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Anti Transcendentalism In Scarlet Letter

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Anti-Transcendentalism, Nathaniel Hawthorne, who many of his novels (or “romances,” to him) were dark, twisted but held a shimmer of light and hope within them. A particular novel, one of which is considered a great piece of American Romantic literature, The Scarlet Letter, due to its story line being set in the remote past of the Puritan era, focuses on the strict laws of the Puritan society and the battle for love, happiness, and acceptance in an anti-Puritan situation. Throughout the novel it becomes evident that this Puritan society is filled with corruption. However, in a way to brighten the dark and twisted storyline that is The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne uses the truth that is reflected in the surrounding nature as a way to convey an overall mood of select chapters, a way to describe the characters …show more content…

His use of imagery has played a key role in allowing the readers to be connected, throughout the entirety of the novel, and feel more attached to these characters and their lives.
Hawthorne has created an alternate universe within the Puritan universe that The Scarlet Letter is based upon, an era in which is personal and historical to him, with his profound use of imagery. This novel holds a twisted love story inside the gloomy life of Hester Prynne and the punishment that she has to cope with for the rest of her life. What the townspeople don’t know of is that she has an added punishment on top of having to wear her scarlet letter A, she also won’t get a chance to be with Pearls father, Reverend Dimmesdale, in a romantic way due to her husband who abandoned her many years prior to Pearl being born. She loves Dimmesdale, and doesn’t get to acknowledge that until Pearl is about seven or eight, and Dimmesdale is sick from the stress of keeping their sin a secret from the public eye. Hester has taken it upon

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