A dichotomy is a literary device in which the writer separates two ideas into conflicting parts. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses many dichotomies in his work to tease out contrasts, complexities, and facets of thought. In the story, dichotomies include beauty and utility, matter and spirit, understanding and imagination, man-made mechanism and natural organism, nature and civilization, Puritan thinking and Victorian ideas, idealism and practicality, fragility and strength, isolation and society, and gold and iron. Some of these concepts are antithetical to one another, but others have more complicated relationships.

Hawthorne uses situations, characters, and objects to embody these qualities and the exploration of dichotomies. Dichotomies can provide depth, particularly when they are encapsulated within one character or one situation. Sometimes, they are embodied by two opposing characters or situations which then must clash to create a specific outcome. Consider the sentence: “As if the butterfly, like the artist, were conscious of something not entirely congenial in the child’s nature, it alternately sparkled and grew dim” (27). Several dualities are present in this one sentence: light and dark in the fluctuating pattern the butterfly emits, and the child’s duality as both a willing receptacle of art against his ever-practical heritage.