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Hawthorne's Life Versus Death In The Scarlet Letter Essay

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Hawthorne’s Life Versus Life In The Scarlet Letter
To understand a book the reader must understand the background and lifetime of the author. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s childhood was one in which he was brought up by a conservative family in a Puritan Community. He was not totally sold on his culture’s ideas on many subjects. His own uncle was a judge in the witch trials of Salem.
Hawthorne was embarrassed about his uncle and his involvement in the witch trials.
Hawthorne was born July 4, 1804 and the only son of Captain and Elizabeth Clarke
Manning Hawthorne. Hawthorne’s father died when he was four, so he was brought up mainly by his mother. His mother moved his family …show more content…

He did not like this job and had very little time to write but worked anyways for the need of money. He later lost his job because of a change of presidency. After loosing his job he had a lot of free time, in which he wrote his most famous book The Scarlet Letter.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an average man who struggled with the ideas of his culture. He went so far as to remove himself from the Puritan community. In many of his stories Hawthorne is well know for depicting his own struggle with Puritanism in his books. This is evident in The Scarlet Letter. To depict Hawthorne’s culture he uses many types of symbolism to create an accurate template of his ancestors.
The Scarlet Letter begins with “The Custom House';, the preface to the novel.
When this book was first published “The Custom House'; was always included in the book. Since it had no major connection to the main novel it was later kept separate. The only connection between the two pieces of work is when Hawthorne talked about finding a scarlet letter A in a Salem custom house. “The Custom House'; is basically an attempt by Hawthorne to give his novel a historical connection, one that is believed to be fake by many critics. The preface is important, though, because it gives the reader a background to the story that follows. Hawthorne talks

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