THE SCARLET LETTER

An Introduction to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s

Nathaniel HawthorneAbout the author…

Nathaniel Hawthorne (early years)

1804-1864

Born in Salem, Massachusetts

American novelist and short-story writer

Gothic Romance (also Dark Romance)

Descendant of John Hathorne, the only judge in the Salem Witch Trials who never repented of his actions. Hawthorne added a “w” to his last name to distance himself from his ancestor.

During college, Hawthorne became friends with future poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and future president Franklin Pierce.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (middle years)

In 1841, Hawthorne joined Brook Farm, a transcendentalist Utopian community.

In 1842, Hawthorn married Sophia Peabody and moved to The Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts.

His neighbor was Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Hawthorne was extremely shy and stayed silent at social gatherings. He and his wife Sophia were both reclusive.

In 1850, Hawthorne moved to Lenox, Massachusetts where he became good friends with Herman Melville.

Melville dedicated Moby-Dick to Hawthorne: "In token of my admiration for his genius, this book is inscribed to Nathaniel Hawthorne.”

In 1851, Hawthorne moved to The Wayside in Concord, Massachusetts. The home was previously inhabited by Louisa May Alcott and her family.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (later years)

Hawthorne died in his sleep on May 19, 1864.

Hawthorne is buried in “Authors’ Ridge” in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts.

“Authors’ Ridge” also contains the graves of Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (death)

Characteristics of his writing:

Set in New England

Inspired by Puritan society

Moral allegories

Humanity is Inherently sinful

Psychological complexity

Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Writer

The Scarlet LetterAbout the novel…

Published in 1850

Gothic Romance novel

Set in Puritan Boston from 1642 to1649

The story of Hester Prynne, whose daughter Pearl is conceived through an adulterous affair.

The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter is rich in symbolism and imagery.

Themes: sin and evil, guilt and shame, punishment, repentence, hypocrisy, judgment, isolation, gender, the occult, nature

Major Elements

Cover Art

Puritan Society

Who Were the Puritans? Puritans were British Protestants who wanted the

Church of England purified of any liturgy, ceremony, or practices which were not found in Scripture.

They left England in groups, often entire congregations led by their ministers, and resettled in New England.

Great Migration: 1620-1640

They organized their settlements into towns, with their meeting house or church at the center.

Puritans – Beliefs

The Bible was their sole authority, and they believed it applied to every area and level of life.

They believed in Calvinist theology.

Puritans - Church Church attendance was mandatory. Those that missed church regularly were fined. The sermon often addressed town problems. The church was sometimes patrolled by a man who

held a long pole. One end had feathers to tickle the chins of adults who fell asleep. The other end was a hard wooden knob for sleeping or giggling children.

Puritans – Children & Education

Longer life expectancy and higher birth rate than England and Southern Colonies.

Education was a priority. Literacy rates were high. They their children to be able to read the Bible.

Puritans - Gender Only male church members could vote. Women did not participate in town meetings and were

excluded from decision making in the church. Names of real Puritan women found in census reports

of the Massachusetts Bay Colony include: PatienceSilenceFearPrudenceComfortHopestillBe Fruitful

Puritans – Laws & Punishment

Puritan law was extremely strict. Crimes were severely punished.

Public whippings were common. The stockade forced the guilty

person to sit in the public square while onlookers spat or laughed at them.

Famous Puritans

Famous Puritans Anne Bradstreet, first poet and female writer

in the American colonies to be published

John Cotton, and grandson, Cotton Mather, were prominent ministers

John Winthrop, led the first large wave of Puritan immigrants from English, served as governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Famous Puritans

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)

Most famous sermon is “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”

This sermon was delivered in Enfield, Connecticut on July 8, 1741.

The sermon is famous for its vivid imagery of hell.

Edwards was interrupted several times by people crying out, "What shall I do to be saved?"

“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”

An excerpt…The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment…

“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”

An excerpt…cont’dIt is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell….

“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”

An excerpt…cont’dO sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment.

The Custom-House

Custom-Houses

Government office for collecting taxes on imported and exported goods.

Typically located in a seaport as a port of entry into the US.

Storage for impounded goods. Hawthorne worked in the Boston Custom House

from 1839 to 1840. Hawthorne was the surveyor of customs in the

port of Salem from 1846 to 1849.

The Salem Custom-House

Past: 1884 Present: 2011