Hester achieves liberty by the end of the novel because she becomes comfortable with her sin, and she isn’t afraid to admit it to herself, and most importantly, to the rest of the world. Finally, Hawthorne applies the value of liberty in his final attempt to show the differences between American and British Romanticism. A letter,-the letter A,-but with freshly green, instead of scarlet! ” (Hawthorne 115), suggesting that in Pearl’s attempt to be like her mother, she represents her nature-like qualities at the same time. The narrator says, “Pearl took some eel-grass, and imitated, as best she could, on her own bosom, the decoration with which she was so familiar on her mother’s. Some characters in the novel believe Pearl embodies the characteristics of a child of the forest.įor example, when Hester and Pearl take a stroll in the woods, Pearl comes back with a green ‘A’ made out of grass displayed on her chest. In addition, Pearl is able to relate and connect to nature. In nature, Hester feels free, and she is able to take off the scarlet letter in order to be with Dimmesdale, but she puts the amulet back on before leaving the woods. Hawthorne portrays her outburst by saying, “So speaking, she undid the clasp that fastened the scarlet letter, and, taking it from her bosom, threw it to a distance among the withered leaves” (Hawthorne 130). Next, when Hester takes Pearl into the woods to find Dimmesdale, she becomes brave and lets the love she feels take over. In the town, Hester and Pearl cannot go anywhere without getting stared at or insulted, so they move into a cottage in the forest in order to get away from those awful remarks in the city. After Hester is released from jail, she finds a cottage out in the woods in order to be away from everyone else.

Nature plays a large part in this novel because nature and the forest bring happiness and consolation to Hester and Pearl. (Hawthorne 58) This presents the fact that even though everyone looks down on her because of the red ‘A’ on her chest, she still remains the same kind-hearted person she has always been, and she still donates her time and goods to charity. It is probable that there was an idea of penance in this mode of occupation, and that she offered up a real sacrifice of enjoyment, in devoting so many hours to such rude handiwork. Hawthorne says: Much of the time, which she might readily have applied to the better efforts of her arts, she employed in making coarse garments for the poor.

Even in the negative light, Hester is embroidering clothes for the less fortunate. Through all the humiliation and changes that come about in her life, Hester never strays away from the kind-hearted woman she has always been. In the beginning when she is an ordinary townsperson, she has an affair that changes her life forever. Nathanial Hawthorne incorporates the values of individualism, nature, and liberty into The Scarlet Letter, guaranteeing that it would be recognized as a novel of American Romanticism. In Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, he used individualism, nature, and liberty to tell his story, while Irving, Cooper, and Poe exercised the themes of supernatural effects, nature, Gothicism, and solitude to create short stories that are classified as American Romanticism instead of British Romanticism. Hawthorne, Irving, Cooper, and Poe were all early American authors who utilized the themes of romanticism in their literature. The different characteristics of Romanticism can relate to one or more of the other characteristics of American fiction.įor example, the supernatural themes can tie together with the theme of imagination, and the theme of individualism can link together with the theme of solitude or liberty. Like the British, the American romantics were against the Enlightenment because of all the reason that was incorporated into it the American romantics did not like reason.įrom 1820 to 1860, American Romanticism was based on aspects such as solitude, nature, individualism, nationalism, supernatural themes, imagination, and liberty. The two forms of writing were already very similar, so the authors of this time period forced themselves to find a creative way of making American Romanticism unique. ” In this statement, Woodlief argues that the American romantic authors strove to distinguish some differences between American and British Romanticism. Professor Ann Woodlief describes American Romanticism by saying, it “developed its own character, especially as these writers tried self-consciously to be new and original.

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