Scarlet Letter

The Tongue of Flame “I consider The Scarlet Letter the most intensely moving and the most beautifully composed work in American fiction,” said Roy R. Male in his article, “The Tongue of Flame: The Scarlet Letter”. This reader of the Scarlet Letter enjoyed the book immensely and he even said, “No other book is so deep, so dual, and so complete.” The critic says that the book is based upon three characters: Hester, Chillingworth, and …

…Sorrow in their most fearful forms are to be presented in any work of art, they have rarely been treated with a loftier severity, purity, and sympathy than in Mr. Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter.” This book exhibited a period of society when everything that was not understood due to ignorance was blamed upon the fact of being done by the “Wicked One.” The “Wicked One’s” sources are vague and unknown creating a perfect scapegoat.