A reverend has sex with a married woman and denies the baby of his own for seven years. Sounds like a sitcom on FOX, but it is the plot of The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. If Hawthorne intended us to read this novel solely based on plot, he would not have written it. He is a romantic, believing in strong emotions that contradicted those of the rationalist views of thought and logic. The Scarlet Letter, written during the time of the Romantic Era, represents romantic literature.
             Romantics had 10 certain characteristics that separated themselves from the rationalist. Those characteristics are: being young and possessing youthful qualities, is innocent and pure of purpose, has a sense of honor based not on society's rules but on some higher principle, has a knowledge of people and of life based on deep, intuitive understanding, not on formal learning, loves nature and avoids town life, and is on a quests for some higher truth in the natural world.
             The first sign of nature in the novel is when the narrator gives the description of the prison door, "But, on one side of the portal, rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June..."(46). Where the root of all the dark and evil criminals live, lies this rosebush. If Hawthorne wanted us to believe that this prison was truly evil, he would consider putting a weed, a poisonous plant, or nothing in its place. The plant represents the beauty and purity nature possesses, despite how close it is to the prison. Even Pearl, a direct representation of nature refers to the rose-bush. When they are in the Governor Hall Mr. Wilson ask Pearl where she came from, with her hesitation the narrator mentions "After putting her finger in her mouth, with many ungracious refusals to answer good Mr. Wilson's questions, the child finally announced that she had not been made at all, but had been plucked by her mother off the bush of ...