The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

It serves as a formula for the conveyance of ideas otherwise too subtle for words, as well as to enhance the gloomy picturesqueness of the moral scenery. It is the concentration and type of the whole argument. But the scarlet letter uplifts the theme from the material to the spiritual level. It is not practically essential to the plot. We may realize its value, in the present case, by imagining the book with the scarlet letter omitted.

Some such figurative emblem, introduced in a matter-of-fact way, but gradually invested with supernatural attributes, was one of Hawthorne's favorite devices in his stories. Evidently, likewise, it was a source of inspiration, suggesting new aspects and features of the truth, - a sort of witch-hazel to detect spiritual gold. But the symbol gave the touch whereby Hawthorne's disconnected thoughts on the subject were united and crystallized in organic form. The punishment of the scarlet letter is a historical fact and, apart from the symbol thus ready provided to the author's hand, such a book as The Scarlet Letter would doubtless never have existed. The reader may choose his depth according to his inches but only a tall man will touch the bottom. For the external or literal significance of the story, though in strict correspondence with the spirit, conceals that spirit from the literal eye. It goes to the root of the matter, and reaches some unconventional conclusions, which, however, would scarce be apprehended by one reader in twenty.

It combines the strength and substance of an oak with the subtle organization of a rose, and is great, not of malice aforethought, but inevitably.

It has the charm of unconsciousness the author did not realize while he worked, that this “most prolix among the tales” was alive with the miraculous vitality of genius. The Scarlet Letter was the first, and the tendency of criticism is to pronounce it the most impressive, also, of these ampler productions. The material is so wrought as to become incidental to something loftier and greater, for which our previous analysis of the contents of the egg had not prepared us. The shorter pieces have a lyrical quality, but the longer romances express more than a mere combination of lyrics they have a rich, multifarious life of their own. Rappaccini's Daughter, Young Goodman Brown, Peter Goldthwaite's Treasure, and The Artist of the Beautiful, on the one side, are the promise which is fulfilled in The Scarlet Letter and the House of The Seven Gables, on the other though we should hardly have understood the promise had not the fulfillment explained it. Between Hawthorne's earlier and his later productions there is no solution of literary continuity, but only increased growth and grasp.

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne