Scarlet Letter

A self-described “tale of frailty and human sorrow,” The Scarlet Letter probes the deepest recesses of tormented souls in a psychological examination of the basest passions and tragic flaws of human nature. Hawthorne, too, considers the effects of social nonconformity and social reverence and the disparities between the seeming and the actual (or, internal life and external perception) in a highly patriarchal, repressive Puritan community. Hawthorne discovers a web of human sin and guilt complicated by hypocrisy and alienation and intensified by natural instincts and cultural demands that make contradicting claims on oneselfHawthorne characterizes Hester (an adulteress) as highly noble and virtuous in her rebellion—perhaps more so than her “upright” Puritan counterparts. In an tacit struggle with a repressive society, Hester refuses to interpret (or even fashion) the scarlet letter as would her Puritan leaders. While Hawthorne does not condone her sin, he does not necessarily...