Literary Analysis 2: The Scarlet Letter

The speaker in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is the narrator. The narrator does not change in the story because he knows the story already and is just repeating it. For example, the narrator says "Finding it so directly on the threshold of our narrative, which is now about to issue from that inauspicious portal, we could hardly do otherwise than pluck one of its flowers, and present it to the reader."(Hawthorne 56) This quote shows that the narrator already knows what is going to happen. He is saying that he witnessed the story and is now going tell it to the reader because he found it so intriguing.
The purpose of The Scarlet Letter is to entertain readers while informing them of dangers of secret love. Hester Prynne never tells anyone (except for Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale) that her unknown husband is Roger Chillingworth the "doctor" that arrives in town at the beginning of the novel. She also never tells anyone (except for Roger Chillingworth) that the father of her illegitimate child is Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. Although Hester is married to Roger she does not love him, it is the reverend she loves who she meets after she is married. The town knows Hester is pregnant with a child who's father is not her husband so they throw her in jail. Her sentence is to wear a scarlet letter A (for adulterer) but her punishment is not as simple. As Hester said "It is too deeply branded. Ye cannot take it off. And would that I might endure his agony, as well as mine!"(Hawthorne 78) Even if you remove the physical letter the disgrace it brought will always be there. She also will take the blame for Dimmesdale because she knows that she will have to bear it anyway and does not want to bring him down with her. Because of their affair the punishment will stay with Hester for the rest of her life.Hawthorne's target audience is people who like a mystery. In The Scarlet Letter you are trying to figure out who Pearl's father is. Once it is revealed that the reverend is Hester's lover you are realize the clues that pointed to him. The following quote demonstrates how the reader knows Hawthorne's target audience "Of a truth, friend, that matter remaineth a riddle; and the Daniel who shall expound it is yet a-wanting,..."(Hawthorne 72) It explains how there is something that needs to be solved but no one has yet. Automatically a reader who is a fan of mystery would decided that they are going to try and solve it.
Hawthorne conveys a tone of mystery and suspense throughout the novel. You are waiting for Hester to reveal who Pearl's father is but she never does, he does himself. When Dimmesdale admits to being Hester's lover you are surprised. The tone made that so much more dramatic as it did with many other scenes  in the novel. When the minister tells Roger "There can be, if I forebode aright, no power short of the Divine mercy, to disclose, whether by uttered words, or by type or emblem, the secrets that may be buried with a human heart." (Hawthorne 156) you take it as foreshadowing to the minister revealing his own secret. Because of the tone of mystery and suspense you are more susceptible to read into the quote than if it were a happier tone.