Hawthorne's art is cumulative. Many of his earlier stories had treated themes that led to The Scarlet Letter which is set in the seventeenth century. It is an elaboration of a fact which the author took out of the life of the Puritan past.

All his life, Hawthorne seems to be haunted by his sense of sin and evil in life. Reading his tales and romances, one cannot but be overwhelmed by the “black” vision which these works reveal. To Hawthorne sin will get punished, one way or another. One source of evil in Hawthorne is overweening intellect. The tension between the head (intellect) and the heart (warmth and feeling) constitutes one of the elements which make his writings enchanting. Hawthorn's intellectual characters are usually villains such as Chillingworth in The Scarlet Letter.