A Comparison of The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables

The settings in The Scarlet Letter are very important in displaying the themes of the novel. The settings in this novel are almost characters, for they are an important part in developing the story. The scaffold, the forest, the prison, and Hester’s cottage are settings that show sin and its consequences result in shame and suffering.

Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the greatest American authors of the nineteenth century. He published his first novel Fanshawe, in 1828. However, he is widely known for his novels The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables. His novel, The Scarlet Letter, can be analyzed from historical, psychological and feminist critical perspectives by examining his life from the past, as well as his reflections while writing The Scarlet Letter. In order to understand the book properly, it’s necessary to use these three perspectives.

Writing an excellent book, short story,or poem is an ability very few people posses : Nathaniel Hawthorne is someone who had this talent. Hawthorne's writing is mostly centered around romantic fiction, he has written a plethora of things but he is mostly remembered for his short stories and novels. Before divulging into his work, a reader should know where his writing comes from, his inspirations, originality and what some would call pure genius. The author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, is an individual whose work has been and should continue to be analyzed for years to come due to his unique twist on romantic fiction. Many of his works have casted a silhouette over America through his intricate stories and writing style that revealed the themes of psychology and human nature during the 19th century. Hawthorne’s ominous style makes his works into oddities compared to the other romantic fiction novels in his time. Many of his works, such as The Scarlet Letter, exemplifies the epitome of Hawthorne’s distinct outlook on the moralistic attitudes of

In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne often demonstrates the frailty of humans. Nature is often described as beautiful, while the Puritan society and human nature are viewed in a harsh light. Hawthorne illustrates that human nature is flawed and judgmental through use of figurative language, critical diction, and symbolism.

In the novel “The Scarlet Letter” and the musical “Chicago”, we are able to see many ideas and events that are similar, but there are also occasions where the actions that the characters take, differentiate. Both the novel and the musical’s main storyline is about a woman that committed adultery and have to face the consequences and criticism for what they did.

Conflict can take on many forms in one’s life, such as conflict with self, with society, with religion and with others. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, develops the theme of conflict through the moral sin of Hester Prynne. Conflict is observed through Hester’s difficulties with the townspeople, challenges with the Puritan way of life, struggles with herself and tensions with Roger Chillingworth. Committing sin in the Puritan society leads to a great deal of conflicts.

Demi Moore's portrayal of Hester in the movie The Scarlet Letter proved her worth as a feminist actress, which led her to other, more modern female empowerment roles ranging from Striptease to GI Jane.  But in the moviemakers 'attempt to give the story what they might think is a little modern flavor, they barbarously misconstrued the theme, and thus the importance, of a timeless story.  In the novel, there can be little doubt that Hester is a strong person, but the movie made her out to be a martyr for women's rights.  The female empowerment theme of the movie also inevitably led to the characterization of Christians and their ethics as tyrannical and oppressive because the feminist

Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of the most important authors in the history of American literature and the genre of Romanticism or Dark Romanticism, due to his unique style of writing and his focus upon subjects of Puritan religion and the unknown. I consider Hawthorne an important author, due to the fact that he skillfully and accurately based his fictional writings upon happenings of colonial times, was one of the first authors to display unfortunate outcomes for his characters’ immoral choices according to Puritan beliefs, and wrote of things that were considered taboo in his time, such as witchcraft, scientific innovation and experimentation. I strongly believe that Hawthorne’s influence for his writings were his Puritan ancestral background, his fascination with Puritan beliefs, and his interest in what was considered the unknown such as witchcraft and science. According to the Norton Anthology Textbook Vol. B, Nathaniel Hawthorne was “born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1804” (370). Hawthorne belonged “to a family whose ancestral roots were tied to Puritan history, with his family being among the first settlers of Massachusetts and having one of his relatives serve as a judge during the Salem witch trials” (370). Hawthorne, as a young boy, “had a particular interest in writings such as John Bunyan’s Puritan allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress, and by his mid-teens he took interest in British novelists such as Henry Fielding, Tobias Smollet, William Godwin, and Sir Walter Scott”

Nathaniel Hawthorne is a prominent writer who uses many different elements in his works. He uses elements such as symbolism, figurative language, metaphor, irony and etc. to make his work prominent. In the works by Nathaniel Hawthorne, he uses symbols for secret sin in The Scarlet Letter, “The Minister’s Black Veil,” and “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment.”

In the world today, themes and symbolisms have played a major role in the development and presentation of past and present novels. These themes and symbolisms within a novel shape the overall story and often work hand in hand to convey its purpose and meaning. One such novel would include The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne; in this story, along with all his others, he has incorporated his three predominant, driving themes: sin, hypocrisy, and corruption. In The Scarlet Letter,

Throughout the novel, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, there are many themes. These themes are love, guilt, and identity. Love, however, is the theme that is seen in every chapter as it can easily be related to the other two. Love is everywhere and sometimes it can get people into trouble. The two main characters in The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale figure this out very quickly.

The difference between Hester and Dimmesdale’s personal views on sin, and how they deal with their guilt are key themes within The Scarlet Letter.

One theme that I have chosen for this book is guilt/punishment. I chose this theme because throughout the book Hester is constantly reminded of her punishment and shame that her scarlet A brings her. It causes people to not want to talk to her and not help her, it causes her trouble when finding a job and when trying to make friends. The guilt that the A brings Hester affects her decisions and the ways she does things. But in this book the person that guilt affects the most is Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale knows that he has committed adultery with Hester but no one else knows this. It eats away at him and causes him to become less of a man throughout the story. He becomes weaker and weaker almost every chapter and at night when he is home alone he has a closet that has a knife within it and he carves the A on his chest to confess his sins. The guilt eats away at him until he confess

Hawthorne uses a more mysterious tone as he says this rose-bush, by a “strange chance,” has been kept alive in history; but whether it had merely “survived” out of the “stern old wilderness,” and oaks that “overshadowed” it. The mysterious tone that Hawthorne is using makes the audience wonder why the rose-bush is still alive, and if something “magical” may be keeping it alive (tone). Hawthorne’s purpose is to teach the audience in which he says, “it may serve, let us hope, to symbolize sweet blossom that may be found along the track.” Hawthorne is trying to tell the audience, that the rose-bush is a symbol, in which it may “bloom” into something beautiful, even after the event of

One of the main characters in the novel, Hester, shows the pervasiveness of hypocrisy with her own hidden