Shadow in Hawthorne’s Fiction” Walter Blair approaches an interpretation of Hawthorne’s work through the author’s manipulation of color and light to produce symbolic meaning. Blair addresses “The Minister’s Black Veil” and notes the repeated emphasis on the blackness of Father Hooper’s veil and the pallor as a reaction to it. “The design of this tale,” he asserts, “is one in which repeated patterns of light, then blackness, then whiteness meaningfully occur” (Blair 76). Similarly, Hawthorne’s novel The
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Blithedale Romance and Maria Susanna Cummins’ The Lamplighter are vastly different books. While originally published within two years of each other, both authors approached their writing through distinctive practices. Hawthorne failed to show development in the majority of his characters in his romance, while Cummins’ sentimental novel is heavily loaded with positive character growth. After reading The Blithedale Romance and The Lamplighter, one of the main differences noted