Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2016 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 1,0, University of Duisburg-Essen, language: English, abstract: The first section of this paper will examine Hawthorne’s biography and historical background from which his Puritan inheritance arose in order to understand his works. After the historical background has been depicted, the focus will be set on the ambiguous illustration of the Puritan community in two of his works. Being a direct descendant of Massachusetts Baycolonists, the Puritan era of New England served as a lifelong preoccupation for Hawthorne and inspired many of his stories, especially "The Scarlet Letter" and “Young Goodman Brown”. Therefore, these two works are particularly significant in terms of their representation of Puritanism.