Conservative And Antirevolutionary Ideology In The Scarlet Letter: A New Historicist Analysis

Ismaznizam Jesmaj Azyze

Abstract


This essay presents a New Historicist analysis of Hawthorne’s most acclaimed novel, The
Scarlet Letter.1 The analysis focuses on the interplay between Hawthorne’s nineteenthcentury
ideology and the novel’s seventeenth-century cultural setting. The inclusion of
“The Custom House,” an authorial introduction to the novel, is treated as highly
significant as it presents a form of historical and ideological juxtaposition of Hawthorne’s
nineteenth-century ideology with the novel’s seventeenth-century cultural setting.
Biographical narratives on Hawthorne and historical narratives on nineteenth-century
America are used extensively in this analysis as they offer valuable insights into the
fictional formation of The Scarlet Letter. By historically establishing Hawthorne’s
conservative attitudes towards forms of revolutionary activities, this essay explicates how
the structure, characterizations and themes of The Scarlet Letter are carefully formed to
serve those very conservative attitudes.


Keywords


Hawthorne, the Scarlet Letter, new historicism, ideology

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References


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