Scarlet Letter Nearly a Historical Document

A detailed Summary of Scarlet Letter Nearly a Historical Document

Scarlet Letter: Nearly a Historical Document

Psychological insight, true love, untrue love, self-hate, sin, and redemption, could Nathaniel Hawthorne have possibly juggled with more ideas while recording The Scarlet Letter? The answer is yes. In contrast to the book's countless appeals to our emotions and interests, Hawthorne has created a novel that preserves the way life was for Bostonian Puritans in the 1640s. The Puritan world in this time gave Hawthorne an imperative item- A community with active people instead of boring ones. The overall portrayal of Puritan society is conveyed by the actions and lives of the characters, the actual historical content involving government and leaders, and the stern, joyless world of Puritan Boston. The book's mood relies on this dark world and characters.

The story's characters display actions, dialogues, and intentions best represent the way of life in the mid-17th century in New England. The first example comes from the opening scene of the book when all the other women have congregated to see Hester Prynne at the jailhouse. Hawthorne quotes one women's take on the situation...

"The magistrates are God-fearing gentlemen, but merciful overmuch-that is a truth...At the very leas

"They were her countrywomen; and the beef and ale of their native land, with a moral diet not a whit more refined, entered largely into their composition. The bright morning sun, therefore, shone on broad shoulders and well-developed busts and on round

"And I conceive, moreover, that the hearts holding such miserable secrets as you speak of will yield them up, at the last day, not with reluctance, but with a joy unutterable." Bringing in all these examples, it is impossible to deny that Hawthorne was quite familiar with the people of whom he wrote, but how familiar was he with the past?

Through this careful placement of passages and careful selection of prose, Hawthorne produces a Puritan society that is ultimately not only accurately portrayed, but comes off as grim, gray, and depressing. This negative mood is essential to the novel. It makes the scenes at the end when Hester is finally touched by the light, much more powerful because it is in such intense contrast to the dark setting in the many pages prior. Hawthorne establishes this gray mood, for the most part, in the opening scene of the novel. The ugly women are standing around an old jailhouse waiting for Hester Prynne to be released, when Hawthorne first mentions the condition of the jail...

"...some fifteen or twenty years after the settlement of the town, the wooden jail was already marked with weather-stains and other indications of age which gave a yet darker aspect to its beetle-browed and gloomy front. The rust on the ponderous iron-work of it's oa

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Approximate Word count = 1037
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels