The Scarlet Letter

Introduction

Hawthorne as a romantic writer has written this plot beautifully and this novel 'The Scarlet Letter' is one of his finest achievements handling the issues of morals and traditions in an exquisite way. 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” (Baym, pp.16).

Hawthorne insisted in the “Custom House” and elsewhere that he was a writer of romances. This claim of his suggested that, for all the historical authenticity of his work, he was not a realist but rather a symbolist; a romancer who probed beneath the daylight aspects of things into the darker, shadowy motivations of human beings. A master of ambiguity, he is one of the honored forebears of modern fiction, and The Scarlet Letter is his finest achievement. It is a perfectly constructed work of art remarkable for its exquisitely balanced handling of moral issues and conflicting human personalities. The main themes that Nathaniel Hawthorne used in the Scarlet Letter highlights the two aspects of the society. The first literary element discussed is Sin. The writer clearly has shown how people suffer due to irrational decisions made and don't realize the lifelong consequences it constitutes. The writer also shows the knowledgeable lessons that each character involved in the Sin learns. The second literary element discussed is the Human condition at an intangible level which directly is linked to Sin. IT is due to the consequences of the sin that the characters in the film suffer mentally in severe way (Bloom, pp.30).

Discussion

The novel is set in the mid 17th century and is the story of Hester Prynne, who is publically punished for committing adultery. She is imprisoned and after getting released from the prison she is forced to wear a scarlet letter around her neck for the rest of her live. The scarlet letter is the indication that she has committed a crime. She gives birth to a girl named Pearl as the result of the adultery but refuses to disclose the identity of Pearl's father.

The father turns out to be Hester's minister, Arthur Dimmesdale, who during the entire novel hides his crime, and quietly see Hester getting humiliated and ridicule by everyone for the crime committed by ...