Although initially seeming immaterial, the preface of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is a telling preview of his pattern of communicating meaning through the structure of his writing. In his daily affairs in 1850, Hawthorne, the probable narrator of "The Custom-House," stumbles upon a "rag of scarlet cloth...that assumed the shape of the capital letter A," (Page 29), a dramatic action that opens up a full investigation of the true nature of humanity almost two centuries earlier in Puritan times. Hawthorne uses this same literary technique to delve into an exploration of the essence of two of his main characters, Hester Prynne and the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. By presenting them in the context of a dramatic situation and subsequently elaborating on their pasts, Hawthorne provides a microcosmic glimpse of how each character attempts to be truly human by fulfilling his or her individual human nature in the story that...