The Scarlet Letter
By Hawthorne
a tragedy of sin, an epic of the soul. To Hawthorne the supernatural was as real as nature itself; good and evil, inner and outer, are in constant conflict throughout his pages. The scarlet letter Hester wears is a symbol, and symbolism is the key to Hawthorne’s method and meaning.
As a preparation for this novel one ought to recall the spirit of the old colonial times in New England, the deep religiousness, the belief in witches, and the vivid sense of the supernatural. In order to enjoy any story one must understand its background, must be able to get out of his own day, away from his own customs, back to the life of the story, as if he were a very part of it.
This will have to be done for the next story, William Dean Howells’