1. Style - impress reader
2. Pathetic fallacy - "sad-colored" garments - special type of personification where adj. personifies noun        
3. Atmosphere - surrounding of setting - gloomy - prison door "studded with iron spikes"; cemetery, prison - "black glower of civilized society", "ugly edifice"
4. Figurative Language - extended metaphor: description of Hester in ch. 2 as Madonna - holding baby, ascending scaffold, light encircling her head, regal appearance, wearing white, name Hester from Hestia - virgin goddess, name Prynne - meaning prim & proper ; implied metaphor: wild rose outside prison door in ch. 1 as referring to Hester or Pearl; implied metaphor: brown grass surrounding prison door as Puritanism); allegory - characters represent universals (Hester - Madonna & purity) (Chillingworth - devil) (Dimmesdale - Hypocrite) (Pearl - pearl of great price) (Puritans - Prejudiced people)
5. Diction - 3 types: simple (bunch); common (crowd); lefty & learned (throng)
6. Sentence Structure - 4 types: simple, compound, complex, compound-complex (type used by Hawthorne - ch. 1, 1st. par.)
7. Hawthorne's purpose for writing SL - to show evils of Puritan persecution (used story about Scarlet Letter being found by him in Custom House - not true - to justify story to Puritans as just fiction)

II.   Historical Approach (seen in chapter 2 & many chapters thereafter)

1. Actual (factual) persons, places, things
2. Boston, Mass (ch. 2)
3. King Chapel Church
4. Cemetery (Samuel Johnson gave land for cemetery)
5. Prison
6. Scafford:  types of punishment of Puritans: stocks, whipping post, hanging, burning, drowning, standing on scaffold (ignominy - public shame - Hester's punishment)
7. Anne Hutchison - hung as witch

III.   Psychological Approach (seen in all chapters except chapter 1)

1. Conflicts interact with themes
2. All great books have all five themes:  Isolation, Prejudice, Revenge, Survival, Maturity)
3. Conflicts: Internal - man vs. self; External - man vs. man; man vs. nature/society

IV.   Mythological Approach (seen esp. in chapters  3, 7, 12)

1. Big G - 5 major religions - Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindui, Buddhism (SL - Christian because Puritans were Christians)
2. Little g - 12 Greek gods/goddesses
3. SL references: Hester's name from Hestia, virgin goddess, sister of Zeus; Chillingworth as devil like; black man in forest with his black book
4. Hester described as Madonna; stand on scaffold  3 hours (# hours Christ was on cross; Trinity); 12 noon & 12 midnight (12 gods/goddesses; 12 Tribes of Israel); 12 chapters in Part I of SL & 12 chapters in Part II of SL; Electric Chain of 3 people standing on scaffold: Hester, Dimmesdale, Pearl; 3 people bound together by Pearl : Hester, Dimmesdale, Chillingworth; "virgin" land

V.    Universal Symbols

1. White - purity, goodness (Hester dressed in white)
2. Black - evil, death (Black man in forest; Black book in which to sign pact with devil)
3. Brown - dying (brown grass surrounding prison door)
4. Green - rebirth (Pearl making A for herself from green eel grass)
5. Blue - birthright
6. Red - evil, love (Scarlet letter A)
7. Scarlet Letter - Adultery, Able, Angel, Atonement
8. Water - purity (Hester chooses to live by sea)

VI.   Structure of Literature

Climax

Exposition

Resolution

Exposition (ch. 1-3) introduced to characters & setting(s)

Rising Action leading to Climax (ch. 4-11) Psychological approach - conflicts

Climax (ch. 12) turning point - where everything changes

Falling Action leading to Resolution (ch. 13-23) Psychological approach - conflicts must change

Resolution - Great Irony (ch. 24)

VII.   Biographical Information - Hawthorne

1. born 1804 in Salem, Mass.
2. father dies in 1808
3. went to live with Jack Hawthourne, his uncle, who was judge at Salem witch trials (witches were hung, burned at stake, or drown)
4. raised by mother & aunts because uncle away on job most of time
5. first American feminist writer (where main character is female - heroine)
6. family composed of Puritan ministers
7. went to Bowdoine College (Maine) to study for ministry
8. roommates - Franklin Pierce (became President of US) & Longfellow (became 1st. American poet Laurate)
9. left ministry & married Sophia Peabody, who father was doctor in Boston
10. needed money for family so got job at Custom House at Boston Harbor through Pierce, now President
11. job at Custom House gave him much time to write SL, which he wrote in 1 year & published in 1850
12. in 1620 there was no separation of church & state (Puritan religion was also the law of land) seen in SL where ministers Wilson & Dimmesdale along with doctor Chillingworth meet with Governor Bellingham to decide fate of Pearl