The Scarlet Letter Lesson Plan

A good supplement to The Scarlet Letter is found in Hawthorne's own Young Goodman Brown. The wilderness themes are very similar in the two works. In the story, Brown goes through the forest and grows scared. The reader is attuned to this because the forest is described by the author as a frightening and alien place in which evil is seen to lurk in the form of the devil. Brown meets the mysterious figure in the forest with his serpentine staff, and the reader is still under the impression that events are actually happening, despite an increase in the dream-like atmosphere of the story. The setting takes on surreal implications. And as the stranger continues to talk, the reader begins to...