Element of transcendentalism and anti- transcendentalism from The scarlet letter.

The novel The scarlet letter was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The published in 1850. The subject of the novel is quite different because of this Novel achieve success. The subject of the novel is adultery. Because if 5his subject faminist reading of the novel is more popular. In the Novel we found the journey of the word A. But other then this we can also read the Novel from the perpative of transcendentalism.


Transcendentalism : 

Transcendentalism is American movement which starred in 1830s. The way movement of Romanticism was spreading in England in the same way the movement of Transcendentalism was spreading in America.  There are some basic element of Transcendentalism.

• Intuition
• Correspondence 
• Individualism
• Nature
• Social Reform

When we talked about the Novel The Scarlet letter we see some of the elements in the Novel. 

1. Individualism : 

When we look novel we found the individualism in the character of Heater.  We found that she is the indipandent woman. Who doesn't demand for support. When her husband was not there she desied to live by her own. She also brought house for her even she started earning for her self. So in this way we found element of  individualism in the Novel. 

2. Nature : 

In this Novel We found nature as background. Hester desire to live close to nature. She brought her house near sea. She also develop her earing from Nature. She is also represent the human nature of the time.  Her living away from the town shows that she is quite different then other people of the time. This living near to the nature is talks about her going against the mature.

3. Social Reform : 

The last characteristics of Transcendentalism is of the social Reform. This thing we also see in the Novel that Hester goes against the view of the society. This going against the society shows that she wants to live her life her own way. She chose individual life rather then living near society. That shows that she wants Reform society by showing the importance of individual life, importance of ones own choices. Her desision to give birth to the child is also social Reform .  Because that is the time when idea of single perment especially as mother is not acceptable. But still she does it in good manners.

This are some elements of Transcendentalism. Apart from this in the same novel we can also see the elements of Anti- Transcendentalism.  In this Novel we see elements like, 

• Effect of sin
• Evil and emptiness of life
• Develop from Puritan thought

1. Effect of sin : 

When we talk about the sin  in the Novel we found that the basic idea in which novel has develop is about the idea of Adultery.  During the victorian age Adultery is consider as sin. For this we see that they gave punishment to Hester. Even Dimmesdale who doesn't come in front of people is slightly punish himself. He even remake " Herein is the sinful mother happier then the sinful father. "  Though this we see that if society doesn't punish still believe in people mind are that strong that they punish there self.  So, we see effect of sin in the Novel. 

2. Evil and emptiness of life:  

Evil and emptiness can be seen in the character of the chilligworth. When he comes to know about the child of Heater he desied to take revenge. He desied to found out the co-sinner of Heater. He even try to prove purle as child of  devil. We can consider him as a symbol of devil's handyman of one consumed with revenge and devoid of compassion.

3. Development from Puritan thought : 

We see that in this Novel we found that some thought are driven from Puritan superstition.  John c. Stubbs argue " for Hawthorne the balance of marvelous and natural was inherit in the new England superstition. " He also point out about the chilligworth that Hawthorne stresses the superstition wonder directed at this man of skill by the Puritan. So, We can say that in this Novel we found some of Puritan thought are developed.