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William Hawthorne 's The Scarlet Letter

Decent Essays
Journal Entry 1

Romanticism in this book is described through the author as he thought out Hester Prynne’s story. He describes that some great techniques for romantic themes are light and setting. Hawthorne describes that details “are so spiritualized by the unusual light, that they seem to lose their actual substance, and become things of intellect” (Hawthorne, 35). This then leads him to describe that, “when one removes further from the actual, and nearer to the imaginative” (Hawthorne, 36), the romance writer can actually, “dream strange things and make them look like truth”(Hawthorne, 36). The purpose of this chapter is to serve basically as a preface. It describes information about the author himself, leading him to describe when he had found the Scarlet Letter “A” in the Salem Custom House. Along with that, he had found historical sheets for which the story is based upon. “This I now opened and had the satisfaction to find, recorded by the old Surveyor’s pen, a reasonably complete explanation of the whole affair”(Hawthorne, 31). Hawthorne also describes throughout this chapter his connection to his ancestors. In my opinion, he has doubtful feelings about the role they play in his life. He states that his ancestors were, "dim and dusky.., they are grave, bearded, sable cloaked, and steel crowned"(Hawthorne, 7). To Hawthorne, his ancestors would find him unsuccessful because he "is a writer of storybooks"(Hawthorne, 8). However, though he has different opinions from
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