The Scarlet Letter
About the Author
Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Born July 4, 1804 in Salem, Mass.
– What do we know about Salem??
• Reclusive at times
• Worked in the Salem Custom House
• Wrote Twice-Told Tales, The House
of Seven Gables, The Scarlet Letter,
etc.
• Married Sophia Peabody and their
daughter, Una became the model for
the character, Pearl.
About the Author
• Served as the United States
consul to Liverpool
• Died in 1864
• Buried in Concord,
Massachusetts
• Great-great-great-great
grandfather, John Hathorne, was
judge at Salem witch trials
Before Reading the Novel
Answer the following questions:
• Have you ever heard someone talk
about being branded with a scarlet
letter or call someone a scarlet
woman? What might this mean?
• What is adultery? Is there more than
one kind of adultery? Should adultery
be considered a crime?
Historical Context:
Setting of the novel
• Boston Colony
founded 1630
• John Winthrop
(governor)
• Puritans wanted to
“purify” the Church of
England of all traces
of Catholicism in
liturgy, theology, and
church organization
• Recognized the Bible
as the sole source of
religious authority
Historical Context
• Maintained a theocracy
• Believed in predestination or
Doctrine of the Elect
• Inflicted public punishments
to deter others from straying
from righteousness (hanging,
whipping, humiliation, etc,)
Private Wrongdoing
IS
Public Knowledge.
Literary Context
• Hawthorne didn’t write the novel
during the Colonial Period.
• He wrote during the Romantic
Period.
• This mean description, figurative
language, symbols, imagination,
etc…are of utmost importance.
Literary Context
• Hawthorne was a Dark
Romantic…
– Feeling over reason
– Looked at both positive and negative
of humanity
– Looked to the past
– Looked to nature
– Uncover “masks” of society
The Plot
• The novel is set in the
mid 1600s in Boston,
Massachusetts.
• The plot encompasses
a seven year period.
• The plot involves the
love triangle of wifelover-husband.
• The major theme of
the novel is developed
in the context of good
vs. evil.
Point of View
• Third-Person Omniscient
– Hawthorne reveals the inner and outer
workings of the characters and provides
social criticism, history, and psychology.
Characters
• Hester Prynne- wearer of the scarlet letter
• Pearl- child of Hester; living symbol of
Hester’s sin
• Roger Chillingworth- learned scholar;
doctor
• Arthur Dimmesdale- admired young
minister
• Governor Bellingham- governor and
magistrate of Massachusetts Bay Colony
• Rev. John Wilson- senior minister of
colony
• Mistress Hibbins- a suspected witch
The Scarlet Letter
is peopled with
characters who are
meant to be the
embodiments of
moral traits, rather
than realistic,
living figures.
Hester Prynne
• Hester:
– Hestia in Greek mythology,
Zeus’s sister, a woman of beauty
– hestier (hasty)
• Prynne:
– Prurient: interest in sex
– prune: purify or cut back/restore
to original state
– pry: probe into the interior of
one’s heart
Pearl (Hester’s daughter)
• What do you think Pearl’s
name means?
– Think of what color pearls are…
• White…
• Pure, good…
– Okay, and what about their
worth?
• Priceless
• Precious
And the others…
• Be thinking about
–Roger Chillingworth
• What words do you see in his
name?
• What does Roger mean?
–Arthur Dimmesdale
• What could his name mean?
• What words do you see in it?
The Scarlet Letter
The Scarlet Letter
displays Hawthorne
lifelong
preoccupation with
the themes of secrecy
and guilt, the conflict
between intellectual
and moral pride, and
the lingering effects
of Puritanism.
Original title page
Major Symbol
• The scarlet letter itself is the central
symbol.
• It changes meaning for the
characters in the novel as Hester’s
character changes.
• The A becomes a pathway to
redemption for some characters as
well.
• Watch the many ways Hawthorne
uses a symbol
The Symbolic Letter “A”
The scarlet
fire, passion, and life
They averred, that the symbol was not mere
scarlet cloth, tinged in an earthly dye-pot, but
was red-hot with infernal fire, and could be
seen glowing all right, whenever Hester Prynne
walked abroad in the night-time. (Hawthorne,
1984: 95)
Warmth: the acts of charity she performs to
those in trouble
Sin: in the Bile, the Jezebel wears scarlet
Torture: fire in the hell
Sacrifice: to devote all their life and passion to
religion
Themes
• Many ideas Hawthorne
explores in The Scarlet Letter
are still important today and
frequently recur in other
literary works.
– Alienation
– Appearance vs. Reality
– Breaking society’s rules
The Custom House
• Hawthorne claims
to have gotten the
idea for this novel
from the papers of
Jonathan Pue.
Among the papers,
Hawthorne
allegedly found an
embroidered
scarlet A and
information on a
Hester Prynne.
The Custom House
• Describes the interior/exterior of the
Custom House
• Describes Hawthorne’s feelings about
his native town of Salem
• Makes critical comments about the
Whig party/ reveals Hawthorne’s
involvement as a Democrat
• Describes his early attempts to write
Hester’s story.
The Prison-Door
Hawthorne
opens The
Scarlet Letter
just outside
the prison of
what, in the
early 1640s,
was the village
of Boston.
The Prison-Door
Ask yourself
what you
know about a
novel that
begins in a
prison?
The Prison-Door
You probably
suspect you
are reading
the story of a
crime already
committed...
The Prison-Door
• One note of color
relieves the gloom. A
wild rose bush
blossoms by the
prison door.
• The rose bush
suggests a world
beyond the narrow
confines of the
Puritan
community….
The Prison-Door
…a world where
beauty and
vibrant color
flourish and
crime finds
tolerance and
pity….
What to do…
• Now turn to Chapter 1 of the book. What
do you learn from the title of this chapter
about the setting?
• You will be doing a visualization activity.
Close your eyes and listen to what you
are hearing as I read Chapter One out
loud. You don’t need to write anything
down.
• Open your eyes, take out your
notebooks, and listen again as I read
chapter one again. Only this time write
DESCRIPTIVE WORDS (adjectives) as
you listen, still visualizing.
• You will now transform
paragraph 1 of Chapter 1 into a
visual image.
• Artistic skill is not the point of
this activity. The point is to
include as much detail as
possible.
• Why would the image of a
prison door be ironic for a
utopian world?
• Now look at the two images of
the black flower and wild rose
bush. What might they
represent? Think about the
color of a rose.
Reflection
Did you get a clear image in your
mind of the opening scene for the
story? Did you become more
comfortable with the language and
thick imagery? By the end of this
lesson, your minds should be
brimming with The Scarlet Letter
images!!
About the Romance
• It is about adultery, but not about sex.
• It is about punishment, but not about crime.
The Scarlet Letter
The image Hawthorne
gives us is that of a
young woman taken
in adultery, and
standing on a
scaffold in the midst
of a hostile crowd.