1. Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Scarlet Letter

2. Puritanism/Scarlet Letter Timeline
In History:
-Pilgrims/Puritans come
to America
-Harvard founded-religious higher education
-Christmas Celebration outlawed by Puritans
-Salem Witch Trials: dissent, love triangles, landlust=breakdown of Puritan theocracy ; w/Judge John Hathorne
In the novel:
-Ch. 1-4 public scaffold scene Pearl=baby in mother’s arms
-Scene at Governor Bellingham’s
Pearl=3 years old
-Novel’s climax at scaffold
Pearl=7 years old
-Last Chapter of novel (sort of)
1638
1642
1645
1649
1655
1692
1850
Hawthorne publishes Scarlet Letter (200 years later, during Romantic Era, so written in romantic style, but with Puritan influences and themes)

3. HISTORICAL CONTEXT English Heritage (Elizabethan Age)
: Early Colonial period- Puritan writings, no distinctive American literature
: Later Colonial period- Age of Reason/Enlightenment (Neoclassicism, Rationalism)

4. HISTORICAL CONTEXT
: American Renaissance/ Romanticism- slave narratives, inner feelings, the burden of a Puritan past, the rejection of Neoclassicism
Transcendentalism was a part of this…

5. HISTORICAL CONTEXT TRANSCENDENTALISM
Boston-centered movement, led by Emerson, was an important force in New England circles
Human existence transcends the sensory realm
Belief in individual choice and consequence
Focus on the positive

6. Turn,Talk, Write
What element of Transcendentalism have you seen through “Minister’s Black Veil” and “Devil and Tom Walker”? Provide an example from the text
Hint: Look at Tom and Mr. Hooper

7. HISTORICAL CONTEXT
SUBDIVISION OF ROMANTICISM: GOTHIC LITERATURE, the “dark romantics”( )
-use of supernatural
-motif of double (both good and evil in
characters; sin and evil does exist)
-depression, dark forests
-Poe, Hawthorne, Melville
-emphasis on symbolism (which we will discuss later)

8. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
“The Scarlet Letter is powerfully written but my writings do not, nor ever will, appeal to the broadest class of sympathies, and therefore will not obtain a very wide popularity.” -Hawthorne, after finishing the novel

9. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
As a literary artist… First American “pro writer”: college educated, familiar with the great European writers 4,000 copies of The Scarlet Letter sold in the first 10 days

10. Turn,Talk, Write
Why do you believe The Scarlet Letter is still popular today?

11. LITERARY ELEMENTS
Characters
Mood
Setting
Plot
Symbolism
Themes

12. LITERARY ELEMENTS: MOOD
The SOMBER, DARK mood is well-defined from the beginning: “sad-colored garments” of spectators, the prison door which is “heavily timbered and studded with iron spikes”

13. LITERARY ELEMENTS: SETTING
17th century Puritanical New England (Mass.)
What was America like then?

14. LITERARY ELEMENTS: SETTING
Life in the Mid 1600s
1630s- Puritans established a number of settlements in Massachusetts
PURITANISM involved belief that the church of England was too much influenced by the Catholic church
Strict code, on which people were expected to act and judged upon
Rejected belief that divine authority is channeled through any one single person (i.e. the pope)
THEOCRACY- state governed by the church

15. Turn, Talk, Write
What is the importance of knowing the historical background surrounding The Scarlet Letter?
Describe Puritanism in your own words.

16. So…
All of which were discouraged in the Old World become the basis of “American Rugged Individualism”
This is probably why most Americans disagree so strongly with theocracies
The Puritan emphasis on:
self-reliance
independence
individual achievement
individual responsibility
personal accountability
power through ability (education)

17. Puritan “Crime and Punishment”
Because Puritan Boston c was still a theocratic society, crime against church (or God) was the equivalent of a crime against another person or against “the State.”
Yes… it was illegal to miss church on Sabbath days. It was also illegal to sleep during sermons that could run 3 or more hours long – during each session (morning and afternoon) on a Sabbath.

18. Puritan “Crime and Punishment”, cont.
Virtually any offense
The Stocks

19. Puritan “Crime and Punishment”, cont.
After serving time in a jail and then on the pillory, a convicted criminal would often be required to wear some outward sign of his or her offense.
In 1637, as punishment for writing an essay that criticized the archbishop, William Prynne (no relation to the central character in The Scarlet Letter) – after being put in the stocks – had the letters “SL” (for “seditious libeler”) branded onto his cheeks.

20. Turn, Talk, Write
Based on the era’s crime and punishment, What can you assume will happen in The Scarlet Letter?
[Predict who/what will be punished]

21. How did his life affect the writing of the novel?
John Hathorne presided over
the Salem Witch Trials of 1692
Major William Hathorne ( ) persecuted quakers
1. Influences on Hawthorne: Puritan background

22. MAJOR THEMES PURITAN MORALITY v. PASSION AND INDIVIDUALISM /Adultery
Individual Rights/Self-trust v. accommodation to authority
Conventional v. unconventional gender roles
Guilt: sense of guilt forced by puritanical heritage/society
Hypocrisy v. Integrity
Moral Pride v. Intellect
The penalties of isolation/ isolation because of self-cause and societal cause
Patriarchal power
Belief in fate/free will
Impossibility of earthly perfection

23. How did his life affect the writing of the novel?
2) Salem- childhood, later work at the Custom House, as Surveyor of the Port “The Custom House” introduction creates a FRAME STORY This introduction gives an account of his experience as surveyor; he attacks the officials who connived in his dismissal… Like his heroine Hester, Hawthorne emerges from confrontation with a self-righteous society as an individual of integrity,passion, and moral superiority.

24. Pre-Reading Questions
What is the difference between sin and crime? What is the difference between how things are viewed today and how Puritans viewed them? [Refer to your notes]
What do you know about the roles of women in Puritan’s society?