| Summary: | This study examines Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (TSL) which is
symptomatically has a very close relationship with the social issues that occur at the
time the work was written. It shows that the existence of TSL as a literary work
cannot be separated from social backgrounds where this work was born. As the
author of TSL, Hawthorne certainly has his own social scope in which his world view
as a human being grows and develops, and there is a possibility of such view to be
expressed in this work. In particular, this study focuses on assessing the world view
that is contained in TSL, also tracing the social environment that has such kind of
world view. In this case, because the language is an important medium in the creation
of a literary work, the study of the work structure becomes the first step in this study.
This study uses genetic structuralism theory that describes literature from the
notion of homology, in which its correspondence with the social structure.
Meanwhile, the research method used is the dialectical method that takes into account
the literary texts along with its cultural coherence. The data sources of this study
consist of primary data source and secondary data source, in which TSL is a primary
data source, while journals and books that are historically, socially, and culturally
relevant to the focus of study become the secondary data source.
Based on the study, the homology between the structures of The Scarlet Letter
and its social structure, which is America in the mid-19th century, is found.
Imaginary oppositions found in the structure of The Scarlet Letter shows the
expression of Romanticism world view in America, which consists of
Transcendentalism and Dark Romantic, which in turn also explains the reason for the
formation of such structures in the romance. In addition, the world view shows that
Nathaniel Hawthorne was incorporated in the current group of writers who followed
(at least related to) Edwardean theology, in order to balance the authority of
Unitarianism and maintain the purity of the Christian doctrine from the influence of
the separatists in the mid-19th century in America.
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