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• Scarlet Letter, The
  Scarlet Letter, The

  noun

  a novel (1850) by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
• The Scarlet Letter
  The Scarlet Letter

  (1850) A novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne about Hester Prynne, a woman in seventeenth-century New England who is convicted of adultery. Forced to wear a scarlet letter A on her dress as a sign of her guilt, Hester refuses to reveal the identity of her lover. Eventually, a young minister, Arthur Dimmesdale, publicly admits his part in the adultery and dies in Hester's arms.

Scarlet Letter, The

American  

noun

1. a novel (1850) by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

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The Scarlet Letter Cultural  

1. (1850) A novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne about Hester Prynne, a woman in seventeenth-century New England who is convicted of adultery. Forced to wear a scarlet letter A on her dress as a sign of her guilt, Hester refuses to reveal the identity of her lover. Eventually, a young minister, Arthur Dimmesdale, publicly admits his part in the adultery and dies in Hester's arms.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Scarlet Letter, The The Scarlet Letter

It is as apparent in the most perfect of his smaller tales, Rappaccini's Daughter, as in The Scarlet Letter, The Blithedale Romance, The House of the Seven Gables, and The Marble Faun.

From Literary and Social Essays by Curtis, George William

Scarlet Letter, The, xxii, 13, 18, 27, 34, 69, 70, 71, 142, 217.

From Materials and Methods of Fiction With an Introduction by Brander Matthews by Hamilton, Clayton Meeker

Scarlet Letter, The, xxv, 15, 20, 29, 36, 71, 72, 73, 146, 223.

From A Manual of the Art of Fiction by Hamilton, Clayton Meeker

Scarlet Letter, The, 29, 32, 92, 182, 203, 204.

From The Technique of Fiction Writing by Dowst, Robert Saunders

"Scarlet Letter, The";   analysis of;   genesis of;   a study of punishment;   reality of;   parable of soul's life in sin;   moral despair of.

From Nathaniel Hawthorne by Woodberry, George Edward

The Scarlet Letter: Hester Prynne uses the special powers given to her by her cool letter-A suit to shatter society’s expectations of what women can do!

From Washington Post ● Jul. 29, 2022

In 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne published "The Scarlet Letter," set in Puritan Boston, which dramatized how rule-breakers were stigmatized in Massachusetts.

From Salon ● Sep. 3, 2021

In numerous short stories and in novels like The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables, his characters struggled to escape the repressive influence of Puritanism and its legacy of hypocrisy, guilt, and self-recrimination.

From Textbooks ● Jan. 18, 2018

Lewinsky’s talk was dazzling and now gets taught in schools alongside Nathaniel Hawthorn’s The Scarlet Letter.

From The Guardian ● Apr. 16, 2016

In comparison, the first runs of popular books in the 1850s, The Scarlet Letter or Moby-Dick for example, were less than 3,000 copies.

From "American Spirits" by Barb Rosenstock