The Scarlet Letter: An Introduction
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Nathaniel Hawthorne
1804-1864
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Biography Article – read together!
Biography continued
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Hawthorne was not interested in entering any of the
traditional professions
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He was an avid reader and already writing his own short stories
and had many published in magazines.
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Friends with Emerson, Thoreau, Longfellow, Poe, etc.
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Hawthorne explored the following ideas:
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individual responsibility
the importance of creative expression
man’s relationship to the natural world.
17th Century-19th Century
Background Clarification
•Hawthorne and his ancestors
originated in Salem
•His ancestors had been in Salem
since 17th century
•The story is actually set in Boston
(Massachusetts Bay Colony)
•Although The Scarlet Letter is
written during the 19th Century, it is
set in 17th Century Puritan New
England
Hawthorne’s birthplace on
Union Street in Salem
Hawthorne’s
ancestors:

One of Hawthorne’s ancestors John
Hawthorne, played a significant role
in the persecution of accused
witches in 1690 Salem.
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Shame over this ancestor’s
reputation led Hawthorne to write
The Scarlet Letter , which includes
“The Custom House.”
The Salem Custom House
cus·toms·house
A governmental building or office where customs are collected and
ships are cleared for entering or leaving the country.
Hawthorne worked there for 3 years as a surveyor for the Port of Salem
before he was fired.
The Custom House: Introduction to
The Scarlet Letter
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Long introductory essay
Explains inspiration for The Scarlet Letter
Semi-fictional
Narrator (maybe Hawthorne himself)
talks about his three years as Surveyor in
the Salem Custom House
“One rainy day, the narrator discovers some
documents in the building’s unoccupied
second story. Looking through the pile, he
notices a manuscript that is bundled with a
scarlet, gold-embroidered piece of cloth in
the shape of the letter “A.” The narrator
examines the scarlet badge and holds it
briefly to his chest, but he drops it because
it seems to burn him. He then reads the
manuscript.” – some historic truth!
The Custom House Explained

Biographical information about author
 Hawthorne describes his disdain for the stern moral inflexibility and
lack of humanity the Puritans demonstrated
In "The Custom House," the preface to this novel, the narrator alludes to
his family’s history, taking blame for the actions of his ancestors (the
persecution) and hoping that any curse brought about by their cruelty
would be removed by writing the novel.
Yet still felt a connection to them and a “sense of place” in Salem
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Psychological Romance = contains all the conventional techniques of
romance but adds deep, probing portraits of human beings in conflict with
themselves
The Scarlet Letter
Starring…
Hester Prynne
 Pearl
 Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale
 Governor Bellingham
 Roger Chillingworth
 Reverand Mr. John Wilson
 Mistress Hibbins

Hester Prynne
Protagonist, who wears the
scarlet letter
 Before the novel opens, she
has an affair and gives birth
to a baby girl, Pearl.
 Hester was married at the
time of the affair, but her
husband was not in
America with her.
 She was sent to the colonies
by her husband, who
planned to join her later,
but is presumed lost at sea.
 Tries to atone for her sins
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Pearl
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Hester’s illegitimate
daughter
Considered the product of
sin in a strict Puritan
community
Pearl represents the
opposite of Puritan virtue;
she is often associated with
the “savage” and nature
Mistress Hibbins
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Governor Bellingham’s sister
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Single woman living with her
brother in his mansion
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Commonly known to be a
witch
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Anne Hibbins was a real
person in the Massachusetts
Bay Colony and was executed
as a witch in 1656.
Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale
Boston’s youngest
pastor
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Deeply loved by
his congregation
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Roger Chillingworth
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Arrives in Boston
the day that
Hester is put on
the scaffold
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Stays in Boston,
securing a job as a
doctor (“leech”)
Governor Bellingham
Pious Puritan who
represents authority
in Boston
 Wealthy, elderly
gentleman
 Spends much of his
time consulting with
other authority
figures

Reverend Mr. John Wilson
Eldest
clergyman of
Boston
Scholarly
theologian
Stereotypical
Puritan father
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The Puritan Way of Life
• One of their beliefs was that strict
discipline was good for people.
• The Scarlet Letter states, “a people
amongst whom religion and law were
almost identical, and in whose character
both were… thoroughly interfused.”
• What happens to the other characters in the
story is a direct result of the morals, ethics,
and sternness of the individual Puritans
• Because of this close intertwining of
church and state and man’s tendency to
become corrupt, things tended to go
toward extremes.
Hawthorne’s Style in
The Scarlet Letter
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Story is actually
considered a romance romances were
concerned with
internal truths, or
"truths of the human
heart,"
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The Scarlet Letter is
considered a piece of
American Romantic
literature because it is set in
a remote past, the Puritan
era 200 years prior to
Hawthorne’s time, and
because it deals with the
interior psychology of
individual characters.
Themes
Alienation
 Evil
 Appearance vs. Reality
 Revenge
 Value System
 Individual vs. Society
 Hypocrisy
 Nature vs. Law
 Sin/Guilt & Redemption
 The Heart (emotion) vs.
The Head (logic)
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Symbols
Pearl
The “A”
The Red Mark on Dimmesdale
The Forest
The Meteor
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Literary Devices – Please
take out your running log
Allegory
 Symbolism
 Oxymoron
 Allusion
 Imagery
 Juxtaposition
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**Remember, you don’t just identify these in your
annotations - you need to explain them as well!**
A story with 2 levels of meaning:
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Literal
 Symbolic
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Example – Lord of the Flies
Allegory
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Something that represents something else
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Examples – The color red represents…
Symbolism
Oxymoron is a combination of contradictory
words that are stuck together in a way that
make sense together.
 We are eating jumbo shrimp for dinner.
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The words ”jumbo” and ”shrimp” are contradictory
terms, but when stuck together they seem to make
sense.
I will make an educated guess.
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These two words are also contradictory. If you were
educated on the matter than it wouldn’t be a guess.
Right?
Oxymoron
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A reference to an already existing work
of art: a movie, play, novel, song,
painting, etc.
 Example - “I have a dream”… that the
Blackhawks will win another Stanley
Cup in my lifetime!
Allusion
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the usage of words and phrases that “paint”
pictures in one’s mind using the five senses
(smell, touch, taste, hear, see)
Imagery
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Placing two things/ideas/words close together in a
sentence (or few sentences) to emphasize their contrast.
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Not side by side (that’s oxymoron)
Creates contrast by calling attention to dissimilar ideas
Examples 
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Young and Old
Good and evil
Dark and Light
Juxtaposition
“A” stands for?
Our lives are inevitably shaped by our past actions and by
the signs of those actions. Symbols like the scarlet letter
shape our perceptions and our temperaments. They
determine the kind of people we become.
The letter, whatever it means, is the summation of Hester’s
life. But a letter is a remarkably ambiguous symbol. It
can stand for any word beginning with “A.” Does the “A”
stand for Adulteress, surely the intention of the
magistrates who imposed it in the first place? What other
words and ideas might the letter represent?
Hawthorne asks us to look at Hester from other, very
different, viewpoints. We are never altogether sure
whether we should condemn Hester or admire her.
A is for Annotations!
Words to know for
Chapter 1:
-Edifice = a building,
especially a large
imposing one
-Sepulchres = tomb,
crypt, or mausoleum