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".
The nature of the romance / Nathaniel Hawthorne: from the preface to The House of Seven Gables.
Sources for details / Charles Ryskamp: the New England sources of The Scarlet Letter.
Puritanism / Joseph Schwartz: three aspects of Hawthorne's puritanism.
The four-part structure / Gordon Roper: from the introduction to The Scarlet Letter and selected prose works.
The frame structure / Leland Schubert: from Hawthorne, the artist.
Three epic quests / Hugh N. MacLean: from "Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter: 'The dark problem of this life'".
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.
The 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.
