Flaws In The Scarlet Letter

Reviewing the Flaws of The Scarlet Letter How does someone know when they are trying too hard? The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne provides a great example. “Hawthorne Flaws in The Scarlet Letter” written by Henry James, discusses the problems associated with the novel. The book is greatly flawed by its overuse of symbolism, vagueness of characters, and unreasonable historical formatting. Hawthorne when writing, uses symbolism heavily perhaps to cover up his poor writing choices. The Scarlet Letter tries to make something from nothing, using symbolism as a way to find a higher meaning in the work. Henry James states, “It is overdone at times, and becomes mechanical; it ceases to be impressive, and grazes triviality.” This quote

As James emphasizes, “The people strike me not as character, but as representatives, very picturesquely arranged, of a single state of mind;”. The characters seem to be placed specifically for a certain purpose and do not resemble real people in any way. James gives an example of Pearl, she seems to represent a living version of Hester’s sin instead of a child. He also states, “The interest of the story, lies not in them, but in the situation, which is kept before us, with little progression, though with a great deal, as I have said of certain stable variation; and to which they, out of their reality, contribute little that helps it to live and move…”. I believe the novel doesn’t progress well due to the lack of personality within the characters. The plot becomes unrealistic and fails to provide the reader with a sensible grasp on the situation. The characters struggle to help the story but the historical consistency creates unnecessary potholes for the reader to

Hawthorne wants the readers to believe the story take place sometime in the Puritan Age but that is made unclear due to contrasting details within the novel. An example of this Hawthorne provides, “The author has made no great point of causing his figures to speak the English of their period.”. Hawthorne gives the reader a very generalized idea of what time the book takes place in. The lack of detail creates inconsistencies like the English spoken at the time. The puritan age townsmen did not speak fluent english like we know today, but Hawthorne does not care to elaborate on exactly what time the novel takes place. James explains, “The historical colouring is rather weak than otherwise; there is little elaboration of detail, of the modern realism of research” The novel fails to comply with the time period and struggles to be