Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet
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Letter and the American Gothic
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adapted from Brigham, Ann. "Toni Morrison's Beloved and the American Gothic." Newberry
Teachers Consortium. Newberry Library, Chicago. 25 Feb. 2010. Lecture.
History of the Word “Gothic”
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Original meaning:
 “to do with the Goths” or “barbarian” northern
tribes who played a part in the collapse of the
Roman Empire (though 17th and 18th c. writers
who used the term knew little about the Goths)
 Term came to be a synonym for “Germanic,”
retaining its connotation of barbarity
Punter, David. Literature of Terror a History of Gothic Fictions from 1765 to the Present
Day. New York: Longman, 1996. Print.
Early 18th Century
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shift from a geographical to a historical meaning,
referring to things medieval/pre-17th c.
used in opposition to “classical”: classical = wellordered, simple and pure, Gothic was chaotic,
ornate, and convoluted (mixings); the classics
offered a set of cultural models to be followed,
Gothic represented excess and exaggeration, the
wild and uncivilized
Shift in 18th century:
The term “gothic” takes on positive values.
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Gothic
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Old-fashioned
Barbaric
Crude
Old English Barons
English and
Provincial
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Opposite
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Modern
Civilized
Elegant
Cosmopolitan
Gentry
European/French
Shifts in 18th Century
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As the archaic and pagan, gothic is prior to and
opposes or resists the establishment of civilized
values and a well-regulated society.
Writers argue that barbarism possesses a fire,
vigor and sense of grandeur sorely needed in
English culture. Could breathe life into culture by
re-establishing relations with a forgotten, “Gothic”
past (cf. Romantic poetry).
Shifts in 18th Century
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Gothic architecture: taste for medieval
buildings; wealthy build Gothic ruins readymade; Horace Walpole builds Strawberry
Hill, a Gothic castle in miniature; William
Beckford’s Fonthill collapses under the
weight of its grandiosity.
Shifts in 18th Century
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Gothic Fiction: 1760s-1820s: first period of
immense popularity. Novels set in the past, using
castles, ruins, and convents as settings.
Portrayed the wild and barbaric. Plots of terror
put down by literary critics as crude,
sensationalistic and sadistic, pandering to popular
taste. Many, including Wordsworth, felt literature
should be morally and spiritually uplifting,
functioning to elevate the minds and morals of its
audience.
Shifts in 18th Century
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Appearance of the supernatural,
scandalous in supremely rational world of
the 18th century
“Classic” English Gothic Novels:
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Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto (1765);
Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794);
Matthew Lewis, The Monk (1795); Jane Austen,
Northanger Abbey (1818, posthumously—
parody); Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818); Emily
Bronte, Wuthering Heights (1847); Charlotte
Bronte, Jane Eyre (1847); Robert Louis
Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and
Mr. Hyde (1886); Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897);
The Lair of the White Worm (1911); Daphne de
Maurier, Rebecca (1938).
Basic, Ongoing Features of the
classic “Gothic Novel”
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Setting: An ancestral or family house
(mansion/castle or house with lots of
floors, rooms, passageways, secret
spaces), old abbey (with crypt and/or
cemetery), or other “ruin.” To consider:
What settings appear as haunted in 20th
century American gothic? What’s
significant about such places being
represented as ruins?
Basic, Ongoing Features of the
classic “Gothic Novel”
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Source of terror: Often haunting figures
(supernatural or psychological or both) out of a
buried past that bring back ideas/beliefs/
features that others want to keep suppressed or
repressed. Sometimes the figure is a
“doppelganger.” To consider: What figure from a
buried past might haunt individuals, cultures,
nations, our sense of the present? How can that
figure say something about what is being
repressed, either by an individual or a culture?
Basic, Ongoing Features of the
classic “Gothic Novel”
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Plot shape: based on “primal” crime (acts that
violate lineage, class, legitimized sex, family,
inheritance/property claims—incest is one). A
character or happening crosses a border
(physical, cultural, psychological, sexual) or
“mixes” things up in ways that are taboo. To
consider: What cultural or legal code is violated
or transgresses in a text? That is, what
forbidden desires, acts, or ideas are embraced?
What institution or ideology does such a
violation threaten?
Basic, Ongoing Features of the
classic “Gothic Novel”
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Frequent foci: 1) the victimization of
women, usually for economic gain or
illusions of patriarchal power; 2) alienation
because communal systems of value
have not only collapsed, but are revealed
to be illegitimate or debased from their
beginnings (e.g., the success story of the
rise of the individual or the self-made
man).
Basic, Ongoing Features of the
classic “Gothic Novel”
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Hero/heroine: the hero is usually a young
man who could potentially be evil and
destructive, but who usually turns out to
be good—and the heir of the property and
fortune. But heroines are often the
protagonists of gothic texts. To consider:
What happens to the characterization of
the hero when a woman is in that role?
Does she turn out to be good? The heir?
Basic, Ongoing Features of the
classic “Gothic Novel”
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Villain: frequently a father-figure intent on
upholding the property and standards of a family
(and concealing the secrets of the house or his
past)—sometimes takes the form of a religious
figure upholding or using antiquated religious
power (early Gothic novels were anti-Catholic)
or of a Satanic figure from an “alien” race (like
Dracula or other vampires). To consider: What
other “father-figures” appear in American gothic?
What kinds of institutions represent the father
figure? And, what about those mothers?
Basic, Ongoing Features of the
classic “Gothic Novel”
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Style of narration and dialogue: sometimes
hyperbolic, overly dramatic. Gothic is about the
difficulty of getting the story told—narrative
transgressions due to secret documents,
missing links, or multiple narratives, like stories
within stories or flashbacks (the eruption of the
past into the present—a temporal border
crossing where you can’t keep the past in its
place).
The Take-Away
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Gothic styles are a response to
Classicism’s order and classification
The theme of social entropy, chaos and
decomposition is useful to Hawthorne to
show the internal decline of Puritanism.