Concepts:Archetypes and
Transcendentalism
ADAPTED FROM:
Clayton, Katy. THE SCARLET LETTER AND TRANSCENDENTALISMwww.walden.org/documents/file/CU%20-%20Katy%20Clayton.pdf
Guelcher, William: THE SCARLET LETTER: STRATEGIES IN TEACHING: Idea Works Inc., Eagan Minnesota, 1989.
Van Kirk, Susan: HAWTHORNE’S THE SCARLET LETTER: CliffsNotes. IDG Books Worldwide Inc., Forest City, California., 2000.
THE SCARLET LETTER
An archetype is a generic, idealized model of a person, object, or concept from which similar
instances are derived, copied,
patterned, or emulated.
ARCHETYPES
• Example: the star-crossed lovers (almost) all of you have
studied.• This is the young couple
joined by love but unexpectedly parted by fate.
• Romeo and Juliet from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and
Juliet.• Romeo and Juliet have been
immortalized as the archetypes of true love because they are willing to sacrifice everything —including themselves —for
their love.
ARCHETYPES
Archetypes can also be places or seasonsWasteland: Little or no water. No harmony (man vs. man or man vs.
nature). Dominant colors: red, black, gray, or brown. Extreme temperatures. Insufficient food, shelter, and clothing. Hate, distrust, and evil.
Country vs. City: simplicity vs. complexity; purity vs. corruption.Spring: birth, childhood, a new beginning.River or stream: crossing, transformation.
Fountains: purification, baptism.Islands: isolation, magical wilderness.
Forest: wild place; those who enter often lose their direction.Garden: Perfect society. Harmony between nature and mankind. Dominant
colors of green and gold. Freedom from evil and suffering. Abundance of water, food, clothes, and shelter.
ARCHETYPES
The Garden Archetype is characterized by paradise;
innocence; unspoiled beauty (especially feminine); fertility.
In the garden archetype it is forever spring because spring is the time of
love and beauty and birth.The “New World” became a new version of the garden archetype.
This archetype is most often represented by the Garden of Eden from the book of Genesis, in which humanity lives in perfect peace and harmony with nature in a tranquil
and nonviolent environment created by a higher being.
ARCHETYPES
• The Scarlet Letter could be seen as the reverse of the Garden of Eden story.
• In that story, Adam and Eve begin in a state of primal innocence and
through their own volition, fall from the state of grace by their
sin and thereby condemn the world to Satan.
GARDEN OF EDEN
“Much like Adam and Eve, Reverend Arthur
Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne are
symbolically cast out of Paradise for their sin, forced to suffer, toil,
and confront their guilt at their transgression of society's norms.”
GARDEN OF EDEN
The Puritans believed that Eve’s corruption extended to
all women, which justified making women lesser citizens within the church hierarchy.
However, women were looked upon as critical to the success
of the Puritan colonies in North America (in terms of contributing to harmonious
marriage and godly children).
GARDEN OF EDEN
The Scarlet Letter begins with a serious sin having been
committed, and Hester, the new “Eve,” rises from the evil of sin
to the grace of God.The message is that we can re-
enter Paradise in this life through our efforts.
This is Hawthorne’s way of dealing with the universal
problems of good and evil, and the dilemmas humankind
encounters in sorting between them.
GARDEN OF EDEN
In this “new Eve” metaphor, Hawthorne reverses the
traditional literary role of woman from the seductress who profanes man to the prophetess
who delivers man.In Chapter 17, Dimmesdale
acknowledges that his salvation is bound up with Hester’s
strength.Hawthorne hints the future
redemption of humankind will come through the strength of
womanhood.
GARDEN OF EDEN
Hawthorne has constructed a parable in which the
lesson is that a person is not condemned for having sinned; rather one is
condemned for the way in which the sin imperils the
personality.Guelcher: “In the final analysis of religious thinking, we are not
condemned by God or Satan.
We condemn ourselves.”
A PARABLE
TranscendentalismTook form in New England, mainly Concord, MA around
1836 when Ralph Waldo Emerson published Nature.
Major thinkers include Emerson, Henry David
Thoreau, Bronson Alcott. Part of a larger literary
movement called Romanticism, which
emphasized the importance of nature, emotions and
individualism.
TRANSCENDENTALISM: AN INTRODUCTION
IdealsThe individual is important;
inherently good; has free will
Conscience, morality and intuition are present at birth
Intuition is what one must use to perceive basic truths Each individual is connected
to God God is omnipresent
One of the best ways to connect to God is through
nature.
TRANSCENDENTALISM: AN INTRODUCTION
