Hawthorne's Redemption

Book excerpt: This book serves to feed human nature with both a religious and literary mood. It may bring the reader a little closer to an understanding of life's complexities, or it may challenge the reader's own philosophical self, as he or she discovers the unraveling of Hawthorne's. The editor of the book, which has been composed from his memory of an unknown student's work, claims to have unearthed a rare discovery that may unveil a mystery that has puzzled the best of minds in the literary field for many years. In the words of its author, his purpose is clear: "I have thought to publish my interpretations of Hawthorne's novel so that those critics in the field of literature, who will, may have additional cause for which to expound their intelligence, either in trying to better understand this mystery, or to salvage the old cherished ambiguities by which the public brain is presently intoxicated. If I am correct in only a few of my impressions, hopefully the main ones, we shall have to reappraise Hawthorne as a literary prophet who hoped for and predicted a future time when mankind would look more favorable upon the creation, man." Both the author and editor send the reader on a journey into the mind and heart of an American icon which have too long been misunderstood and underappreciated. He asks the reader to drink deep from the depths of his or her own intuitive awakenings, and encourages each to rediscover the man who created The Scarlet Letter. In so doing, one may see the vexations and conflicts in his own life as a "dark necessity" to be endured, as in the character of his beloved Hester, who speaks to the heart of every human, and in behalf of our own human nature.