Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1804. He graduated from Bowden University in 1825 with Fanshawe (1828) nearly complete. During his college career, Hawthorne excelled in his composition courses and came out determined to become a fiction writer. His writing "life" began in 1837 when a friend secretly paid for the publishing of Twice-Told Tales. To learn more about writing he then undertook editorial work in Boston, and then transferred to a job in the Boston Custom House. Hawthorne then invested over one thousand dollars in the Brook Farm Community hoping that in a socialist society he would be able to combine the practical and the creative. He left about a year later disappointed and worse off than he was when he joined. At the ripe age of 38, he married Sophia Peabody of the famous Salem Peabody family. During which he compiled the works to make Mosses from an Old Manse (1846). After he was fired from the Custom Hou

The first thing that is striking to a reader about Hawthorne's unique style is the self-conscious culmination of artistic career. The second is the confidence with which Hawthorne proceeds to execute his larger designs, which all demonstrate his assured artistry as a novelist and serve to announce his mastery of his new craft. "His style, for instance, though at it's best a wonderfully effective instrument for expression of his sensibility, it's likely to strike us as not nearly so modern as Thoreau's."(Unger, 330) His special way of maintaining the ambiguous connection between the psychological, the moral, and the religious is one of the principal reasons why his works seem to be relevant to us. Moral and religious concerns are usually central in Hawthorne's work. Hawthorne refused to simplify guilt by reducing it either to merely subjective and irrational "guilty feeling" or to wholly objective and external "sin". He concerned himself instead with guilt feelings that have personal and social causes and cures that are objectively real, not merely subjective or irrational, and that imply the reality of moral obligation. In composing The Scarlett Letter Hawthorne seems purposely to gather together the historical, moral, and psychological themes that have given his work its distinct identity; then by integrating them and projecting them onto a larger canvas, he managed to eclipse his earlier achievements. In 1849, the satirical "The Custom House" became the critically acclaimed prologue to The Scarlett Letter. The essay was based on an autobiographical impulse that served as a literary device that laid out Hawthorne's definition of the romance as distinct from the novel. In the winter of 1849, James T. Fields offered to print 2,000 copies of any Hawthorne work. Hawthorne gave him a preliminary manuscript of The Scarlett Letter in short story form. Before the actual publishing, "Hawthorne wrote 'The Scarlett Letter is powerfully written; but my writings do not, nor ever will, appeal to the broadest class of sympathies and therefore will not obtain a very wide popularity'. (The Classic Text) He was wrong. The March 1850 first edition sold out in ten days. The Scarlett Letter represents the height of Hawthorne's literary genius, dense with vivid descriptions. "It remains relevant for it's philosophical and psychological depth and continues to be read as a classic tale on a universal theme." (The Classic Text) Hawthorne filled his text with metaphors and similes that trap the reader in the mood and feelings of the story. Hawthorne's opening to The Scarlett Letter "The Prison Door" is very somber, detailed, and graphic. He uses it to set the mood of the book by describing a weather beaten wooden prison to set the tale of human frailty and sorrow. The rust, decay, and ugliness must foreshadow the gloom of the novel. The Scarlett Letter's larger conflict is commonly acknowledged by critics as having strife between two modes of experience and understanding. One that tends towards restriction, fixity, and orthodoxy, and one that tends toward a freer expression and recognition of the self's desires, needs, and powers. Hawthorne's speech in the novel is incredible, clean, and precise. He also uses extremely vivid color detail to describe his story with red, black, and gray being the most dominant. The red being associated with nature, life, and beauty but with a touch of sin, while black has been used with both sin and death, and gray to tie the two together. "The Scarlett Letter is the perfect exp

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Approximate Word count = 2368
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)