"The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Scarlet Letter opens with a long introduction on the book came about. The unidentified narrator was the surveyor of the customhouse in Salem, Massachusetts. In the customhouse's attic, he discovered a number of documents, one of them were a manuscript that was bundled with a scarlet, gold-embroidered patch of cloth in the shape of an “A.” The manuscript was written by surveyor in the past. It narrated events in great detail that took place around two hundred years before the narrator's time. When the narrator lost his job at the customs, he decided to write a fictional story based on the events contained in the manuscript. The Scarlet Letter is the fictional story he wrote.

Hawthorne begins The Scarlet Letter with this long introductory essay that served as a preface. This preface though was aimed to accomplish four important tasks: 1). outlines information pertaining to the author's autobiography, 2). describes the contradiction between the artistic inclination and the commercial setting, 3). defines the romance novel (which Hawthorne is credited for his efforts in refining and mastering the craft), and 4). confirms the basis of the novel by explaining that he had discovered in the Salem Custom House the faded scarlet A and the parchment sheets that contained the historical manuscript on which the novel is based.

Despite its claim, there is no existing serious, scholarly work that supports the idea that Hawthorne ever actually had in his possession such letter or manuscript. This narrative technique, typical of the narrative traditions of his time, serves as a way of giving his story an air of historic authenticity.  The Scarlet Letter is one the products of prose narrative genre.

The kind of narration employed in The Scarlet Letter is that of an omniscient narrator. Editorial omniscience pertains to an interruption by the narrator to be able to describe a character for a reader, such as the part of the story where the narrator of The Scarlet Letter describes Hester's relationship to the Puritan community. Narration that enables the characters' actions and thoughts to speak for themselves is termed neutral omniscience. Limited omniscience happens when an author confines the role of the narrator to the single viewpoint of either a major or minor character. The way people, places, and events are seen by the character is the way they are seen by the reader. Short stories, however, are often limited to a single character's point of view.

Hawthorne organizes the story of Hester and Minister Dimmesdale around three vital scenes, each of these scenes occur on the scaffold outside the prison in Boston. Each is used to reveal some important information about his hero and heroine. All throughout the novel, the author balances his narrative among scenes describing the career of Hester among the villagers, the growing agony felt by Dimmesdale over his secret sin, and the subtle efforts of Chillingworth to uncover his wife's lover.