... Melville, focused instead on the limitations and potential destructiveness of the human spirit, rather than on it's possibilities. The major reason that Hawthorne was an Anti-Transcendentalist was that, haunted by the cruelty and intolerance of his Puritan ancestors, Hawthorne viewed evil as one of the dominant forces in the world. Some of that evil is portrayed in his stories by his use of allegories -- characters, settings, and events that have a symbolic meaning ... the fatherhood of the devil. Terence Martin sums up the meaning of Hawthorne's best known book, The Scarlet Letter in t...

• Word Count: 855
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... England stories also failed. The collection contained the following short stories: My Kinsman, Major Moulineux, Young Goodman Brown, The Maypole of Merry Mount, The Gray Champion, Legends of the Province House, Howe's Masquerade and Lady Elinore's Mantle. All of them allegories and mixture between dream and reality, surrounded by familiar landscapes to the author. Hawthorne's main two novels are The Scarlet Letter, published in 1850, and The House of Seven Gables, published the following year. They ... sequence of events, and the syuzhet or the order in which these events are actually p...

• Word Count: 2367
• Approx Pages: 9
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... Veil- is evidence of Hawthorne's disapproval of the Puritan culture, a comparison of Hawthorne's tales prove helpful when a repetitive theme arises. The major theme in every case is the suffering and separation of the protagonist from the Puritan way of life due to the unfair rulings of such a society. Hawthorne critic of the unkindness within the Puritan society is very subtle, but yet very clear. The main events of "The Minister's Black Veil- revolve around the opinions and actions of the Puritan society that ... in his hour of death. "The Minister's Black Veil- is not the only one of...

• Word Count: 1634
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School