In this blog post, we will examine how the conflict with Puritan society is revealed in the work and what clues to reconciliation it offers, by exploring Nathaniel Hawthorne’s life, his early literary career, and the background behind the creation of ‘The Scarlet Letter’.

Early Life and Background

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts. The son of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Elizabeth Manning Hawthorne, he came from a Puritan family; one of his ancestors, John Hawthorne, served as a judge during the Salem witch trials. Ashamed of this connection, Hawthorne is said to have later added the letter w to his surname.
His family life during his childhood was unstable. His father, a ship’s captain, set sail shortly after their marriage; Hawthorne and his sister Maria Louisa were born during his brief stay at home shortly after the birth of his first daughter, Elizabeth. In 1808, shortly after Maria’s birth, his father died in Suriname, and Hawthorne moved with his mother and sisters to his maternal grandparents’ home in Salem.
In 1813, after being injured at school, he spent some time at home under the tutelage of lexicographer J. E. Worcester, during which he devoured works such as Edmund Spenser’s ‘The Faerie Queene’, John Bunyan’s ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’, Shakespeare’s plays, and Walter Scott’s novels. Later, he even named his daughter Una, after the heroine of ‘The Faerie Queene’.
In 1818, Hawthorne moved with his family to Raymond, Maine, where he enjoyed outdoor activities such as hunting, fishing, skating, and walking in the woods; these experiences had a profound influence on his entire body of work. In 1819, he returned to Salem and began writing in earnest while attending Samuel Archer’s school.
In his youth, he read widely, including works by Walter Scott, Tobias Smollett’s ‘Roderick Random’, Ann Radcliffe’s ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’, William Godwin’s ‘Caleb Williams’, and ‘The Arabian Nights’. From 1821 to 1825, he attended Bowdoin College, where he associated with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Franklin Pierce (who would later become the 14th President), and Horatio Bridge, among others.

Literary Career and the Creation of ‘The Scarlet Letter’

After returning to Salem in 1825, Hawthorne remained mostly at home until 1837, devoting himself to writing. He traveled to New Haven in 1828, New Hampshire in 1831, and Vermont in 1832, meeting with college friends and occasionally engaging in romantic liaisons. Above all, however, he laid the foundation for his literary career by researching colonial history and related materials.
His early creative and publishing endeavors were not without their challenges. In 1828, he self-published his first full-length historical novel, ‘Fanshaw: A Tale’, anonymously, but soon recalled and disposed of the copies; in 1830, he published the short story “Three Hills Valley” in the ‘Salem Gazette’. He attempted to publish a collection of stories he had gathered but, unable to find a publisher, ended up burning the manuscript.
Meanwhile, several short stories from 1829 (e.g., “The Affectionate Boy,” “The Burial of Roger Malvin,” “My Relative, Major Molino,” etc.) were published in the magazine ‘The Token’, edited by Boston publisher Samuel Goodrich, while other stories appeared in the ‘New England Magazine’. In 1837, his friend Bridge advanced $250 to Goodrich to cover the losses, enabling the publication of Hawthorne’s first collection of short stories ‘Twice-Told Tales’ was published; the book included 18 of the 36 short stories and sketches that had been published at that time.
The title was taken from a line by Shakespeare, and a favorable review by his college friend Longfellow also helped the book’s publication. Around this time, Hawthorne began to gradually gain attention in literary circles.
In 1838, he met and became engaged to Sophia Peabody, the sister of Elizabeth Peabody. To raise funds for their wedding, he worked as a weighmaster at the Boston Customs House from 1839 to 1840, inspecting the quantities of salt and coal and earning an annual salary of $1,500. In 1841, he joined Brook Farm, an experimental utopian community founded by George Ripley, where he lived among the Transcendentalists and invested $1,000, but left after only two months. This experience later became the basis for his 1852 novel, ‘The Blisdale Romance’.
Hawthorne married Sophia in July 1842 and lived for a time at the Old Manse in Concord, where he socialized with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and others. In 1841, he published ‘Grandfather’s Chair’, ‘Famous Old Men’, and ‘The Liberty Tree’, a series of historical and biographical books for children; he also enjoyed a happy family life with the births of his daughter Una in 1843 and his son Julian in 1846. ‘Mosses from an Old Manse’, published in 1846, included the first appearances of “The Burial of Roger Malvin” and “Young Goodman Brown.”
That same year, in recognition of his long-standing contributions to the Democratic Party, which he had supported for many years, Hawthorne was appointed inspector at the Salem Customs House; however, following a change in administration, he was dismissed by the Whig Party in June 1849. During this period, Hawthorne was generally unable to devote much time to his writing, and the death of his mother that summer dealt him a severe emotional blow.
After his dismissal, Hawthorne threw himself back into writing. Beginning in September 1849, he worked until January 1850, completing most of the manuscript for ‘The Great Stone Face’, ‘The Custom-House’ (which served as a preface), and ‘The Scarlet Letter’—with the exception of the last three chapters. Originally, he had planned to compile a book that included “The Custom-House” as a preface along with various sketches and a full-length novel, but on the publisher’s advice, he decided to publish this work as a standalone novel.
Although “The Scarlet Letter” was criticized by some as morbid and obscene, it caused a major sensation in the United States and Britain, establishing Hawthorne as an outstanding writer of romance.

Hawthorne’s Later Years and Major Works

Hawthorne moved to Lenox, Massachusetts, where he lived for about a year and a half, interacting with his neighbors, the novelist Herman Melville and the poet Oliver Wendell Holmes. During this period, he published the novel ‘The House of the Seven Gables’ (1851) and the short story collection ‘The Snow-Image and Other Twice-Told Tales’ (1852).
Hawthorne later moved to West Newton, where he wrote ‘The Blisdale Romance’ in 1852. He purchased Hillside, a house formerly owned by Amos Alcott, and renamed it Wayside. There, he wrote ‘The Life of Franklin Pierce’ ‘ for his college friend Franklin Pierce’s 1852 presidential campaign, and also wrote ‘Tanglewood Tales for Girls and Boys’, a collection of retold myths for children, during this period.
After Pierce was elected president, Hawthorne was appointed consul in Liverpool, England, in 1853; he served until August 1857, when he resigned. He then spent two years traveling through England and Europe.
In 1858, he spent most of his time in Italy—particularly in Rome and Florence—where he met painters, sculptors, and poets, visited museums and cathedrals, and recorded his observations in detail in his notebook. He began writing a novel in Florence and returned to Redcar, England, in 1859 to complete it, drawing heavily on his Italian notebook during the process.
Inspired by the statue of the faun (Pausanias), attributed to the Greek sculptor Praxiteles, the novel was published in London in 1860 under the title ‘Transformation’; in the United States, it was published as ‘The Marble Faun’, the title Hawthorne preferred.
Upon returning to the United States in June 1860, Hawthorne attempted to renovate Wayside but lacked sufficient funds. He was asked to write sketches for ‘The Atlantic Monthly’ based on the notes James Fields had taken in England, and this work led to overwork, which in turn caused his health to deteriorate.
He compiled his essays on England into a book titled ‘Our Old Home’ and dedicated it to Pierce. In his final years, he left behind four unfinished works: ‘Ancestral Footman’, ‘Septimius Felton’, ‘The Dolliver Romance’, and ‘Dr. Grimshawe’s Secret’.
Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864, in Plymouth, New Hampshire, while traveling with Pierce to recuperate, and was buried on May 23 at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord. His casket was carried by Alcott, Emerson, Fields, Holmes, Longfellow, Lowell, and others.

The Historical Background of ‘The Scarlet Letter’ (Mid-19th-Century America)

In the mid-19th century, while Hawthorne was writing ‘The Scarlet Letter’, the United States was undergoing rapid changes across the political, economic, and cultural spheres. Having expanded its territory since its founding, the United States saw its social structure and way of life transform rapidly through industrialization and population growth; during this process, the issue of slavery sparked ongoing conflict between the North and the South.
After Thomas Jefferson expanded the nation’s territory by purchasing the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, Congress passed the Indian Removal Acts in the 1830s, systematically driving out Native Americans and ultimately securing the western territories. U.S. territory continued to expand with the annexation of Texas in 1845, the Oregon Treaty of 1846, and the acquisition of California and New Mexico through the Mexican-American War in 1848.
Along with territorial expansion, advances in transportation revolutionized the movement and interaction of Americans. Following the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825, canals were built nationwide through the 1840s; steamboats and stagecoaches became widespread; and after the 1840s, railroads replaced stagecoaches, extending the transportation network deep into the interior. The spread of the telegraph contributed to the formation of a communications network linking major cities.
Industrially, the modern factory system began in New England’s textile industry and expanded to shoe factories and other sectors; British-style ironmaking technology and coal-fired blast furnaces made mechanized production possible. By the 1850s, weapons, sewing machines, and farm implements were being produced by assembling standard parts, and the factory workforce was largely made up of immigrants.
Population growth and urban expansion were other defining features of this period. While the number of immigrants arriving in the United States in the 1830s was only about 500,000, it rose to 1.5 million in the 1840s, 2.5 million in the 1850s, and cities in the Northeast—such as New York, Boston, and Philadelphia—were transformed into cosmopolitan metropolises with a diverse mix of ethnic groups. At the same time, many Americans migrated westward, and the discovery of gold in California in 1849 further spurred population movement, leading to California’s admission as a state the following year.
Politically, in addition to national upheavals such as the expulsion of Native Americans and the Mexican-American War, the conflict between the North and South over slavery was the most significant issue. Whenever new territories were admitted as states, a balancing act arose over whether the state would become a slave state or a free state, leading to several compromises.
For example, in the Missouri Crisis, to maintain the balance, the northern state of Maine was admitted as a free state in conjunction with Missouri’s admission, and the Missouri Compromise was reached, which included a provision banning slavery north of the 36°30′ parallel. However, conflicts became more complex when territories acquired after the Mexican-American War were admitted as states, and attempts to admit California as a free state threatened the balance between the North and the South.
Ultimately, the Compromise of 1850 was reached: California was admitted as a free state; no immediate restrictions on slavery were imposed on other acquired territories; and in Washington, D.C., measures were taken to ban the slave trade while allowing slavery itself to continue. At the same time, the Fugitive Slave Law, which strictly regulated the return of escaped slaves, was passed; however, these compromises were merely stopgap measures rather than fundamental solutions, and the conflict eventually escalated into the Civil War.
Major changes also took place in the field of literature. Although the literary market expanded due to economic development, writers continued to struggle to make a living solely from their creative work. Although the United States enacted copyright protection laws in 1790, international copyright protection did not become possible until much later, in 1891. As a result, many writers were forced to pursue other occupations—such as working as magazine or newspaper editors—to secure a stable income, or, like Melville and Hawthorne, to work in government offices while continuing their literary careers.
With the exception of a few best-selling authors, American writers of that era found it difficult to make a living solely through writing and thus had to pursue various means of livelihood—such as becoming magazine editors, like Edgar Allan Poe, or securing government positions, like Melville and Hawthorne, to continue their literary work. In this way, political, economic, and social changes and conflicts formed the historical backdrop of Hawthorne’s era and profoundly influenced his literary world.

A Critical Perspective and the Emergence of Transcendentalism

These writers held a strong critical view of the materialistic civilization created by the rapid economic development of the time. Emerson criticized the fact that, rather than humans using material things, material things actually dominated humans, and Thoreau sharply rebuked Americans for their obsession with material possessions. Rebecca Harding Davis, in ‘Life in the Iron-Mills’, starkly depicted the harrowing reality of wage laborers and the barriers between social classes, while Melville denounced the exploitation of female factory workers, who were being mechanized by the factory system, in his short story “ The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids,” denounced the exploitation of female workers who were being mechanized by the factory system. Even the title of Hawthorne’s short story, “The Celestial Railroad,” reflects a cynical critique of secularized Christianity and the spirit of the times.
The literature of this period was in a transitional phase, moving away from the rationalist thinking of the late 18th and early 19th centuries toward Romanticism. Although the trend of prioritizing historical works and biographies based on facts, morality, and truth over creative writing persisted into the mid-period, writers such as Washington Irving emphasized the autonomy of literature and argued that literature should provide pleasure rather than merely impart lessons. This shift accelerated in a direction that elevated imagination to a value no less important than fact.
British and European Romanticism took on a unique form in the United States known as Transcendentalism. Emerson, a leading Transcendentalist, viewed reason as humanity’s highest capacity in his early work ‘Nature’ and presented an optimistic vision that, through this capacity, humans could transcend the phenomenal world and reach the divine spiritual realm. Under Emerson’s influence, Thoreau advocated in ‘Walden, or Life in the Woods’ for a simple life that pursued the essential, free from the consumptive nature of material civilization, while Walt Whitman, though also influenced by Emerson, emphasized the importance not only of the spirit but also of the body. Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” included in his poetry collection ‘Leaves of Grass’, left a groundbreaking mark on American poetry history with its radical departure from traditional themes and forms.
During this period, Poe also published outstanding short stories such as “The Purloined Letter” and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” while Harriet Beecher Stowe became an overnight best-selling author with “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” The 1840s and 1850s were a period when the United States produced outstanding writers and works; the 1940s critic F. O. Matthiessen named this era “The American Renaissance.” . As Matthiessen put it, this period marked the time when American writers broke free from British influence, created uniquely American works, and declared their literary independence. In particular, Hawthorne’s ‘The Scarlet Letter’ and Melville’s ‘Moby-Dick’ are widely recognized as masterpieces representing the 19th-century American Renaissance.

Criticism and Interpretation of ‘The Scarlet Letter’

Even before Hawthorne and Melville, there were outstanding American novelists such as the Gothic novelist Charles Brockden Brown, Washington Irving’s sketches (e.g., ‘Rip Van Winkle’), and James Fenimore Cooper’s ‘Leather Stocking Tales’. Although Poe and Stowe were also important novelists of the same era, Melville and Hawthorne stand out in particular for their depth and originality as the leading novelists of this period. Even among the works they published, it is difficult to find any that can compare to ‘Moby-Dick’ and ‘The Scarlet Letter’.
There is no doubt that these two novels are masterpieces embodying the essence of creative genius and the human spirit. The authors themselves recognized that their works were the result of sublimating extreme human experiences into art. In a letter to Hawthorne dated June 29, 1850, Melville described ‘Moby-Dick’ as a work “boiled in the fires of hell,” and Hawthorne, also in 1850, confessed to a friend that that ‘The Scarlet Letter’ was a “hell-fired story,” confessing the intense emotions he had experienced while writing it. He also recounted an anecdote in which his wife, upon hearing him read the ending of the novel to her, was deeply distressed and complained of a headache. These expressions demonstrate the immense emotional anguish and tension that both works evoked in their authors.
‘The Scarlet Letter’ is a work that has profoundly stirred readers’ hearts since its publication. So what gives this novel such a powerful appeal, and what is its significance? From the time of its publication to the present, this novel has generated a wide range of critiques and interpretations. While it is difficult to cover the entirety of this long critical history here, examining a few key perspectives will serve as a helpful starting point for the reader’s understanding.
The reaction of the American critical community at the time of publication can be summarized into three main categories. The first was a debate over the work’s morality. Critics such as Arthur Cleveland Coxe harshly condemned the novel as immoral, accusing Hawthorne of being the one responsible for introducing the obscene tendencies of French literature into America. In contrast, Evert A. Duykinck assessed that the work exemplified sound morality and saw in Hawthorne the living spirit of his Puritan forebears. Edwin Percy Whipple also praised the work for exploring the essence of moral law, arguing that the novel would inspire readers to make sound resolutions.
Second, critics focused on the work’s dark atmosphere and its depiction of pathological inner passion. Whipple emphasized the work’s tragic nature, pointing out as a flaw that the characters’ pathological passions were portrayed as excessively dark and intense, lacking any bright side. Henry F. Chorley also described the novel as a powerful yet painful story, arguing that such passion and tragedy were not suitable themes for a novel.
Third were the positive assessments of its artistic merit. Dykingk praised the novel as a “psychological romance,” hailing it as a work that dissects the inner human world with sophistication, poetry, and drama; Whipple, while acknowledging its tragic nature, also recognized that Hawthorne had vividly captured human emotions and pathological minds—which are often difficult to grasp—with remarkable imagination. Cholly also criticized the themes of sin and sorrow as unsuitable for a novel, but acknowledged the novel’s artistic merit to such an extent that, if such themes were treated artistically, it would be difficult to find a work purer and more evocative of empathy than ‘The Scarlet Letter’.

Contemporary Criticism and the Contrast Between Characters

Along with morality, tragedy, and artistic merit, one of the key elements that contemporary critics focused on was the contrast between the personalities and lives of Dimmesdale and Hester. George Bailey Loring assessed that, despite Dimsdale’s love for Hester, he lacked the moral courage and honesty to confess his sin; consequently, even with his religious wisdom, he could not save himself. In contrast, Loring viewed Hester as someone who, though cast out by society and subjected to outward humiliation and coldness, demonstrated heroic qualities by attaining greater religious wisdom and freedom through her suffering.
Although Loring’s argument was a conclusion drawn from a moral interpretation of the work, it also foreshadowed later critics’ debates over who should be considered the protagonist. In other words, Hester’s inner growth and social resilience, on the one hand, and Dimmesdale’s inner conflict and hypocrisy, on the other, led to differing evaluations, which became a central axis of the work’s interpretation.

The Perspectives of Henry James and Mark Twain

Even before the 1940s, there were novelists who read this work with great interest. One of them was Henry James, who, along with Mark Twain, represented American literature of the late 19th century. In an essay on Hawthorne’s life and work, James praised ‘The Scarlet Letter’ as Hawthorne’s masterpiece and a work of great importance in English-language literature, predicting that it would sustain Hawthorne’s reputation for a long time.
However, James also offered criticism of the novel from a realist perspective. He believed that while ‘ The Scarlet Letter” was clearly the product of a brilliant imagination, he believed it lacked realism due to an excessive reliance on imaginative elements. James pointed out that the characters felt less like independent individuals and more like reflections of a single character’s diverse inner world, and he tended to place the focus of the work on Dimmesdale rather than Hester. He argued that while the novel deals with the love between two lovers, its core lies not in love itself but in the moral situation that follows over the long years—namely, Dimmesdale’s suffering and atonement.

D. H. Lawrence’s In-Depth Interpretation

The 20th-century British novelist D. H. Lawrence offered a more in-depth and symbolic interpretation. He argued that ‘The Scarlet Letter’ reveals the divided inner world of Americans. While the surface consciousness appears bright and cheerful, a demonic destructiveness lies beneath, and the work symbolically exposes precisely that deep-seated demonic nature.
Lawrence explained the American psyche through the struggle between the “knowledge of the mind” acquired by humans after the Fall and the repressed “knowledge of the blood.” He viewed modern America as a society where “mind knowledge” prevails, turning people into “pale souls” by demonizing the body, while simultaneously falling into a false consciousness that craves spiritual values. From this perspective, Dimmesdale is interpreted as a hypocritical figure who preaches spiritual pursuits but does not truly believe in them, Hester, on the other hand, struck Lawrence as a more sensual and honest character because she candidly acknowledged her inner “animal nature.”
Lawrence viewed female sensuality and inner honesty with sympathy, and he criticized the notion that the greatest danger lies not in women who lead men astray, but in morality itself—which suppresses the knowledge of the flesh and forbids sin. In this regard, unlike James, he placed the emotional center of the work on the rebellious and sensual Hester.

Modern Criticism: Focusing on Form and Structure

Since the 1940s, modern criticism of ‘The Scarlet Letter’ has expanded into various strands, but unlike earlier criticism, there is a notable focus on the work’s literary form and structure. In particular, New Criticism scholars view the work as an autonomous text separate from its social and historical context, highlighting the novel’s balanced composition and repetitive devices.
A prime example of this is the repetition of the scaffold. As scholar Mattison pointed out, in Chapter 2 of the novel, Hester stands on the scaffold wearing the scarlet letter, and in Chapter 12, which forms the middle section, there is a scene where Dimmesdale, after failing to confess his sin on the scaffold at night, is seen with Hester and Pearl; and in Chapters 23 and 24, just before the conclusion, Dimmesdale finally ascends the scaffold in broad daylight to publicly confess his sin and meet his death. In this way, the pillory recurs throughout the beginning, middle, and end of the novel, functioning as a device that forms the structural framework of the work.
Leland Schubert proposed a more refined chapter-by-chapter division, dividing the novel into seven parts. According to him, the settings of the first three chapters and the last three chapters correspond to the marketplace (town square), while the settings of the two central sections form a symmetry: Governor Bellingham’s mansion, representing Puritan society, and the forest, where Puritan order does not extend. These spatial contrasts visually emphasize the contrasts in the work’s themes and the characters’ fates. For example, the scene where Hester’s scarlet letter is reflected and magnified on Bellingham’s armor, and the scene where Hester tears off the letter in the forest, dramatically illustrate the contrast between social control and personal freedom.

The Protagonist Debate: Hester or Dimmesdale?

The debate over who the protagonist of this work is is closely linked to structural analysis. Contrary to the view that Hester is the protagonist, Darrell Abel argued that while Hester is a figure of pity, Hawthorne criticized her moral failings, and through this, he sought to persuade readers that Dimmesdale is the protagonist. Able viewed the three recurring scenes at the pillory, in particular, as illustrating Dimmesdale’s journey toward moral victory.
Able’s argument is as follows: In the first pillory scene, Dimmesdale knows he must stand at the pillory with Hester but is unable to do so; in the second scene, he attempts to climb the pillory at night but fails; and finally, in the last scene, he stands on the scaffold in broad daylight and publicly confesses his sin. These three scenes progressively illustrate Dimmesdale’s struggle between inner torment and public confession, thereby making his moral growth and drama the central plot.
Roy Mail proposes a three-part division of the novel: the first third focuses on Hester’s moral growth; the next third depicts the process by which the burden of sin shifts from Hester to Dimmesdale; and the final third to his complete moral growth. He supports his analysis by pointing out that, although the scarlet letter is depicted as being seared onto Hester’s chest in the title and imagery, its true revelation actually takes the form of a mark seared onto Dimmesdale’s chest in Chapter 23.
Ultimately, whether Hester or Dimmesdale is viewed as the protagonist depends on whether the work is read as a narrative of moral growth or as a narrative of individual inner freedom and sensual resistance. While the aforementioned Rowling and Lawrence placed the emotional center on Hester, James, Abel, and others placed the central focus on Dimmesdale. Contemporary criticism has expanded this debate to include formal devices and structural analysis, thereby exploring the work’s multilayered meanings in greater depth.

Critical Debate: Perspectives from Feminism and New Historicism

Feminist scholarship has leveled sharp criticism against these views. In particular, Nina Baym scathingly criticized critics like Abel, who argued that Dimmesdale is the novel’s central figure, insisting that, structurally speaking, ‘The Scarlet Letter’ cannot be reduced to Dimmesdale’s story.
Baym’s analysis is detailed. She notes that of the novel’s 24 chapters, 13 are about Hester, three are about Hester and Dimmesdale, and only eight focus exclusively on Dimmesdale. Furthermore, he points out that in “The Custom House”—which serves as the novel’s prologue—the scarlet letter is associated exclusively with Hester, while Dimmesdale is not even mentioned. He also considers it significant that in that prologue, Magistrate Peech explicitly orders that Hester’s story be written.
Beam believed that the tendency toward New Criticism and social ideology were at work behind the claims by critics such as Abel that Dimmesdale was the protagonist. In other words, literary discourse at the time strongly favored male protagonists and “great heroes,” and tended not to accept a female protagonist, thereby dismissing Hester as the embodiment of personal romanticism.
In his character assessment, Beame also argues that Hester is superior to Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale is a hypocrite who cannot confess his sin and, even at the moment of his death, remains trapped in personal anguish, failing to fully shoulder his social responsibilities; Hester, on the other hand, though once rebellious enough to seem capable of overturning society, ultimately reconciles with society and lives her life while taking responsibility.
More recent neo-historicist criticism has helped elucidate the connection between this novel and the historical context of mid-19th-century America. For example, Jonathan Arac reads the politics of ‘The Scarlet Letter’ as a warning against abolitionism. He viewed Hester’s transformation from a rebellious prophet to a socially conformist figure as a strategy to postpone the advent of a utopian world to the distant future, noting that this parallels the attitude of the Democratic Party—to which Hawthorne belonged—which ambiguously delayed the emancipation of slaves.
Another neo-historicist critic, Larry Reynolds, argued that Hawthorne was critical of the European revolutions of his time and interpreted the political situation—in which the Whig Party held the upper hand over the Democratic Party—as analogous to the French Revolution of 1848. In other words, the political and social currents within the work are not unrelated to the political events in the United States and Europe at that time.

Hawthorne’s Historical Consciousness and Imagination: The Origin and Essence of the Novel

In addition to the critiques examined so far, ‘The Scarlet Letter’ has been analyzed from various perspectives, including psychoanalysis, deconstruction, and reader-response theory; however, I will leave those diverse discussions to the realm of specialized criticism and instead summarize the novel’s significance based on the points raised thus far. While this work bears the historical imprint of mid-19th-century America, it is set against the backdrop of the Puritan era of the 1640s and is thus deeply connected to the society of that time.
Hawthorne respected his Puritan ancestors while also criticizing their strictness, displaying an ambivalent attitude in which he felt shame over the fact that some of his ancestors had participated in witch trials and similar events. Because he felt an inescapable connection to his Puritan ancestors, he studied the Puritan era in depth, and this historical interest led to vivid depictions of the era’s setting and characters in the novel.
The scene where Dimmesdale confesses his sins at the end of the novel can be understood within the context of Puritan tradition. Puritan society required the public confession of religious experiences and emphasized public confession for various crimes. It can be argued that Hawthorne’s historical imagination, informed by his study of this tradition, is precisely what made Dimmesdale’s confession scene possible.
Historical clues related to Puritan society are woven throughout the novel. For example, the suggestion that the wild roses—which appear in contrast to the dark vegetation—might be linked to Anne Hutchinson’s footsteps stems from Hawthorne’s interest in key figures associated with the persecution of the Puritans. Furthermore, real figures and events—such as the deaths of Governor Bellingham and former Governor John Winthrop—appear in the novel, and the legend behind the “A” that Hester wears on her chest is also based on actual records from the Plymouth Colony and Duxbury.
Hawthorne recorded “the life of a woman sentenced to wear a mark of adultery under the old colonial laws” in ‘The American Notebooks’, and the Salem court records contain a case from 1668 in which a woman named Hester Crawford was punished for adultery. These historical sources support the roots of the setting for ‘Hester Prynne’ and ‘The Scarlet Letter’.
However, this does not mean that historical sources define the entirety of the novel. These sources merely provide the foundation for the work; the essence of the novel lies in Hawthorne’s literary imagination, which breathed life into those sources, creating the dramatic lives of the characters. In mid-19th-century American literature, dominated by Romanticism, imagination was the core driving force of creativity, and Hawthorne was well aware of its value.
This point is clearly evident in “The Custom House,” which serves as the novel’s preface. Modern readers may find it difficult to immediately sense a close connection to the novel itself through this lengthy preface, as it is filled with political commentary alongside descriptions—sometimes cynical, sometimes humorous—of the characters he observed at the customs house. Hawthorne critically portrays the reality of his own circumstances by referencing the political conflict between the Whig and Democratic parties.
However, a close reading of the preface reveals not only the process that led Hawthorne to write ‘The Scarlet Letter’ but also the significant meaning embedded within the preface itself. That meaning is a declaration of the autonomy and importance of literary imagination. Through his depictions of the various characters at the Custom House, Hawthorne sharply and humorously exposes how the real world can debase the human spirit.
Hawthorne feared he might end up like the characters at the Custom House, and and he considers it a blessing that he was able to leave the customs office following a change in administration and return to the world of literature. While there may be elements of personal resentment or self-justification, given that he was indeed unable to engage in creative writing during his time at the customs office, his statements in the preface cannot be read as mere excuses.
The overall narrative of the preface can be read as the process by which Hawthorne lost and then regained his imagination while in the secular world of the customs house. He strives to stimulate his forgotten imagination by envisioning General Miller’s youth, and ultimately regains it upon discovering the records left by Inspector Peawey concerning Hester Prynne.
The scene in which Hawthorne uncovers a historically nonexistent document and the scarlet letter that wrapped it not only explains the origin of the fiction but also symbolizes the moment when the author’s own imagination regains an outlet that transcends reality. The physical movement from the first floor to the second floor of the customs house is also a metaphorical expression of the transition from the real world to the world of the imagination.
After discovering the document about Hester, Hawthorne describes in detail the circumstances in which his imagination operates. The process by which everyday objects, under moonlight or the glow of a coal fire, depart from their usual forms and are transformed into mental and symbolic objects reveals the essence of creative work born of the imagination. He explains that “a middle ground where the realistic and the imaginary meet, situated between the real world and the world of fairy tales,” is created.
Hawthorne goes on to say that if one cannot turn the world of dreams into the world of truth, one is unqualified to write romance. This statement became the basis for many 20th-century American literary critics to interpret American fiction in contrast to British fiction. In other words, the argument is that American fiction, while grounded in reality, tends to blend reality with imagination or to create imaginary worlds that depart from reality.

Hawthorne’s Recovery of Imagination: The Role of “The Customs-House”

“The Customs-House” is a story in which Hawthorne reclaims his imagination, and it marks the moment when the liberation of imagination truly comes to the fore in the history of American literature. From the late 18th century through the mid-19th century, American writers were not free from the widespread societal notion that “fact, truth, and history take precedence over imagination.” Early American novelists persistently emphasized that their works were grounded in fact and truth and contained moral lessons.
Just as Washington Irving satirized the societal obsession with moral lessons in ‘Rip Van Winkle’, American society at the time still demanded facts, truth, and moral lessons with great intensity. Against this backdrop, Hawthorne defined the “romance” not as a realm of imagination but as a middle ground between reality and imagination; his claim that ‘ ‘The Scarlet Letter’ was based on historical records can be interpreted as a kind of compromise in response to these social demands.
However, reading between the lines of “The Customs House,” one can see that Hawthorne is, in fact, advocating for the liberation of the imagination. While he states that Prosecutor Pew’s documents actually exist and that he intends to entrust them to the Essex Historical Society, he simultaneously confesses that he has treated the facts in those documents “with almost or entirely free rein, as if I had invented them myself.” This contradictory statement suggests that Hawthorne is not uncritically following the facts but rather recreating them through his imagination.
Although Prosecutor Pew was a real person, Hawthorne uses him as a source of literary inspiration, imaginatively recreating him based on the facts. Hawthorne reveals a subtle hostility through his imagination of his Puritan ancestors belittling him as a mere scribbler. This hostility goes beyond mere shame toward ancestors who participated in the witch trials; it is also a romantic writer’s critique of the Puritan worldview, which did not tolerate imagination.
For example, Hawthorne revives the story of Thomas Morton—whom Plymouth Colony leader Bradford criticized as a dissolute layman in ‘Of Plymouth Plantation’—in the short story “The Maypole at Marymount,” thereby criticizing Puritan rigidity and narrow-mindedness. Therefore, Hawthorne’s response—his willingness to write a story at the behest of Inspector Peewee—is not merely an attitude of following source material, but also a declaration of his rebirth as a descendant not of Puritan ancestors, but of imaginary ones.
At the end of “The Customs House,” Hawthorne describes himself as a citizen belonging to a world distinct from reality, implying that he is now stepping into the realm of the imagination rather than reality. That imaginary world is precisely the world of ‘The Scarlet Letter’, and readers are thus invited into the story created by the imagination that Hawthorne has reclaimed.

Continuity in ‘The Scarlet Letter’ and the Ideology of the Conclusion

“The Customs House” is not merely a preface but an introduction closely linked to ‘The Scarlet Letter’. The characters in “The Customs House,” portrayed as narrow-minded and austere Puritan forebears, are reimagined in the novel as the aging minister and, more broadly, as symbols of Puritan society, which defines love and passion as sins and punishes them. Furthermore, Hawthorne’s role as an observer in “The Customs House” is partially projected onto the characters in the novel.
Specifically, Hawthorne’s attitude of observing and dissecting the customs house employees is mirrored in Chillingworth’s observation and dissection of Dimmesdale’s inner world, and the conflict between Hawthorne’s public duty as an author and his inner turmoil is echoed in Dimmesdale’s struggle between his public role as a minister and his inner conflict as a sinner. Furthermore, Hawthorne’s portrayal as a figure criticized and mocked by his Puritan ancestors is also reflected in Hester, who endures ostracism and punishment in the novel.
However, the similarity between Hawthorne and Hester does not stop at the mere fact of being ostracized. They share the common ground of being imaginative beings. Hawthorne, the author, embroidered ‘The Scarlet Letter’ with his imagination, while Hester exercises her imagination and creativity through the act of lavishly embroidering the scarlet letter with gold thread. In this regard, the perspective that views Hester as the central character of the novel is persuasive.
However, the reason Hester is the protagonist is not merely a matter of page count or moral superiority. Nor does the interpretation that Hawthorne unilaterally defends Hester hold water. In fact, Hawthorne is harshly critical of Hester as well. According to feminist critics, Hester is restored as a Sister of Mercy who reconciles with Puritan society and is a morally more noble figure than Dimmesdale .
Meanwhile, neo-historicist critic Saeburn Berkovich explains this process of reconciliation from a historical and ideological perspective. He views the novel as structured toward the goal of taming Hester, transforming her from a rebellious figure into a self-sacrificing saint. In other words, the novel’s central mission is to assimilate Hester into the social order, and ‘The Scarlet Letter’ is a work that narrates that process.
From this perspective, the passage that follows a scene—such as Chapter 13 in the middle of the novel—where Hester wanders, having lost her feminine beauty after succumbing to radical ideas, and states, “The Scarlet Letter had not yet fulfilled its mission,” —which follows a scene where Hester, having succumbed to radical ideas and lost her feminine beauty, wanders aimlessly—can be read as a warning that this ideological mission remains unfulfilled. It is not only the author, Hawthorne, but also the dominant ideology of 19th-century American society to which he belonged that voices this warning.
At the conclusion, Hester voluntarily returns to the cottage, puts on the scarlet letter once more, and becomes a counselor who comforts the wounds of young women. The crucial point is that this change is not the result of coercion but a voluntary choice. Hester did not have to return, nor did she need to wear the letter again. Yet, by voluntarily reintegrating into Puritan society and taking on the role of reforming wounded women, she becomes a spokesperson for order. From Berkovits’ perspective, this scene illustrates how ideology operates not through coercion but through the consent of society’s members.
While Hester assimilates, Dimmesdale confesses his sins in the final scene and is sanctified. The frail Dimmesdale who pleaded with Hester in the woods gains vitality upon deciding to flee, but from the moment he rewrites his celebratory sermon, he undergoes a completely different transformation. The sight of him marching gives the impression that he has shed his physical shell and been transformed into a spiritual being.
In the scene where Dimmesdale tears open his chest on the scaffold to reveal the scarlet letter, he refers to himself in the third person and appears no longer to belong to this world but to heaven. He states that “Hester’s scarlet letter is but a shadow of the one I wear upon my own breast,” implying that his suffering is more sublime than Hester’s. Furthermore, by stating that even the letter branded on his chest cannot fully express his inner anguish, he reveals a spiritual elevation that transcends symbolism.
In this scene, the novel’s protagonist shifts from Hester to Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale is elevated to a saint who transcends even symbolism, and Hawthorne appears to have ultimately fulfilled both of his tasks: taming Hester and sanctifying Dimmesdale. However, despite this interpretation of the ending, we must not forget that critical elements and complex emotions still coexist in Hawthorne’s work.

Hawthorne and the Conservative Sexual Ideology of His Time

The narrative in which Hawthorne elevates Dimmesdale to the status of a saint and reforms Hester into a nun of mercy demonstrates that he was, to some extent, bound by the conservative sexual ideology of his time regarding women. In Chapter 13, “Another Aspect of Hester,” Hawthorne states that the ultimate reason Hester lost her feminine beauty and became haggard was her immersion in radical ideas, thereby revealing the perspective that women cannot resolve social problems—including gender inequality—through ideas, but must resolve them solely through the heart.
The assertion that emotional and sensibility are more important to women than rational and intellectual abilities aligns with the sentimentalist ideology that dominated 19th-century America. This ideology was inevitably linked to male-centered values that sought to separate men’s activities into the public sphere and women’s activities into the private sphere of the home.
This point is particularly evident in Ms. Stowe’s ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’. In that novel, Mrs. Rachel Halliday’s kitchen is depicted as an ideal feminine domain that alleviates the hardships men face in society and provides them with solace. The attributes of “true womanhood” advocated by society at the time were domesticity, obedience, modesty, and piety. In other words, the ideal image of a woman was that of a wife who remained at home, obeyed her husband, and was devout and modest.

Puritan Society and the View of Women’s Intellectual Activities

During the Puritan era, the distinction between the masculine, public sphere and the feminine, private sphere was even more rigid. Intellectual activities such as reading and writing were often subject to criticism for women at that time. Hester is a character who grossly violates the societal ideal of womanhood not only by Puritan standards but also by the standards of Hawthorne’s own era.
Hawthorne depicts Hester, who rebels against Puritan society, as sensual and at times “Oriental.” Here, the image of the “Orient” reflects the Orientalist perspective prevalent in the West at the time—a derogatory characterization of the East as sensual and passionate, in contrast to the rational West—and through this, we can glimpse how Hawthorne defines Hester as a heretical Other.
Consequently, Hawthorne regards Hester’s immersion in intellectual thought as a sin more serious than adultery; he defines her intellectual inquiry as moral wandering and warns that the mission of the scarlet letter remains unfulfilled. Ultimately, Hester transforms into a chaste and pious figure who wears the scarlet letter of her own volition, cares for the poor, and guides wounded young women.

The Clash Between Feminist Interpretation and Male-Centric Judgment

As David Leverenz has pointed out, while Hawthorne suggests that the poles of love and hate can meet—implying the possibility of reconciliation in the afterlife between the male characters Dimmesdale and Chillingworth—Hester, as a woman, is left behind on earth to endure suffering and punishment until the end. This reflects a cultural perspective that grants grace to male characters while imposing endurance and atonement on female characters.
However, this narrative also reveals a contradiction. If Hawthorne had thoroughly aligned himself with conservative ideology, it would conflict with the interpretation—argued earlier—that Hawthorne himself is most similar to Hester. The answer to this problem lies in the fact that literature itself is not composed solely of unified consistency.

Hawthorne and ‘The Scarlet Letter’ as Contradiction and Division

Contrary to the New Criticism perspective, literature is often rife with contradictions and divisions. Hawthorne is a writer characterized by ambiguity, and ‘The Scarlet Letter’ is a work that contains numerous contradictions. While he idealizes Dimmesdale and seeks to tame Hester through Puritan and contemporary liberal values, he simultaneously shows deep empathy for Hester—a woman possessed of a rebellious imagination—and portrays her as the most remarkable character.
In short, while Hawthorne consciously sided with the conservative order and sought to integrate Hester into the system, he unconsciously revealed his own divided identity through Hester’s imagination and rebelliousness. Hester is the character who best illustrates his self-contradictions and the contradictions of the era.

The Originality and Individuality of the Major Characters

The major characters in this novel—Hester, Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, and Pearl—are each portrayed as possessing unique personalities. As Henry James and the translator have pointed out, these characters may be diverse projections of Hawthorne’s own psychological state.
However, the fact that they do not merely reflect a part of the author’s inner self is confirmed by the fact that each character possesses a distinct personality and independent thoughts and actions. With the exception of Pearl (whose portrayal has been criticized at times for straying from plausibility), the remaining characters are portrayed with exceptional depth of character.
In American literature, these three characters are difficult to view as mere replicas of characters from earlier works. Rather, their original characterizations—comparable to Melville’s Ahab or the protagonist of ‘Bartleby the Scrivener’—are regarded as having influenced characters in later literature.

Hester’s Multifaceted Nature: The Central Driving Force of the Work

The fact that Hester’s characterization is the most outstanding among the major characters proves that she is the most multifaceted character. Hester possesses a wide range of facets, from a rebellious woman and a loving lover to a radical thinker, a strict yet affectionate mother, and a nun of mercy.
While Dimmesdale and Chillingworth maintain relatively consistent personas, Hester is a multifaceted character who cannot be easily defined by any single aspect. This multifaceted nature generates contradictions and conflicts throughout the work, providing narrative tension and narrative momentum.

Dimmesdale: Internalized Sin and Superegoic Agony

Although Dimmesdale is a central character in ‘The Scarlet Letter’, he does not fully embody one side of the conflict. While he violated Puritan social norms by sharing a moment of love with Hester, he thoroughly recognizes this transgression as sin and judges everything solely from the perspective of his faith. In other words, he is a man thoroughly trapped within a Puritan worldview.
The fact that Dimmesdale has internalized Puritan values carries a significance that goes beyond simply viewing him as a hypocrite. His conflict does not stem from a clash between differing value systems, but rather from the agony caused by the irresistible reproach of his internalized superego. He regards himself as an instrument of God and is unable to enjoy the freedom of independent thought.
His attitude becomes clear during dramatic moments. Even as he resolves to flee with Hester into the woods, he shows greater concern for his public duty—the celebratory sermon for the governor’s election—and even at the moment of his death, when Hester asks about the possibility of meeting in the afterlife, he teaches only the religious truths of sin and salvation.

Chillingworth: Scientific Reasoning and Personal Vengeance

As a physician and scholar, Chillingworth symbolizes an attitude that seeks to scientifically analyze not only the human body but also the human mind. He represents scientific and analytical thinking that contrasts with Puritan religious thought. Furthermore, his experience of learning Native American medicine during his captivity links him to the Puritans’ contemporary view of Native Americans as “uncivilized” or “demonic,” leading them to perceive him as a heretical and demonic figure.
The view held by some Puritans—who regarded Chillingworth as Dimmesdale’s personal physician and thus as a messenger of the devil—reflects this context. However, Chillingworth’s revenge does not take the form of public retribution on a societal level but unfolds on an extremely personal and secretive level. He carries out his revenge within a truth known first only to Hester, and later only to Dimmesdale.
As a result, despite his demonic traits, Chillingworth does not provoke particular social animosity within the Puritan society of his time. This is because his malice remains confined to a secret vendetta between individuals and does not escalate into social conflict.

The Core Conflict Between Hester and Puritan Society

Hester is a figure who causes a major upheaval within the Puritan community. The punishment of forcing her to wear the scarlet letter on her chest is not merely a personal retribution; it is a Puritan solution aimed at resolving the conflict between Hester and the community and restoring order by punishing the sin they committed. The most important driving force behind the novel’s narrative is precisely this point—the question of whether the conflict with Puritan society is resolved as a result of Hester being punished by wearing the scarlet letter.
The reason Hester is more central and significant than the other characters is that she best reveals the conflict with Puritan society and distills social contradictions. Just as ‘Moby-Dick’ would be incomplete without the relationship of hatred between Captain Ahab and Moby-Dick, or ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ without the conflict between Huckleberry Finn and the Southern hypocrisy and corruption he despises, or ‘The Portrait of a Lady’ without the conflict between Americans mired in European traditions and the pure American woman Isabel Archer—it is equally impossible to imagine ‘The Scarlet Letter’ without the conflict between the austere Puritan society and Hester, who regards her worldly love as sacred.

Hester’s Complex Role and the Persistence of the Scarlet Letter

On the surface, the conflict between Hester and Puritan society seems to be resolved by Hester’s role as a counselor who comforts the suffering women within the community by promising them an ideal utopia that will one day arrive. By speaking of vague hopes for the future, she compels the women to conform to the current order and simultaneously suppresses within herself the elements of conflict and rebellion she once harbored. Viewed this way, the novel appears to end with a victory for the Puritan perspective—or, rather, the perspective of 19th-century liberal ideology.
However, what makes this work a true masterpiece is not that Hester has been tamed. What leaves the strongest impression on the reader is not the image of Hester as an elderly Sister of Mercy, but that of the young, beautiful Hester who regards her love for Dimmesdale as sacred, stands up boldly against Puritan society, and endures suffering for the sake of that love. Although she is ultimately tamed and silenced, she carves out an alternative history within the official history created by the oppressive dominant ideology.
Hester’s story is the unofficial history of the oppressed—that is, the traces left behind outside of official history. While performing his official duties, Magistrate Peevey also unearthed and collected the region’s unofficial stories and histories. As Hawthorne restores the stories Peevey uncovered, Hester’s story—which had been suppressed and nearly forgotten in official history—is brought back into the light. Hawthorne, as if inheriting the spiritual legacy of his imaginary ancestors, restores this story salvaged from the margins of history.
For this reason, the title ‘The Scarlet Letter’ and its color are of great significance. If Hester were to be completely assimilated into Puritan society, the scarlet letter embroidered with gold thread—which reveals her defiance, passion, and imagination—would naturally have to be absorbed into the Puritan color of black. However, the novel’s conclusion presents a crimson that remains unassimilated even against a black background, contrasting with the black and coloring the reader’s imaginative vision.
Perhaps Hawthorne committed the paradox of creating Hester—a character who is both punished and tamed—as his most compelling character precisely because he loved her deep in his heart. That is why he left Hester’s scarlet in the work, and as a result, countless readers—across time and gender—are drawn to her. The reason readers love her is likely because the meaning of the scarlet letter—like an unquenchable ember—is constantly reignited.