Moby Dick and The Scarlet Letter: Unpardonable Sin The importance of Hawthorne’s theme of the unpardonable sin is found in two areas. First, in a social setting the importance of the unpardonable sin is the eminence it has as a theme in many of Hawthorne’s stories. The most prominent story with the unpardonable sin as a keystone theme is The Scarlet Letter, a major book in academia. [The Scarlet Letter is mentioned as an illustration of the importance of the theme.] To my mind, when a book as highly regarded as The Scarlet Letter is for over a century by a large group of people, then it is obvious that the book has significant value. Then, since the