The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne presents three important scaffold scenes that help determine the genre of the novel. The genre could be classified as a romantic tragedy and historical fiction, which is Romanticism for this novel. Even though the story is more of a tragedy, the romantic elements are littered throughout the story, which is why some people consider the novel a romance. The romantic genre could mean two different types of romance, a love story, or Romanticism, a movement in art and literature during the eighteenth century, in which the novel includes both. Romanticism is focused on nature, emotion, and metaphysics in the American colonies, which represents historical fiction. The tragedy genre is depicted through the
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Set during the 1600s in the new settlement of Boston, Hawthorne showed Romanticism through the rules of the time period and of the setting. If the book was historically accurate, Hester would have been whipped and possibly killed for not revealing her husband or the father of Pearl in the American colony, but Romantic details were not only presented through historical differences. On page 51, Hawthorne wrote, “It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.” Spells refer to Romanticism in relation with metaphysics. A part of the definition of metaphysics is that it refers to something with no basis in reality like spells and Hester’s identity in her own social sphere. The actual romance is, however, expressed by Pearl who was considered the product of passion, yet she was also the daughter of the character who makes the story a tragedy. In the beginning of the story, Dimmesdale cannot build up enough courage to tell the people he was the father of Hester’s child and that he had committed a sin. As a priest in a hagiocracy, he was a revered and well-liked person that starts off the story on a pedestal; consequently, like most tragedies, he began to fall and lose his social standing after he succumbed to his
Set during the 1600s in the new settlement of Boston, Hawthorne showed Romanticism through the rules of the time period and of the setting. If the book was historically accurate, Hester would have been whipped and possibly killed for not revealing her husband or the father of Pearl in the American colony, but Romantic details were not only presented through historical differences. On page 51, Hawthorne wrote, “It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.” Spells refer to Romanticism in relation with metaphysics. A part of the definition of metaphysics is that it refers to something with no basis in reality like spells and Hester’s identity in her own social sphere. The actual romance is, however, expressed by Pearl who was considered the product of passion, yet she was also the daughter of the character who makes the story a tragedy. In the beginning of the story, Dimmesdale cannot build up enough courage to tell the people he was the father of Hester’s child and that he had committed a sin. As a priest in a hagiocracy, he was a revered and well-liked person that starts off the story on a pedestal; consequently, like most tragedies, he began to fall and lose his social standing after he succumbed to his