![]() It was to some degree a career-threatening decision to center his novel around an adulterous affair (but compare the plot of Fielding's Tom Jones).īut Hawthorne was not concerned with a prurient affair here, though the novel’s characters are. Certainly Puritan values had eased somewhat by 1850, but not enough to make the novel completely welcome. Besides entertainment, then, Hawthorne's novel had the possibility of goading change, since it addressed a topic that was still relatively controversial, even taboo. Indeed, still tied to Britain in its cultural formation, Hawthorne's novel offered a uniquely American style, language, set of characters, and-most importantly-a uniquely American central dilemma. First and foremost, the United States was still a relatively new society, less than one hundred years old at the time of the novel’s publication. The Scarlet Letter was an immediate success for a number of reasons. ![]() ![]() Hawthorne's novel is concerned with the effects of the affair rather than the affair itself, using Hester's public shaming as a springboard to explore the lingering taboos of Puritan New England in contemporary society. Set in seventeenth-century Puritan Massachusetts, the novel centers around the travails of Hester Prynne, who gives birth to a daughter Pearl after an adulterous affair. Published in 1850, The Scarlet Letter is considered Nathaniel Hawthorne's most famous novel-and the first quintessentially American novel in style, theme, and language. ![]()
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