From the Book - Regular Print
Introduction / John B. Gerber --
First appearance of themes in The scarlet letter / Nathaniel Hawthorne : from The American notebooks --
First appearance of Hester in Hawthorne's works / Nathaniel Hawthorne : from "Endicott and the red cross" --
Nature of the romance / Nathaniel Hawthorne : from the preface to The house of the seven gables --
Sources for details / Charles Ryskamp --
New England sources of The scarlet letter --
Puritanism / Joseph Schwartz --
Three aspects of Hawthorne's Puritanism --
Four-part structure / Gordon Roper : from the Introduction to The scarlet letter and selected prose works --
Frame structure / Leland Schubertz : from Hawthorne, the artist --
Three epic quests / Hugh N. Maclean : from "Hawthorne's Scarlet letter : 'The dark problem of this life'" --
Part Three. Techniques --
Allegory and symbolism / F.O. Matthiessen : from American renaissance --
Irony / Richard Harter Fogle : from Hawthorne's fiction : the light and the dark --
Ambiguity / Hyatt H. Waggoner : from "Art and belief" --
Dichotomy / Donald A. Ringe : from "Hawthorne's psychology of the head and the heart" --
Archetype / William Bysshe Stein : from Hawthorne's Faust --
Part Four. Interpretations --
Range of interpretations : The scarlet letter and its modern critics / Charles Child Walcutt --
Damnation : Dimmesdale's fall / Edward H. Davidson --
Frustration and guilt : the ruined wall / Frederick C. Crews --
Sin, isolation, and reunion : form and content in The scarlet letter / John C. Gerber --
Passion : The scarlet letter as a love story / Ernest Sandeen --
Redemption through denial : from "Achievement and frustration" / Leslie A. Fiedler.