The Scarlet Letter Writing Style

Ornate, Formal, Thorny, Biblical, Shadowy, Comma-loving

Upon first dipping our toes into The Scarlet Letter, we almost want to run and grab our passports, so strange is Hawthorne’s style to our modern ear. Going with the flow is difficult at first when words like "ignominy" and "cogitating" trip us up. And let’s not forget the sentences that (using a careful net of commas) are almost a page long, forcing us to read and reread the same words about sixty times.

Take for example, the following sentence:

"Doomed by his own choice, therefore, as Mr. Dimmesdale so evidently was, to eat his unsavory morsel always at another’s board and endure the lifelong chill which must be his lot who seeks to warm himself only at another’s fireplace, it truly seemed that this sagacious, experienced, benevolent old physician, with his concord of paternal and reverential love for the young pastor, was the very man, of all mankind, to be constantly within reach of his voice" (9.16).

Whoa. Our brains feel like they've just run a marathon. The trick with Hawthorne is to try to understand the backbone of the sentence. In this case, the backbone is basically saying, "because Dimmesdale has chosen a life of solitude, the fatherly doctor is the perfect companion for him." Get out the sculptor's tools, and do not be afraid to chip away at the sentences you encounter in this novel. Chances are, when you begin to bend a sentence into an understandable shape, you are bound to find solid gold.