Whats the purpose of the preface to The Scarlet Letter?
The preface to The Scarlet Letter sets the atmosphere of the story and connects the present with the past. Hawthorne’s description of the Salem port of the 1800s is directly related to the past history of the area. The Puritans who first settled in Massachusetts in the 1600s founded a colony that concentrated on God’s teachings and their mission to live by His word. But this philosophy was eventually swallowed up by the commercialism and financial interests of the 1700s.
