As readers of Hawthorne's fiction, we interpret the author's text but often neglect the reading audience within the narrative. Hawthorne's narrators and characters come to their own independent understanding of the text. Specifically, female characters read symbols differently from males, the narrators within the text, and even the general reading audience. Hawthorne illustrates how individuals discover how to read different perspectives into his narrative. This book provides a new perspective, the female character's perspective, on Hawthorne's first two major novels. The study focuses on...