THE SCARLET LETTER
Concepts:
Archetypes and
Transcendentalism
ADAPTED FROM:
Clayton, Katy. THE SCARLET LETTER AND TRANSCENDENTALISM
www.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.
ARCHETYPES
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 seasons
Wasteland: 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.
GARDEN OF EDEN
•
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.
A PARABLE
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.”
TRANSCENDENTALISM: AN
INTRODUCTION
Transcendentalism
Took 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
Ideals
The 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.