“I believe that The Scarlet Letter, like all great novels,
enriches our sense of human experience and complicates
and humanizes our approach to it.”
from Solitude, Love, and Anguish: The Tragic Design of the
Scarlet Letter by Seymour L. Gross
Nathaniel Hawthorne

Born in Salem, MA in 1804

Wrote during the Romantic
and Transcendentalist
periods

Trickiness: TSL published in
1850, but set in 1650ish
Family History


His great-great-grandfather, William
Hathorne, ordered the whipping of Anne
Coleman and four others in the streets of
Salem.
His great-grandfather, John Hathorne, was
the magistrate presiding over the trial of the
accused witches of Salem (1692).
The Salem Witch Trials

May – October 1692: Salem, MA

Constitute a series of investigations and
persecutions that caused 19 “witches”
to be hanged and many others
imprisoned

Period of public hysteria generated by
false accusations and coerced
confessions
Romantic Era Literature
a. deal with the strange and the mysterious.
b. involve symbolic imagination.
c. turn to the past for subject matter.
Transcendentalism



Humans are born good
Children are God’s most perfect creation
One can only find God in and through
Nature
Anti-Transcendentalism



Man is born with the stain of the original sin
Man is the most destructive force in nature
One can only find God through good works
and life experience
Hawthorne’s Focus




The problem of evil and the nature of sin.
The inner world of the human mind and heart
Begin with a simple idea, like guilt. Use
symbolism intertwined with complex personal
relationships between the characters
The Scarlet Letter: analyzes the effect of one
sin on the four main characters who are closely
intertwined because of the sin (Hester, Pearl,
Dimmesdale, Chillingworth).
What is sin?



Sin and civil law (criminality)
Sin and moral law (religious)
Sin and natural law (human nature)
Setting


All action occurs in the center of Boston and
the outskirts of this village.
Three scaffold scenes: one in the
beginning, one in the middle, and one at the
end. In each of these scenes, the four main
characters are present, and the changes in
each are shown.
Imagery



Creates mood and emphasizes his ideas.
Uses types of plants to differentiate
between those with whom Nature
sympathizes and those with whom she
does not.
Uses images of darkness and shadows,
light, the play of sunlight in the forest, etc.
Puritans


Did NOT come to America for religious
freedom; came to build a new community
(New Jerusalem=Salem) that was “pure”
and true to God’s law.
Theocracy: ministers and magistrates
(judges) enforce the laws of God and
cooperate to serve God.
Puritans






All members were judges of the faith and
works of every other member.
Lifestyle of self-discipline, zealously avoid the
temptations of the devil
Followed the will of God, as expressed in the
Ten Commandments and the Bible.
Completely intolerant of sin.
Any sin could cause God’s wrath (illness,
Native American attacks, natural disasters)
Seek out sin in others to bring it into the open
Puritans

Valued hard work. (“Idle hands are the
devil’s playthings”).
Puritans
Regular Puritanism
 Humans were too sinful to earn salvation by performing good works or
avoiding sin.
 People could go to Heaven only if they received God’s grace in the
process of conversion.
 During conversion, saving grace enters people’s hearts, and they are
released from sin.
Calvinist Puritanism
 Doctrine of predetermination.: The “saved” (those destined to spend
eternity in Heaven) had already been determined.
 The way you knew you were saved: you were able to avoid sin.
 If you sinned, are you already damned? Not because of the sin per se,
but because if you sinned, didn’t it indicate that you had already been
damned?
Thematic Subjects











Adultery
Alienation
Guilt
Hypocrisy v. Integrity
Fate v. Free Will
Individual Rights v. Society
Moral Pride v. Intellect
Isolation
Natural v. Civil Law
Science v. Reason
Intuition
Plot/Setting

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.
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- Gov. Bellingham’s sister
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 the
scarlet A as a symbol…
Other Symbols













Rosebush
Weeds
Names: Hester Prynne, Chillingworth,
Dimmesdale, Pearl
Scaffold
Night/Shadows
Day/Sunshine
Forest
Town
Meteor
Brook
Colors: red, black, gold
Hester’s clothing
Pearl’s clothing
The Scarlet Letter
Upon finishing The
Scarlet Letter in
1850, Nathaniel
Hawthorne read
the manuscript to
his wife, Sophia.
The Scarlet Letter
“It broke her heart,”
Hawthorne wrote,
“and “sent her to bed
with a grievous
headache, which I
look upon as a
triumphant success.”
The Scarlet Letter
Hawthorne originally
intended The
Scarlet Letter to be
a short story but
expanded it at the
suggestion of his
publisher.
Original Cover
The Scarlet Letter
The Scarlet Letter is
peopled with
characters who are
meant to be the
embodiments of
moral traits, rather
than realistic, living
figures.
The Scarlet Letter
Original title page
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.
“The Prison-Door”
The year is 1642.
The place is
Boston, a small
Puritan settlement.
Before the town jail,
a group of somber
people wait with
stern expressions.
“The Prison-Door”
They are
expecting Hester
Prynne, a woman
convicted of
adultery.
“The Prison-Door”
Even this early,
Hawthorne has
marked the thematic
boundaries of his
novel:


law and nature
repression and
freedom
“The Market Place”
“The Market Place”
is some curtainraiser. In one vivid
image, you have the
whole story. The
lines of conflict are
drawn, the issues
defined, the
characters placed in
relation to one
another.
“The Market Place”
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.
Lillian Gish in
The Scarlet Letter
Meg Foster in
The Scarlet Letter
Demi Moore in
The Scarlet Letter
Works Cited
"Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Scarlet Letter - Authors FREE Presentations." Literature Index FREE Presentations in PowerPoint Format, Free. N.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2010.
<http://literature.pppst.com/GHI/nathaniel-hawthorne.html>.
The Scarlet Letter. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 2009. Ppt.
The Scarlet Letter Powerpoint. Henry County Schools, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2010.
Willett. "PowerPoint Presentations." Graves County Schools Official Web Site. N.d. Web. 12 Apr.
2010. <http://www.graves.k12.ky.us/powerpoints>.
Sentence #1
A throng of bearded men,
in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats,
intermixed with women,
some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded,
was assembled in front of a wooden edifice,
the door of which was heavily timbered with oak,
and studded with iron spikes.
Sentence #2
The founders of a new colony,
whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might
originally project,
have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion
of the virgin soil as a cemetery,
and another portion as the site of a prison.
Sentence #3
In accordance with this rule,
it may safely be assumed
that the forefathers of Boston had built the first prison-house,
somewhere in the vicinity of Cornhill,
almost as seasonably as they marked out the first burial-ground,
on Isaac Johnson’s lot, and round about his grave,
which subsequently became the nucleus of all the congregated
sepulchres in the old church-yard of King’s Chapel.