Introduction to
Nathaniel
Hawthorne and
The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Born in Salem, MA in 1804
• Descendant of early
Puritans
• Death of his father at sea
when he was 4 – lonely
childhood
• 1837 published Twice Told
Tales – Poe thought he was
a genius
Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Ancestor Judge Hathorne
of Witch Trial infamy
• Changed spelling of his
name to Hawthorne
• Puritan heritage informed
and haunted all of his
writing
Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Worked in the Boston Custom
House to support writing
• Good friends with other
American authors: Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Herman
Melville, and Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow
• Married Sophia Peabody in
1846
• Died in 1864
Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Known also for his short stories
–“Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment”
–“Young Goodman Brown”
–“The Minister’s Black Veil”
–“The Birthmark”
–“Rappaccini’s Daughter”
Hawthorne’s Writings
•
•
•
•
Strange and mysterious
Symbolic imagery
Evil and the nature of sin
Where Poe focuses on the mind,
Hawthorne tends to focus on the
heart, which leads to analysis of
the mind
American Romanticism
• Break from the lack of creative artistry of the Puritans
• Reflects the still innocent, pre-Civil War United States
– Imagination
– Intuition
– Idealism
– Inspiration
– Individuality
• Nature as revelation of God to the individual. Highly
symbolic
• Features elements of the supernatural
• Favors emotion over intellect
• Development of national pride
The Scarlet Letter
• Unity of Place
– All action occurs in the
center of Boston and the
outskirts of the village
– Three scaffold scenes:
the beginning, the
middle, and the end – the 4
main characters are present
at each one of theses scenes
The Scarlet Letter
• Major Motifs:
– Appearance vs. Reality
– Individual vs. Society
– Good vs. Evil / Dark vs. Light
– Nature vs. Civilization / Civil Law
vs. Natural Law
– Hypocrisy
– Isolation
– Women and femininity
– Supernatural
The Scarlet Letter
• Major Themes:
– When society represses the
expression of human needs,
rebellion is a natural result.
– Sin results in the
psychological and physical
deterioration of the sinner.
– Humans need to feel
connections to others.
– The heart is superior to
intellect.
The Scarlet Letter
• Major Symbols:
– prison, prison door
– the scaffold
– rosebush , roses, weeds
– the letter A
– colors – red, green, & black
– the forest
– the town
– Pearl
– the black man
– names of characters
Puritan Judgment
• Ministers and magistrates
enacted the laws of God
• All in the community were
judges of the works and faith of
others
• Feared one’s sin would bring
wrath on all
• Children were sometimes put
with new parents so their real
parents could not spoil them
Puritan Punishment
• any offense could lead to the pillory or
stocks
• imported this punishment England
• Entire purpose was public humiliation
• Stocks were built on a scaffold in the
center of the village,
• townspeople could mock the offender
and throw rotten vegetables or stones.
• Aside from the offender’s hands being
immobilized, his ears would frequently
be nailed to the board behind his head
Hawthorne himself even once described The
Scarlet Letter as “positively a hell-fired story,
into which I found it impossible to throw any
cheering light.”