How Does “The Scarlet Letter” Portray the Conflict Between Old World and New World Values?
Author: MARTIN MUNYAO MUINDE
Email: Ephantusmartin@gmail.com
Introduction
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, published in 1850, presents a profound exploration of the cultural and ideological tensions between Old World European traditions and emerging New World American values in seventeenth-century Puritan Massachusetts. Set against the backdrop of colonial Boston between 1642 and 1649, the novel examines how transplanted European religious orthodoxy confronted the transformative possibilities of the American wilderness and frontier experience. The conflict between Old World and New World values permeates every aspect of the narrative, from the rigid social hierarchies and religious authoritarianism imported from England to the individualistic spirit and promise of reinvention that characterized the American colonial experience. Hawthorne uses his central characters—particularly Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth—to dramatize this cultural collision, showing how Old World values of conformity, tradition, and hierarchical order clash with New World ideals of personal freedom, democratic possibility, and individual conscience. This essay analyzes how The Scarlet Letter portrays the conflict between these competing value systems through its depiction of Puritan social structures, the symbolism of the forest versus the settlement, the European inheritance of characters, and the novel’s vision of American identity formation.
Understanding the Old World versus New World conflict in The Scarlet Letter requires recognizing the historical context of Puritan colonization and the complex motivations that drove English settlers to Massachusetts Bay. The Puritans sought to escape religious persecution in England while simultaneously establishing a “city upon a hill” that would serve as a model of reformed Christianity for the world. However, this mission carried with it deeply entrenched Old World assumptions about social order, religious authority, and moral regulation that would ultimately prove incompatible with the freedom and opportunity promised by the American landscape. Hawthorne, writing two centuries after the events of his novel, possessed the historical perspective to critique both the repressive aspects of Puritan Old World values and the unfulfilled promises of New World liberation. His novel thus functions as both a historical examination of colonial American culture and a meditation on nineteenth-century America’s ongoing struggle to define its relationship with European traditions while forging a distinctive national identity.
Puritan Social Structures and Old World Hierarchies
The Puritan community in The Scarlet Letter exemplifies the transplantation of Old World European social hierarchies to American soil, maintaining rigid class distinctions and authoritarian governance structures that replicate the feudal and monarchical systems the colonists ostensibly fled. Hawthorne meticulously depicts how Puritan Boston organizes itself according to European models of social stratification, with magistrates, ministers, and wealthy merchants occupying positions of unquestioned authority while common laborers, women, and social outcasts remain subordinate. The novel’s opening scene on the scaffold demonstrates this hierarchical ordering, with Governor Bellingham, Reverend Wilson, and other male leaders literally elevated above the crowd and Hester Prynne, passing judgment from positions of institutional power (Hawthorne, 1850/2003, p. 64). This public spectacle of punishment reflects Old World practices of social control through shame and communal discipline, methods that European societies had employed for centuries to maintain order and enforce conformity. Scholar Michael Colacurcio (1984) argues that the Puritans “brought with them a complete social system borrowed from England” that contradicted their rhetoric of establishing a new beginning in the wilderness (p. 156). The magistrates wear elaborate clothing that signals their status, and social interactions follow strict protocols of deference and formality imported directly from English society. Even the physical layout of Puritan Boston, with its meetinghouse, scaffold, prison, and cemetery occupying central positions, mirrors European town planning that placed religious and governmental authority at the community’s literal and symbolic center.
Furthermore, the Puritan leadership’s treatment of Hester Prynne reveals how Old World values of patriarchal authority and female subordination persist in the New World despite the potentially liberating possibilities of colonial life. The exclusively male group of magistrates and ministers who judge Hester embodies European traditions of male political and religious dominance, denying women any voice in their own governance or moral evaluation. Reverend Wilson’s demand that Hester reveal Pearl’s father, and the community’s assumption that they possess the right to potentially separate mother from child, reflect Old World legal traditions that granted men and institutions power over women’s bodies, children, and moral choices (Hawthorne, 1850/2003, p. 68). Literary critic Sacvan Bercovitch (1991) observes that the Puritan theocracy represents “the transfer of European authoritarianism to American soil” where religious and civil authority merge to create a totalizing system of social control (p. 77). The novel demonstrates how the Puritans failed to recognize the contradiction between fleeing religious persecution in England and establishing an equally repressive regime in Massachusetts. Their replication of Old World hierarchies suggests that geographical relocation alone cannot transform deeply embedded cultural values, and that the promise of New World freedom remains unrealized when colonists simply transplant European power structures to American soil. The rigid social stratification of Puritan Boston thus represents Hawthorne’s critique of how Old World values stifled the democratic and egalitarian potential that the American experiment might have achieved.
The Forest as Symbol of New World Freedom and Possibility
In contrast to the ordered, repressive settlement that embodies Old World values, Hawthorne uses the forest surrounding Puritan Boston as a powerful symbol of New World freedom, natural law, and liberation from European social constraints. The forest represents untamed American wilderness that exists beyond the reach of Puritan authority, a space where European conventions lose their power and alternative possibilities for human life can be imagined. When Hester and Dimmesdale meet secretly in the forest, they experience a temporary release from the social roles and moral judgments that constrain them in the settlement. Hawthorne writes that in the forest “the wild, heathen Nature of the forest, never subjugated by human law, nor illumined by higher truth” operates according to its own principles, indifferent to Puritan moral codes (Hawthorne, 1850/2003, p. 203). The forest allows Hester to remove her scarlet letter and let down her hair, symbolic acts of shedding the identity imposed upon her by Old World moral rigidity. In this natural space, the lovers can speak freely about their feelings and even contemplate escape to Europe or to frontier settlements where they might begin anew, unburdened by their past. The forest thus represents the promise of American reinvention—the characteristically New World belief that individuals can escape their histories and recreate themselves according to their own desires rather than inherited social positions.
Pearl’s affinity for the forest further emphasizes its function as a symbol of New World values and rejection of Old World constraints. Unlike the Puritan children who have been thoroughly socialized into European behavioral norms, Pearl thrives in the wilderness, communicating with animals and playing freely among the trees. She represents a genuinely American identity, born in the New World and unencumbered by European social expectations or religious guilt. Scholar Nina Baym (1976) argues that Pearl embodies “the spirit of American nature itself—wild, beautiful, and resistant to Puritan attempts at domestication” (p. 89). Pearl’s refusal to approach Hester when her mother has removed the scarlet letter in the forest suggests that even New World freedom has its complexities; Pearl understands intuitively that her mother cannot simply discard her identity and that authentic liberation requires confronting rather than fleeing one’s past. The forest scenes in The Scarlet Letter thus present a nuanced view of New World possibilities, acknowledging both the genuine freedom that American wilderness offers from European social constraints and the limitations of believing that geographical escape alone can resolve deep moral and psychological conflicts. Hawthorne suggests that while the American landscape provides space for individual freedom and reinvention, these possibilities remain incomplete as long as European values continue to dominate colonial social structures. The forest offers glimpses of liberation but cannot by itself create the new society that would fully embody New World values of individual conscience, democratic equality, and personal freedom.
European Inheritance and Cultural Transplantation
The novel’s characters carry within them the weight of Old World cultural inheritance, demonstrating how European values and psychological patterns persist even in the New World setting. Roger Chillingworth, who arrives in Boston directly from Europe via captivity among Native Americans, most clearly embodies the Old World intellectual tradition and its potential for corruption. Chillingworth represents European learning, bringing with him knowledge of medicine, alchemy, and natural philosophy drawn from centuries of Continental scholarship. However, Hawthorne portrays this Old World knowledge as ultimately sterile and destructive when divorced from human compassion and moral restraint. Chillingworth’s transformation into a figure of pure vengeance reflects Hawthorne’s critique of Old World rationalism and systematic thought that prioritizes intellectual pursuit over ethical considerations. His methodical torture of Dimmesdale demonstrates how European scientific detachment and analytical methods, when applied to human relationships without love or mercy, become instruments of psychological cruelty (Hawthorne, 1850/2003, p. 174). Scholar Frederick Crews (1966) argues that Chillingworth represents “the European mind in its most dangerous form—brilliant, learned, but lacking the redemptive qualities of spontaneous feeling and moral warmth” (p. 134). His character suggests that Old World sophistication and intellectual achievement do not necessarily produce wisdom or virtue, and may in fact enable refined forms of evil when transplanted to the New World without corresponding moral evolution.
Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale similarly embodies the conflict between inherited European religious traditions and the challenges of New World experience. Dimmesdale received his theological education at Oxford, one of Europe’s most prestigious universities, and brings to Puritan Boston the full weight of centuries of Christian doctrine and interpretive tradition (Hawthorne, 1850/2003, p. 66). However, his European religious training proves inadequate for navigating the moral complexities of life in the New World. The Old World theological framework that Dimmesdale inherited emphasizes public confession, institutional mediation between God and humanity, and adherence to established religious authority. Yet Dimmesdale’s situation—hidden sin, genuine love alongside transgression, and the conflict between personal conscience and social responsibility—cannot be adequately addressed by these Old World formulas. His internal suffering reflects the inadequacy of imported European religious categories for addressing distinctly American experiences of individual moral crisis and personal spiritual seeking. Literary critic David Leverenz (1989) observes that Dimmesdale “represents the failure of Old World religious authority to provide authentic guidance in the New World context” where rigid doctrine must contend with wilderness, diversity, and individual conscience (p. 208). The minister’s eventual public confession on the scaffold can be read as a partial movement toward New World values of individual authenticity over institutional authority, though this movement comes too late to save him. Through Dimmesdale, Hawthorne explores how European cultural inheritance both shapes and limits colonial American identity, creating internal conflicts that cannot be resolved through adherence to Old World traditions alone.
Hester Prynne as Bridge Between Old and New World Values
Hester Prynne functions as the novel’s most complex exploration of the relationship between Old World and New World values, embodying both the constraints of European tradition and the possibilities of American transformation. As a woman born and raised in England, Hester brings with her the cultural training of Old World femininity, including skills in needlework that reflect European traditions of female domestic accomplishment. However, her punishment and subsequent marginalization force her to navigate between two worlds, neither fully belonging to the Puritan community that judges her by Old World standards of female purity nor completely embracing the radical individualism that the New World might permit. Hester’s needlework becomes a site where this cultural negotiation plays out symbolically. She creates elaborate garments for Puritan officials that reflect European aesthetic traditions and social hierarchies, yet she also adorns her scarlet letter with such artistry that it becomes a beautiful object rather than a simple mark of shame. Scholar Kristin Herzog (1983) argues that Hester “transforms the Old World art of needlework into a New World expression of individual creativity and resistance” that simultaneously honors tradition and subverts its oppressive applications (p. 92). Through her craft, Hester maintains connection to European cultural heritage while asserting her own artistic vision and moral independence, thus modeling a synthetic approach that neither completely rejects nor fully accepts Old World values.
Hester’s intellectual development throughout the novel demonstrates how New World experience can transform European consciousness, though not without significant cost and struggle. During her years of isolation, Hester engages in radical thinking about religion, gender, and social organization that would have been dangerous or impossible for a woman in Old World society. Hawthorne describes how “the world’s law was no law for her mind” and how she speculated freely about “the whole system of society” and whether it should be “torn down, and built up anew” (Hawthorne, 1850/2003, p. 164). This intellectual freedom represents a distinctly New World possibility—the opportunity to question inherited assumptions and imagine alternative social arrangements. However, Hawthorne is careful to note that Hester ultimately pulls back from the most radical implications of her thinking, particularly regarding Pearl’s upbringing. She chooses to teach Pearl at least some respect for social conventions rather than raising her as a complete rebel against all authority. This moderation suggests that successful navigation of Old World and New World values requires synthesis rather than absolute rejection of either tradition. By the novel’s conclusion, Hester has created a unique identity that draws on Old World cultural inheritance while incorporating New World values of individual conscience, female agency, and social service. Her voluntary return to Boston and resumption of the scarlet letter after years of freedom in Europe indicates her conclusion that meaningful life requires engagement with community and tradition, even flawed ones, rather than complete rejection of social bonds. Hester thus embodies Hawthorne’s vision of how Americans might forge a distinctive identity that honors European cultural heritage while embracing the transformative possibilities of New World experience, creating something genuinely new from the synthesis of both traditions.
Native American Presence and Alternative Value Systems
Although often overlooked in critical discussions focused on European and colonial American values, the presence of Native Americans in The Scarlet Letter introduces a third value system that complicates the binary opposition between Old World and New World perspectives. The novel’s brief but significant references to Native Americans remind readers that the “New World” was actually an ancient world for its indigenous inhabitants, and that European colonizers encountered established societies with their own complex moral and social systems. Hawthorne describes Native Americans attending the New England holiday celebration, noting their dignified bearing and their position outside both Puritan social hierarchies and judgments. The indigenous people observe the colonial spectacle “without interest in the scene” and with expressions suggesting “they saw around them an assemblage of their own kind” rather than superiors or threats (Hawthorne, 1850/2003, p. 232). This depiction suggests that from the Native American perspective, the conflict between Old World European traditions and New World colonial values appears parochial and relatively insignificant. The indigenous peoples possessed their own long-established cultural traditions, religious practices, and social organizations that predated European arrival by millennia. Their presence in the novel implicitly critiques both European arrogance in claiming cultural superiority and colonial American presumption in calling their settlements a “New World” as if the land had been empty before their arrival.
Roger Chillingworth’s time living among Native Americans provides the novel’s most direct engagement with indigenous values as an alternative to both Old World and colonial New World systems. During his captivity, Chillingworth learned Native American medical practices and gained knowledge of American plants and their healing properties. This indigenous knowledge proves more effective than his European medical training in treating various ailments in Puritan Boston, suggesting that Native American empirical understanding of the natural world surpasses Old World theoretical learning in practical application (Hawthorne, 1850/2003, p. 119). However, Hawthorne’s portrayal of how Chillingworth uses this knowledge remains problematic and reflects nineteenth-century stereotypes about indigenous peoples. The novel associates Chillingworth’s acquisition of Native American knowledge with his moral degeneration, suggesting that contact with indigenous culture contributed to his transformation into a demonic figure. Scholar Jane Tompkins (1985) critiques how Hawthorne uses Native Americans as “symbolic repositories of primitive wildness” rather than fully realized human communities with sophisticated cultural systems (p. 156). Despite these limitations in Hawthorne’s representation, the Native American presence in The Scarlet Letter serves the important function of reminding readers that the conflict between Old World and New World values occurred within a much broader context of cultural encounter and colonial violence. The indigenous peoples’ displacement and marginalization represents the dark underside of the “New World” that European colonizers claimed to be creating, suggesting that American identity formation involved not just negotiating European cultural inheritance but also confronting the moral implications of colonizing lands already inhabited by complex societies with their own valuable traditions and knowledge systems.
The Scaffold as Symbol of Transplanted European Justice
The scaffold that dominates three crucial scenes in The Scarlet Letter serves as a powerful symbol of Old World punitive practices transplanted to American soil, representing the persistence of European methods of social control in the colonial New World. Public scaffolds for punishment and execution were common features of European towns throughout the medieval and early modern periods, serving as instruments of state and religious authority to maintain order through spectacle and shame. The Puritan decision to erect a scaffold in the center of Boston demonstrates their commitment to replicating European systems of justice and social regulation despite their geographical distance from England. Hawthorne emphasizes the scaffold’s centrality to Puritan social organization by making it the setting for the novel’s most important public moments: Hester’s initial punishment, Dimmesdale’s midnight vigil, and his final confession (Hawthorne, 1850/2003, pp. 52, 149, 254). The scaffold represents the community’s collective judgment and the power of public opinion to enforce conformity, values imported directly from European traditions of communal discipline. Scholar Larzer Ziff (1991) argues that the scaffold symbolizes “the Puritans’ failure to imagine new forms of social organization” and their reliance on “Old World mechanisms of shame and control” rather than developing distinctively American approaches to justice and moral guidance (p. 187).
However, Hawthorne’s treatment of the scaffold scenes also reveals the limitations and ultimate failure of Old World punitive methods in the New World context. While the first scaffold scene appears to achieve its intended purpose of marking Hester as a public sinner and warning others against moral transgression, the long-term effects prove far more ambiguous than Puritan authorities intended. Rather than crushing Hester’s spirit or rendering her permanently subordinate, her time on the scaffold initiates a process of personal transformation that eventually makes her more morally admirable than her judges. The second scaffold scene, occurring at midnight when Dimmesdale stands alone seeking relief from his hidden guilt, reveals the psychological inadequacy of public punishment that addresses only external behavior while ignoring internal spiritual state. The minister’s private agony demonstrates that Old World methods of external discipline cannot produce genuine moral reformation or spiritual peace. The final scaffold scene brings these tensions to a climax when Dimmesdale’s public confession disrupts the Puritan ceremony and claims individual religious experience and personal conscience as higher authorities than institutional judgment. Literary critic Millicent Bell (1991) interprets the final scaffold scene as representing “the assertion of New World individualism over Old World institutional authority” where personal authenticity trumps social conformity (p. 203). Through the three scaffold scenes, Hawthorne traces a movement from Old World values of communal judgment and public shame toward New World values of individual conscience and personal authenticity, suggesting that American identity would ultimately privilege internal moral sense over external social enforcement, marking a decisive break with European traditions of authoritarian social control.
Clothing, Appearance, and Cultural Identity
The detailed attention Hawthorne pays to clothing and physical appearance throughout The Scarlet Letter provides another lens for examining the conflict between Old World and New World values, as dress codes and personal presentation serve as visible markers of cultural identity and social allegiance. The Puritan magistrates and wealthy colonists wear elaborate clothing imported from or modeled on English fashions, including Governor Bellingham’s “stiff ruff beneath his gray beard” and ornate doublet that reflect European aristocratic styles (Hawthorne, 1850/2003, p. 107). This sartorial display demonstrates how colonial leaders used Old World fashion to establish and maintain social hierarchies in the New World, employing visual symbols of European rank and authority to justify their power over common colonists. The contrast between the magistrates’ elaborate dress and the plain garments of ordinary Puritans replicates European class distinctions through clothing, contradicting the potentially egalitarian possibilities of colonial society. Even Puritan religious ideology, with its theoretical emphasis on spiritual equality and rejection of worldly vanity, could not overcome the colonists’ attachment to Old World status markers expressed through fashion and personal adornment. Scholar Karen Halttunen (1982) argues that clothing in the novel “reveals the persistence of European social hierarchies disguised beneath Puritan religious rhetoric” and demonstrates how “material culture continuously reasserts Old World values even as colonists claimed to be building something new” (p. 145).
Hester’s relationship to clothing and appearance embodies the creative tension between Old World craft traditions and New World possibilities for individual expression and moral resistance. Her skill at needlework represents a traditional feminine accomplishment valued in European society, and she uses this Old World craft to support herself and Pearl in the New World. However, Hester transforms this conventional female skill into a vehicle for both artistic expression and subtle rebellion against Puritan social norms. Her elaborate embroidery on the scarlet letter itself represents a refusal to accept the intended shame of the punishment, instead transforming the mark into a beautiful object that draws the eye and commands attention rather than simply stigmatizing the wearer (Hawthorne, 1850/2003, p. 53). Similarly, the gorgeous clothing Hester creates for Pearl reflects both mother’s love and a rejection of Puritan values of plainness and uniformity. By dressing Pearl in bright, unconventional colors and rich fabrics, Hester asserts her daughter’s right to beauty and individuality despite their social marginalization. Literary critic Janis Stout (1988) observes that Hester’s needlework “represents a negotiation between Old World craft traditions and New World assertions of individual creativity and resistance to authoritarian control” (p. 167). Through her artistry with cloth and thread, Hester maintains connection to European cultural heritage while using that very tradition to challenge Puritan attempts to enforce conformity and crush individual expression. This synthesis suggests Hawthorne’s vision of how Americans might draw upon Old World cultural resources while transforming them to serve New World values of individual freedom and democratic equality.
The Promise and Limits of New World Reinvention
One of the most significant themes in The Scarlet Letter concerns the promise of personal reinvention in the New World and the limitations that history and character place upon such transformation. The novel explores the characteristically American dream of escaping one’s past and creating a new identity unfettered by European constraints of inherited social position, family reputation, or historical circumstances. This dream animates the forest meeting between Hester and Dimmesdale, where Hester urges the minister to flee with her: “Begin all anew!… The future is yet full of trial and success. There is happiness to be enjoyed! There is good to be done!” (Hawthorne, 1850/2003, p. 198). Hester’s passionate advocacy for escape and reinvention reflects a fundamentally New World perspective that views the individual as capable of self-creation and believes that geographical relocation can facilitate psychological and moral transformation. She imagines that they might travel to Europe where no one knows their history, or venture into the American wilderness to establish a new settlement, in either case leaving behind the Puritan community and its judgments. This faith in the possibility of reinvention represents one of America’s most distinctive and enduring cultural values, distinguishing New World optimism about human potential from Old World assumptions about the permanence of social position and the inescapability of personal history.
However, Hawthorne treats this dream of reinvention with significant ambivalence, suggesting that the promise of New World transformation has real but limited power to overcome the weight of past actions and established character. Dimmesdale’s response to Hester’s plan reveals the psychological difficulty of completely abandoning one’s history and identity: “I am powerless to go. Wretched and sinful as I am, I have had no other thought than to drag on my earthly existence in the sphere where Providence hath placed me” (Hawthorne, 1850/2003, p. 200). The minister’s words reflect Old World values of accepting one’s ordained place and working out salvation within established social structures rather than seeking escape through geographical mobility. Even when Dimmesdale temporarily embraces Hester’s plan, his brief experience of liberation proves psychologically destabilizing, leading to bizarre impulses that frighten him and suggest that his identity cannot simply be discarded and recreated at will. Pearl’s refusal to acknowledge her parents when Hester removes the scarlet letter in the forest provides another warning about the limits of reinvention. The child intuitively understands that her mother cannot simply shed her identity and history, and that authentic transformation requires acknowledgment of the past rather than flight from it. Scholar Michael Davitt Bell (1971) argues that Hawthorne “simultaneously affirms the New World promise of individual freedom and transformation while insisting on the inescapability of history and the persistence of character” (p. 234). The novel’s conclusion, with Dimmesdale’s death and Hester’s eventual return to Boston, suggests that meaningful life requires engaging with one’s community and history rather than perpetually fleeing toward imagined fresh starts. This nuanced perspective on New World possibilities reflects Hawthorne’s mature understanding that American identity formation required both drawing upon European cultural inheritance and developing genuinely new values, but could not simply reject the past or deny the complexity of human psychology and moral responsibility.
Conclusion
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter presents a richly complex exploration of the conflict between Old World European values and New World American possibilities in seventeenth-century Puritan Massachusetts. Through careful attention to social structures, symbolic landscapes, character development, and cultural practices, Hawthorne reveals how European colonists simultaneously attempted to escape Old World constraints and replicated European hierarchies, authoritarianism, and moral rigidity in their American settlements. The novel demonstrates that the Puritan project of establishing a “city upon a hill” involved profound contradictions between the rhetoric of creating something new and the reality of transplanting European institutions, values, and power structures to American soil. The rigid social hierarchies, authoritarian governance, and repressive moral enforcement that characterize Puritan Boston directly contradict the promise of freedom, equality, and personal reinvention that the American landscape seemed to offer. Hawthorne uses the forest as a powerful symbol of New World possibilities—a space beyond European social control where alternative values and identities might flourish—yet he also acknowledges the limitations of simply fleeing into wilderness without confronting the psychological and moral complexities that geographical relocation cannot resolve.
The enduring relevance of The Scarlet Letter lies in its nuanced portrayal of cultural negotiation and identity formation that continues to resonate with American experience. Hawthorne suggests that authentic American identity cannot emerge from complete rejection of European cultural heritage, but neither can it consist of simple replication of Old World traditions in a New World setting. Instead, he envisions a synthesis that draws upon European cultural resources—intellectual traditions, artistic practices, moral seriousness—while transforming them through engagement with American conditions of diversity, wilderness, and democratic possibility. Hester Prynne embodies this synthetic vision, honoring Old World craft traditions while using them to express New World values of individual creativity and moral independence. The novel’s ultimate skepticism about easy reinvention and its insistence on confronting rather than fleeing history reflects Hawthorne’s mature understanding that cultural transformation requires patient engagement with complexity rather than revolutionary rejection of all that came before. For contemporary readers, The Scarlet Letter offers valuable perspective on ongoing American tensions between tradition and innovation, authority and individual freedom, community values and personal autonomy. Hawthorne’s portrayal of the conflict between Old World and New World values reminds us that cultural identity formation remains an ongoing process of negotiation rather than a settled achievement, and that the promise of American freedom and opportunity must be continuously reimagined and actively created rather than simply inherited or assumed.
References
Baym, N. (1976). The Scarlet Letter: A Reading. Twayne Publishers.
Bell, M. (1991). Hawthorne and the real: Biographic fantasy and the romance. In J. F. Fleischmann (Ed.), New Essays on The Scarlet Letter (pp. 196-218). Cambridge University Press.
Bell, M. D. (1971). Hawthorne and the Historical Romance of New England. Princeton University Press.
Bercovitch, S. (1991). The Office of The Scarlet Letter. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Colacurcio, M. J. (1984). The Province of Piety: Moral History in Hawthorne’s Early Tales. Harvard University Press.
Crews, F. (1966). The Sins of the Fathers: Hawthorne’s Psychological Themes. Oxford University Press.
Halttunen, K. (1982). Confidence Men and Painted Women: A Study of Middle-Class Culture in America, 1830-1870. Yale University Press.
Hawthorne, N. (2003). The Scarlet Letter. Penguin Classics. (Original work published 1850)
Herzog, K. (1983). Women, Ethnics, and Exotics: Images of Power in Mid-Nineteenth-Century American Fiction. University of Tennessee Press.
Leverenz, D. (1989). Manhood and the American Renaissance. Cornell University Press.
Stout, J. P. (1988). Sodoms in Eden: The City in American Fiction Before 1860. Greenwood Press.
Tompkins, J. (1985). Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790-1860. Oxford University Press.
Ziff, L. (1991). Literary Democracy: The Declaration of Cultural Independence in America. Viking Press.