Literary Techniques in

The Scarlet Letter

Argument Topics for the Essay

Sin

Initiation

Prid

e

Alienation

Guil

t

Breaking Society’s

Rules

Language Devices for

the Analysis Essay

Descriptive Detail:The writer’s sensory description, usually focused on

the visual. Consider diction (vocabulary & degree of difficulty, complexity, etc.) and selection of detail. What does the writer want you to notice?

“there came a glare of red light out of his eyes; as if the old man’s soul were on fire, and kept on smouldering duskily within his breast” (155)

“A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments, and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women… were assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak and studded with iron spikes” (45).

ImageryDescriptive language used to convey

a visual picture or represent or create any sensory experience

“Perceiving a flock of beach-birds, that fed and fluttered along the shore, the naughty child picked up her apron full of pebbles, and, creeping from rock to rock after these small sea-fowl [began] pelting them” (162).

Figurative Language:Includes apostrophe, hyperbole,

metaphor, oxymoron, paradox, personification, simile, and understatement, often used to associate or compare dissimilar things, supplements and modifies the literal meanings of concepts

“His moral force was abased into more than childish weakness. It grovelled helpless on the ground” (146).

Paradox:A statement that seems self-

contradictory or nonsensical on the surface, but may be seen to contain an underlying truth. Can be seen as ironic.

“The infant was worthy to have been brought forth in Eden” (82)

IronyA contradiction or incongruity between

appearance and expectation or reality. A discrepancy may exist between what someone says and what s/he means, what someone expects to happen and what really does happen, or between what appears to be true and what actually is true.

For the purposes of this essay, situational irony is not appropriate; focus in on language

– Dimmesdale’s attempt at categorizing himself as a sinner, and the people’s reverent response

CharacterizationThe various means by which an author

describes and develops the characters in a literary work

“the little Puritans, being the most intolerant brood that ever lived” (162).

“’Behold, verily, there is the woman of the scarlet letter; and of a truth, moreover, there is the likeness of the scarlet letter running along by her side! Come, therefore, and let us fling mud at them!’” (90).

Point of View: Limited: usually recounts the story through the eyes of a single character;

reader is privy to the inner thoughts and feelings of a “limited” number of characters

Omniscient: able to recount the action thoroughly and reliably, and able to enter the mind of any character at any time; can conceal as well as reveal at will.

Direct address:

“if we suppose this interview betwixt Mistress Hibbins and Hester Prynne to be authentic” (108).

“It may serve, let us hope, to symbolize some sweet moral blossom…” (46).

Themes & Argument:• Consider questions, rather than

answers.

• Psychological novel – What aspects of human nature does Hawthorne focus on? What is he arguing?

• Focus on how the use of a technique enhances his argument – makes it more clear, persuasive, etc.