Introduction to
Nathaniel
Hawthorne and
The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Born in Salem, MA in 1804
• Descendant of early
Puritans
• His father died at sea when
he was 4 – he had a 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 his writing career
• Good friends with other American
authors: Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Herman Melville, and Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow
• Married Sophia Peabody in 1846
• Was found dead in 1864 by Franklin
Pearce, former president of the United
States, while they were on a trip to
New Hampshire.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Known also for his short stories
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“Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment”
“Young Goodman Brown”
“The Minister’s Black Veil”
“The Birthmark”
“Rappaccini’s Daughter”
Hawthorne’s Writings
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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
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Break from the lack of creative artistry of the Puritans
Reflects the still innocent, pre-Civil War United States
Glorifies the individual spirit
Glorifies the beauty of nature
Celebrates emotion
Possibilities of imagination over reason
Highly symbolic
Features elements of the supernatural
Favors emotion over intellect
The Scarlet Letter
Unity of Place
• All action occurs in the center of
Boston and the outskirts of the
village
• There are 3 scaffold scenes, one in
the beginning, one in the middle,
and one at the end – the 4 main
characters are present at each
one of these scenes, and in each
one a different character takes
ownership of his/her future.
The Scarlet Letter
Literary Devices
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Symbolism
Irony
Ambiguity
Frame Narrative
The Scarlet Letter
Major Motifs:
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Appearance vs. Reality
Individual vs. Society
Good vs. Evil / Dark vs. Light
Nature vs. Civilization / Civil Law vs.
Natural Law
Hypocrisy
Isolation / Alienation
Women and femininity
Supernatural
Pride
The Scarlet Letter
Major Themes:
• When society represses the
expression of human needs,
rebellion is a natural result.
• Sin and/or guilt result 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:
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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
Real People in the Book
• Richard Bellingham,
governor of the
Massachusetts colony in
1641, 1654, 1665-1672
• Mistress Hibbins, sister of
Governor Bellingham, was
executed for witchcraft in
1656
• Reverend John Wilson,
minister from England
who arrived in Boston in
1630
Real People in the Book
• Boston had a series of witch
trials and five executions
between 1648 and 1656.
• On June 19, 1656, Mistress Ann
Hibbins, sister of Governor
Bellingham, was hanged for her
"crime" of being a witch. She was
the fifth and last witch to be
executed in Boston until 1688.
Puritan Judgment
• Ministers and magistrates
enacted the laws of God
• All in the community were
judges of the works and faith of
others
• Community members feared that
one person’s sin would bring
God’s 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
Puritan Punishment
In 1656 a woman accused of being
blasphemous was sentenced to be whipped,
fined, and forever to have a B “cutt out of
ridd (red) cloth & sewed to her vper garment
on her right arm in sight.”
blasphemy: contemptuous or profane speech or
action concerning God
In 1633, Robert Coles had to stand as long as
the court ordered with DRUNKARD on his
back for “abuseing himself shamefully with
drinke.”
For the same crime the next year, Coles was sentenced to wear a D
made of red cloth on a white background for a year
Puritan Punishment
In Massachusetts, anyone who
interrupted a preacher during
worship was reprimanded by the
magistrate. If he did it again, he had
to pay a fine of five pounds, and
stand on a block four feet high with
a sign in capital letters, WANTON
GOSPELLER.
wanton: rebellious
gospeller: a person who zealously
teaches or professes faith in the
gospel
Puritan Punishment
Quaker George Bishop gave an account of
another Quaker's treatment in New England.
“The Drum was Beat, the People gather'd,
Norton was fetch'd and stripp'd to the Waste,
and set with his back to the Magistrates, and
given in their View Thirty-six cruel Stripes
with a knotted cord, and his hand made fast in
the Stocks where they had set his Body before,
and burn'd very deep with a Red-hot Iron with
H. for Heresie.”
heresy: belief or opinion contrary to religious
doctrine
Puritan Punishment
Quakers were banished from Massachusetts, and
the punishment for returning was painful.
From 1657 records “A Quaker if male for the first offense shall have
one of his ears cut off; for the second offense have
his other eare cutt off; a woman shalbe severely
whipt; for the third offense they, he or she, shall
have their tongues bored through with a hot
iron.”
Offenders sometimes had their punishments
mitigated by the clergy. A counterfeiter in was
sentenced to death, but pleaded with the clergy
and was only branded on his hand.
Puritan Punishment
Abel Buell was caught minting money on homemade plates. Historian
John Warner Barber recorded the rest of his punishment:
“The tip only of Buell's ear was cropped
off: it was held on his tongue to keep it
warm till it was put on the ear again,
where it grew on. He was branded on the
forehead as high up as possible.”
This was usually done by a hot iron in the
form of a letter designating the crime,
which was held on the forehead of the
criminal till he could say the words "God
save the king."
Buell later drew and printed the first copyrighted map of the United States.
In 2011, one of the 7 copies of the map sold for $1.8 million dollars.
Reviews of the Book
• While the reviews were
generally positive, others
condemned The Scarlet
Letter as smut.
• The Scarlet Letter’s initial
print run of 2500 books
sold out in 10 days.
• This signed 1st edition is
currently on sale for
$18,000. Unsigned, a first
edition is worth $5,000.
Many say the book is depressing and disheartening.
Hawthorne himself once described The Scarlet
Letter as “positively a hell-fired story, into which I
found it impossible to throw any cheering light.”