『주홍글자』쓰기에 나타난 자전성의 변용

The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne's first novel, is known as a self-reflective work of his creativity and life. Hawthorne is a novelist who wants to transform his traumas such as his mother's death and his unemployment of Salem Custom House into autobiographical works. As he once told in his Notebooks, the characters of his works are created from conflicts between his desire to become an artist and his needs to be a father and husband. The deeper the conflict, the higher his creativity. Each of the four characters in The Scarlet Letter also reflects Hawthorne's psychological desire into an artist status, which is symbolized by the initial "A". The transfiguration of Hester can be said Hawthorne's sympathy of his mother and loving of his wife, Sophia Peabody. Dimmesdale is created by the artistic passion, which seems like sexual emotion. Chillingworth is made of scientific energy towards the human's inner minds, and even Pearl is born from Hawthorne's concern of his daughter, Una. Hawthorne was bound to acknowledge his true human brotherhood with the Bostonians, regardless of Puritan antipathy and political differences. It is the beginning of writing his first cannon. The three market places reveals the writer' creative process of seeing, disclosing and uttering. And forest scene is also a scene of dialogue. While each setting has an unique protagonist of Hester and Dimmesdale, Pearl and Chillingworth also playa meaning role as antagonist, who tells to the loving couples to be true. In the meanwhile, Hawthorne also comes near to the identity of an artist in possession of money and fame. Therefore, The Scarlet Letter can be evaluated as Hawthorne's first work showing his literary career. And it is an "Art" itself, which sprung from Romantic environments of New England.