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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

"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 George Edward Woodberry

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 Clayton Meeker Hamilton

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

From The Technique of Fiction Writing by Robert Saunders Dowst

And not less in young manhood I was awed and absorbed in the great works of his maturity, The Scarlet Letter, The Blithedale Romance, The House of the Seven Gables, and the Marble Faun.

From The Last Leaf Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America and Europe by James Kendall Hosmer

His three great works, "The Scarlet Letter," "The House of the Seven Gables," and "The Blithedale Romance," are the finest specimens of imaginative writing which American genius has yet produced.

From A History of English Prose Fiction by Bayard Tuckerman

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

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Decades before Salem, Hester Prynne steps out of the Boston prison house with her “witch child”.

From The Guardian ● Jun. 17, 2020

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

The Scarlet Letter he read in six sittings.

From "Snow Falling on Cedars: A Novel" by David Guterson