The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is set entirely in Boston, Massachusetts; Hawthorne indicates this when talking about the irony that one of the first buildings in Boston was its prison. "...the forefathers of Boston had built the first prison-house..." page 35 and when he mentions the "history of New England." By mentioning the state and general area of the United States, the reader deduces that the setting is indeed Boston, Massachusetts. The townspeople's' attire is one of the few indicators of the period in which this story takes place. "...bearded men, in sad-colored garments, and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods and other bareheaded..." The attire is that of the Puritan era and at the suggestion of Puritans, the reader deduces that the time is that of the middle seventeenth century. Another hint that Hawthorne gives the reader is that of the month in which...