer the management and the charter itself to Massachusetts. By this move, they not only paved the way for local management, but they established the assumption that the charter for a commercial company was in reality a political constitution for a new government with only indefinable dependence upon the imperial one in England. Among the communities that the Puritans established were Boston, Charlestown, Dorchester, Medford, Watertown, Roxbury, and Lynn.

The Puritans established a theocratic government with the franchise limited to church members. Winthrop, Dudley, the Rev. John Cotton, and other leaders zealously sought to prevent any independence of religious views, and many with differing religious beliefs-including Roger Williams of Salem and Anne Hutchinson of Boston, as well as unrepentant Quakers and Anabaptists -were banished. By the mid-1640s Massachusetts Bay Colony had grown to more than 20,000 inhabitants.

Massachusetts Bay Colony Quiz

Increasing estrangement between the colony and England resulted in the annulment of the company's charter in 1684 and the substitution of royal government under a new charter granted in 1691. The charter of 1691 merged the Plymouth colony and Maine into the Massachusetts Bay Colony. See also Plymouth.

Jeff Wallenfeldt.

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Massachusetts Bay Colony | Facts, Map, & Significance

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Massachusetts Bay Colony, one of the original English settlements in Massachusetts.

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-- talks about in the story,  Hester  the main character symbolises women and feminity because she stands up for both husband and lover taking the full blame instead of getting them in trouble. She also is strong enough after the 3 hour ordeal in front of the town to raise her child as a single mother and keeps them alive and eating with her fabulous stiching skills where she makes most of their income. Even if most people in her town dont like her they still buy her product. Instead of moving somewhere else and making a better living with her child where she probably wont be as alienated as much she stays and powers through.

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The Scarlet Letter Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory

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(Click the symbolism infographic to download.) If you snoozed through the little introductory appetizer to The Scarlet Letter, we won't tell. (Shmoop will never tell.) The language is particularly...

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-- represents many things
- in the first part of the book - before Hester has to do her punishment it talks about the leter as her mark of shame and it symbolizes the shame that hester has brought onto herself and her daughter pearl, and to make her lover and her husband feel shame.
-- when hester has to do her punishment - she stands tall or atleast she tries to show that she isnt scared and shows her scarlet letter A - for adultry - which is emboidered gorgeously with her exellent skill, which seems to lessen the wight of her sins on her sholders - so in this part of the story not only does the scarlet letter mean shame - but also kinda has a sense of pride for her work/ and the strength that she had to endure throught the punishment and later become a single mother.

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Throughout the novel, The Scarlet Letter, the author, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses a few key symbols to represent major themes in the book. The most obvious and well known, as it is in the title, is the scarlet letter Hester is forced to wear. Three other symbols are the scaffold, the sun, and the forest.

To begin with, the most important and influential symbol in the entire book is the infamous scarlet letter, hence the title, The Scarlet Letter. In the second chapter, Hester walks out of the prison, wearing the infamous scarlet letter 'A'. During the first few years of Hester's punishment, the letter was a daily reminder of shame. In chapter five, Hawthorne writes,, "...Hester Prynne had always this dreadful agony in feeling a human eye upon the token; the spot never grew callous; it seemed, on the contrary, to grow more sensitive with daily torture." As the story unfolds, though, this letter comes to mean other things to Hester and the people. Rather than bringing torture to Hester, it eventually becomes a symbol to some people meaning "able." In chapter 13, Hawthorne writes, " They said that it meant 'Able'; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman's strength." A few pages later, Hawthorne writes, " The scarlet letter had not done its office." The scarlet letter was meant as a punishment for Hester, and yet here we see that it hasn't punished Hester. Then, in chapter 18, Hawthorne writes, " Thus, we seem to see that, as regarded Hester Prynne, the whole seven years of outlaw and ignominy had been little other than a preparation for this very hour. " Although the scarlet letter does bring shame to Hester, as Hawthorne writes, it has not performed its duty. Hester plans to skip town and go back to Europe with Dimmesdale. If she had learned anything from the letter, she would have known better than to run away with a man who wasn't her husband.

Throughout the book, there are various meanings to the scarlet letter. It means different things to different people - a sign of wealth to the butler, curiosity for Pearl, guilt for Dimmesdale, rebelliousness, revenge or motivation for Chillingworth, and betrayal of one's spouse, to name a few. Regardless, the true duty was to punish and teach a lesson, neither of which the letter performed successfully.

The scarlet letter is only one of the symbols representing Hester's shame and punishment. Another one we see early in the novel, at about the same time we see Hester wearing the scarlet letter for the first time in public, is the scaffold on which she stands after walking out of the prison. In the second chapter, Hawthorne writes, " It was, in short, the platform of the pillory; and above it rose the framework of that instrument of discipline, so fashioned as to confine the human head in its tight grasp, and thus hold it up to the public gaze. The very ideal of ignominy was embodied and made manifest in this contrivance of wood and iron. " These few sentences pretty much sum up the significance of the scaffold in the story. The scaffold, like the scarlet letter, to the Puritans, is a place of public shame for those persons who decide to break the Puritan Law. It represents the sin of the person standing upon it and it shows the Puritan way of dealing with sin.

Among the other symbols we see in the book is the sun and its shining. Its importance becomes more evident as the book comes to a close, but the earlier parts of the book are used to build up its significance. Throughout the book, we see that the sun shines on Pearl quite often, but never on Hester. Then, in chapter 18, we see Hester and Arthur talking in the forest. After deciding to go to England and live as a family (Arthur, Hester, and Pearl) there, Hester takes off the scarlet letter, to show that she is no longer bound by it. Hawthorne writes that after she had taken off the letter, " All at once, as with a sudden smile of heaven, forth burst the sunshine, pouring a very flood into the obscure forest, gladdening each green leaf, transmuting the yellow fallen ones to gold, and gleaming adown the gray trunks of the solemn trees. The objects that had made a shadow hitherto, embodied the brightness now." This can be interpreted to mean that nature is happy with Hester and Arthur (as well as Pearl). According to Natural Law, Hester and Arthur aren't guilty, since they are no longer oppressed. Because God has control over nature, He is happy with them. Although I think this is what Hawthorne tries to convey when he mentions sunshine over and over, his reasoning is incorrect. In the Ten Commandments, God tells His people it's wrong to commit adultery. Many people say that Hester and Arthur never committed adultery because Hester, in their minds, was never actually married. Even if they weren't, those saying Hester and Arthur are not guilty would still be wrong. Elsewhere in the Bible, God says fornication (sex between two people who aren't married to each other) is wrong. Although the sunshine is meant to signify nature's, and, consequently, God's, happiness with Arthur and Hester, the reasoning behind it is incorrect. The Bible says in Matthew 5:45, " ... for He [God] maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."

This verse shows that just because God makes the sun rise or the rain fall for a person doesn't mean that he likes what they are doing.

The last of the four major symbols in the book is the forest. Hawthorne writes in chapter four, " Art thou like the Black Man that haunts the forest round about us?" By saying this, Hester is continuing the belief of the Puritans in the story, who see the forest as dark, or evil, as the place where the witches go at night to have meetings, and a home of the devil. A possible interpretation of why the Puritans made up things about the forest could be that they were trying to keep the people from the Natural Law - they wanted people to be subject to the Puritan Law. I think this is what Hawthorne is trying to get across, but, as with the last symbol and the common interpretation of it, I think he errs in his point. As we discussed in class, Hawthorne tries to make the Puritans look bad. (For example, in chapter 21, Hawthorne writes, " Their immediate posterity, the generation next to the early emigrants, wore the blackest shade of Puritanism, and so darkened the national visage with it, that all the subsequent years have not sufficed to clear it up.") The common interpretation Hawthorne tries to get across implies that Natural Law (as seen in the book) is equal to God's Law, and that the Puritans have all their beliefs mixed up and they're wrong. This is where Hawthorne errs. In reality, Puritan Law is closer to God's law than is Natural Law, as we see it in the book. The Puritans base their law on God's Law, but the Natural Law portrayed in the book isn't based on God's law.

In closing, Hawthorne uses several symbols to portray themes and ideas in this novel. Each of these has common interpretations, many of which aren't completely accurate.

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Throughout the novel, The Scarlet Letter, the author, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses a few key symbols to represent major themes in the book. The most obvious and well known, as it is in the title, is the scarlet letter Hester is forced to wear. Three other symbols are the scaffold, the sun, and the forest.

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-- is shown throught the character named " Arthur Dimmesdale " which " represents the christian ideals that start out clear and pure but later becomes darker and darker more tarnished. When he dies hes in a state of spiritual disentigration.  " ( paraphrased from "themes in the scarlet letter" - bachelorandmaster.com) . in his life he has special unusual powers of (like mind reading or somethin) which he misuses to look into peoples private lives and hides from them when they findout - cowardlyness. He tries to confess multiple times but he never goes through with it.

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Different themes have been treated in The Scarlet Letter. Among other things, the novel deals "with normal guilt, with genuine passion, with the operation of recognize mind." One obvious reason for The Scarlet Letter working on so many different levels is that it abounds in Symbolism, which gives the author an opportunity to make meaningful utterances.

The Scarlet Letter

"Thus the basic theme of The Scarlet Letter seems to be man's moral struggle directed towards transcending human limitations. It is the recovery of affections, or the assertion of the basic principle of being. It is sad and somber tale, tells about the struggle of morally and emotionally starved individuals, literal personifications of abstractions like knowledge and virtue, seeking for fullness of being."

Having made certain general observations about the themes of The Scarlet Letter, we shall now study them one by one. They are to be studied under the following heads:-

1. The theme of Damnation

2. The theme of Frustration of Guilt

3. The theme of Sin, Crime and Punishment

4. The theme of Passion or Love
1. The theme of Damnation
The theme of Damnation is one of the dominant themes in The Scarlet Letter. The description of the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale in it is quite in keeping with the oldest and most full authorized principles in Christian thought. His 'Fall is, to be sure, a descent from a state of apparent grace to damnation; he seems to begin in purity-he ends in corruption; he may have been a whole man- at his death, he is in a state of spiritual disintegration. The subtlety of Hawthorne's view seems to be that the minister is his own deceiver; he is that truly damned man who convinces himself at every stage of his spiritual pilgrimage that his is really "saved". More terrifying still, he is that rare man who is gifted with unusual powers of penetration into his own mind and soul. He constantly pries into his private world. He moves steadily towards his doom quite unaware of where he is, going. His fall is therefore, dire and irrefutable: by a sin of the flesh which he did not expiate; he corrupted his whole being. He becomes, at the last, his own saviour and god, as well as his own demon and destroyer.

Dimmesdale is more wretched for the simple reason that he puts, up a false appearance-throughout his life. He is really a fallen angel trying to maintain divinity, though he has primarily lost it. His innocence is conscious and manipulated. His first words to Hester are in the form of an admonition to reveal, and yet not to reveal, the name of her fellow sinner. He has no courage to face the condemnation of the people. He is thus morally a coward.

Dimmesdale is, therefore, a ceaseless sufferer. On many occasions, he tries to confess his guilt: he pronounces from his pulpit his vile and degraded state; he confesses that he is the "the worst of sinners and abomination, a thing of unimaginable iniquity" - and the people but "reverence him the more". The supposed confession is meaningless for the words are mere utterances of breath, of the flesh; they are but body, not 'soul.'
2. The theme of Frustration of Guilt
The theme of Frustration and Guilt is operative in The Scarlet Letter. Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale in the protective gloom of the forest surrounding Boston have had their fateful reunion. While Pearl has been discreetly sent out hearing range, the martyred lovers have unburdened themselves. Hester has revealed identity of Chillingworth and has succeeded winning Dimmesdale's forgiveness for her previous secrecy. Dimmesdale has explained the agony of his seven torment. Self-pity and compassion have led unexpectedly to a revival of desire; they affirm the purity of their deed.

This is what actually, apart from charting out the plan of escape, happens in the forest-scene. The sinful act of adultery, which is a guilt indeed, generates frustration in the lovers. Dimmesdale is tormented inwardly, while Hester is tormented outwardly. Frustration, of course, is not the lot of Hester; it falls also on the head of Mr. Dimmesdale intolerably. But even Hester is not free from it. One may mark her nervous breakdown in the prison after she had stood, along with her child, on the scaffold. She is frustrated for a while in that the citizens of Boston have planned for the removal of Pearl from her guardianship. But the timely and passionate interference of the young minister averts the fate. She is greatly shocked to see the reduced health and agonized heart and mind of the 'minister standing on the scaffold on the night of vigil. The greatest part of her frustration is the failure of her plan of escape because of Mr. Chillingworth. She fails to understand what to do until by way of luck, she finds herself joined by Mr. Dimmesdale, who makes revelations of the scaffold in the presence of the crowd.

As regards the guilt of Mr. Dimmesdale, it is more tortuous to him and sits very close to his heart. Only once is his life, he accepts, he has committed a crime against the law of society. He can find no rest, no mental peace. The sin of adultery sends him to fasts, vigils, scourging, and penance, but his anguish is not abated. In the forest-interview he acknowledges the fact that he has had enough a penance but little of penitence.

The worst kind of guilt on the part of Mr. Dimmesale is that though he knows he is sinful, he leads the life of a hypocrite in complete disguise. He does not speak aloud of it to the public in general. And when by the way, he does so out of remorse he is taken in a different light.

Chillingworth's guilt is diabolical and intellectual. He eggs on his enemy dwelling always beside him. He has wronged his wife, a young girl of f Hester's nature, by enticing her to marry him not out of love but out of greed and possession. He adds to the misery of the minister every day. He goes as Dimmesdale's friend though he is his worst revengeful enemy. He can't let him have his way. He keeps a close watch on his movements. He frustrates the plan of the lovers to 'flee' to another country. His life is revenge. The moment Dimmesdale, the harassed pry of his revenges dies, Mr. Chillingworth feels miserable. He dies within a year of Dimmesdale's death; for the Devil has none to work his evil designs on. Whatever Chillingworth does is out of the feeling of guilt and revenge; he is greatly frustrated in his domestic life.

So we see that each of the three main characters suffer, in some degree, from the sense of Frustration and Guilt in the novel, The Scarlet Letter, which may be said to form an important theme of it.
3. The theme of Sin, Crime and Punishment
The most dominant theme in the novel is that of Sin. By committing the crime of adultery, Hester Prynne has broken a great moral law and a long-established social convention. Society, therefore, condemns her with the three hours standing on the scaffold and with the life-long wearing of the scarlet letter on her bosom. Hester is put to public disgrace and social boycott, her isolation leads to a moral deterioration. Her acts of charity are not inspired by any sincere penitence.

Dimmesdale's sin lies primarily in his concealment of the act of adultery with Hester Prynne. He is very much disgusted of it. He feels that he has broken a great law of morality and social code of conduct. No fewer than three times in the course of the novel does he repeat that idea. The sin saps his moral, spiritual and physical energies. It sits so heavy on his heart that his peace is gone. His fasts, vigils, flagellations and scourging are of no avail. His sin leads him astray form the course of priesthood, and he becomes a victim of his own morbid imagination.

Chilingworth's sin is of a different nature. His vindictiveness dehumanizes him and turns him into a devil. He is a worse sinner than either Hester Prynne or Arthur Dimmesdale, for his design is retaliatory and he knows no forgiveness. A good-natured man would have easily pardoned a remorseful man like Dimmesdale. Instead, he tempers with the delicate springs of Dimmesdale's nature and thereby violates, in cold blood, "the sanctity of a human nature". He is guilty of the Unpardonable Sin for which he pays the terrible price of complete physical and spiritual breakdown. For him there is little hope of regeneration.

As regards Dimmesdale's crime, it is certainly of the same nature as that of Hester. But his punishment is surely more severe than that of Hester. His is the inner punishment as against the outer punishment of Hester. He suffers deep down in his heart.

Dimmesdale is a greater sinner than Hester. First, he defiles the purity of his profession; secondly, he tries to conceal his crime from the public. He adds hypocrisy to his sin. But though hypocrisy can save him from social dishonor into which he is afraid he might fall after the exposure of his crime, it is helpless in remedying his spiritual hurts.

Dimmesdale's conscience allows him no rest; it is rather source of his constant trouble. He can't sleep soundly, he can't sit or study peacefully in his room; he burns midnight oil over the writings sermons; he keeps fasts and vigils; he scourges himself when he is all alone. But these things do not give him any peace of mind.
4. The theme of Passion or Love
The theme of passion or love is also significant in The Scarlet Letter. The novel may be seen as 'a love story' or as a tragedy of grand passion rather than as a tale of sinful passion". The novel is haunted by "the mystery of erotic passion".

Quite different is the relation between Hester and Dimmesdale, or between the beloved and the lover. They have deep love for each other to unite them together. Although different agents - Chillingworth, society, law, morality - try to bring their real love to a disaster, they succeed but little in it. On the other hand, it makes the two lovers strong - morally and spiritually. Under the influence of this love, they grow to a tragic height of character which they otherwise would probably not have attained to. Of course, they have to suffer a lot in the pursuance of their heart-felt love for each other. But the course of life, it is said, never runs smooth. The true test of a lover is in the fact that he or she does not waver in his or her love even though the world around murmurs in a hostile tone. Hester and Dimmesdale, no doubt, come out with flying colors through the test through their unflinching devotion to each other.

The intensity of love reaches its height in the forest-interview between the lovers. Here the expression of Dimmesdale is deeply moving: "Art thou in life?" "Dost thou live?" "Hester, hast thou found peace?" And in reply Hester says, "Hast thou?" These are marked by intensity of feeling. After disclosing the identity of her husband to Dimmesdale, Hester assumes the role of a true beloved. She asks a thousand pardons for concealing Chilingworth's identity from Dimmesdale, and the love pardons her freely. She presses his head against her bosom until he grants pardon to her. Then she talks of The consecration of their love-affair. Suddenly the sun shines on her Womanhood return. She throws away the scarlet letter and lets her lustrous hair fall that had been so far hidden under the cap. The lovers evolve a new strategy to escape the revenge. The strategy fails, and the tragic end is inevitable. Thus, the novel may be said to have love or passion as one of its themes round which its plot and events revolve.

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Different themes have been treated in The Scarlet Letter. Among other things, the novel deals "with normal guilt, with genuine passion, with the operation of recognize mind." One obvious reason for The Scarlet Letter working on so many different levels is that it abounds in Symbolism, which gives the author an opportunity to make meaningful utterances.

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-- the society that pushes away hester with its strict rules later learns to be more compassionate and forgives her for what she did and accepts her into their society again.

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Struggling with the themes of Nathaniel Hawthorneâ€™s The Scarlet Letter? Weâ€™ve got the quick and easy lowdown on them here.

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His Childhood and what inspires his books 

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His Childhood and what inspires his books 

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- when writing he takes his inspiration from his experiences to condense into his stories - in his books he uses the early history of colonial new england and his hometown, alem , and his family's puritan tradition and its flaws, and any of his vacations (Italy).

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New England writer Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, where his paternal ancestors had been prominent since the founding generation (who then spelled their last name Hathorn). When he began writing fiction, he was drawn into a search for material in the careers of his early ancestors and in the history of colonial New England. While attending Bowdoin College, Hawthorne began writing tales or a romance or both. He would go on to write many American stories and novels, including "Young Goodman Brown" (1835), Twice-Told Tales (1837), "Ethan Brand" (1850), The Scarlet Letter (1850), The House of the Seven Gables (1851), and The Blithedale Romance (1852).

In sketches, tales, and romances published in the second third of the 19th century, Hawthorne chose mainly American materials, drawing especially on the history of colonial New England and his native Salem in the time of his early American ancestors. Heir to the Puritan tradition and alert to the transcendental thought prominent in his region and time, he subjected both to his skeptical, questioning scrutiny in the moral and psychological probing that is characteristic of his fictional works. Considering guilt-actual or imagined, revealed or concealed-to be a universal human experience, he traced out in his characters the types and the effects of guilt. The seriousness of his literary purpose, his independence of mind, and his intellectual and artistic integrity were recognized by Herman Melville and others of his contemporaries. He placed a number of characters and scenes among the most memorable in world literature; he was master of a prose style that is individual, simple and direct, and yet richly varied. Hawthorne's writing influenced Melville, who dedicated Moby-Dick (1851) to Hawthorne, as well as Henry James and William Faulkner; they were drawn particularly by his symbolic method and his attention to the dark elements in human experience. Through both direct statement and example, he helped define for his age the literary sketch, the tale, and long fiction that fuses romance and psychological realism.

Hawthorne lived in New England most of his life, and at one point lived in Concord, Massachusettes, where he lived near Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. He died on May 19, 1864 and was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts.

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New England writer Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, where his paternal ancestors had been prominent since the founding generation (who then spelled their last name Hathorn). When he began writing fiction, he was drawn into a search for material in the careers of his...