Scarlet Letter Lecture 1 The Individual and Society

Scarlet Letter Lecture 1 The Individual and Society

Lecture Outline • • Background Nathaniel Hawthorne Philosophical power of Literature Framework of study; Central Concerns and Characteristic Methods • Religion and Culture of Boston, New England • Key religious concept of Puritanism

Nathaniel Hawthorne 1804 - 1864 • Born July 4 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts • Only son of Captain William Hathorne and Elizabeth Clarke Manning • Ancestors had lived in Salem for almost 200 years • Following William Hathorne’s arrival in 1630 • William Hathorne was a strong supporter of Puritan orthodoxy • This led to his cruel inhumane treatment of those who did not conform or fit within Puritan society • The Scarlet Letter published in 1850; its famous preface recalls his years in the service of the Custom-House in Salem

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The Custom House • Hawthorne identifies himself as the first person narrator for this section, acting as a Surveyor (chief executive officer) in the Custom House; • Driven by an ‘autobiographical impulse’; • By invoking his own life he forms a bridge between the 19 th and 17 th centuries; • Here, discovers an old manuscript left by a previous surveyor; narrative frame 5

Keep in mind all the time • Setting: Town of Boston, Massachusetts New England • Time Period of the narrative: during 17 th Century; • Narrative Method: Multiple Third Person Narration through an unnamed 19 th century external narrator; Take note of the narrator’s voice; • Nature of Character Dialogue: the language of the characters is necessarily archaic; • The diction, symbolism and imagery are evocative and descriptive of 17 th century American Puritanical culture as linguistically represented in the multiple points of view; that of the POV of the principal unnamed narrator, and POV characters: Mistress Hester Prynne, Roger Chillingworth, and Reverend Mr. Arthur Dimmesdale

The Concept of Puritanism in New England • A religious philosophy; a form of Protestantism, a version of Calvinism, and strongly anti-Catholic; • Its American followers were dissenters and espoused a “purer” form of Protestantism than that of the Church of England in the 1630 s; • It was seen as a theo-utopian social philosophy • Its detractors associated it with superstition, excessive moralism, intolerance, and patriarchal oppression

Framework for Close Reading and Study • Themes / Issues / Concerns / Concepts • (A story is a philosophy put into images; • All stories are in one sense metaphors) • Methods / Techniques of Narration; Narrative Point of View, and key ‘Point-of-view’ characters; • Elements of Style: Effective use of Language (Diction and Syntax); and Literary Devices (Imagery and Symbolism) • Plot Structure, and Design Patterning • (Intended) Narrative Effects

The Philosophical Power of Literature • Fiction depends on dramatization, not exposition; • Readers of fiction need to feel they are witnessing a story unfold; • One way to try to understand the world is through imaginary stories • Through stories, our world is enlarged • The Scarlet Letter was, and is still a very provocative novel;

Concerns • The conflict between repressive societies (such as 17 th Century Boston) and defiant individuals (such as Hester) • Hester is unique because she is a defiant outcast in the role of a mother • Not your typical American rebel hero, always on the road, rejecting his own past, • And any and all social conventions and obligations; • Society has rejected Hester; but she stands for another idea of community—a more nurturing, flexible, less judgmental • A matriarchy in contrast to the legalistic patriarchy of the Puritan elders

Concerns Ideas implicit and explicit • The Clash between the Individual and Society • The problem of how Individuals should interact with Social Rules • The relationship of specific groups of people to society • Introduces the problem of Reading and Interpretation, about letters, their meaning and effect; not just what letters mean but with how they mean; • The susceptibility of human speech to be manipulated and misinterpreted • Crime and Punishment; Religion and Science

Concerns in Chapter 1 • Among the ideas implicit • that the novel is to be concerned with • Are the relationships of good and evil • Distinguishes between two types of good • The moral good and institutional good • Legalism, sin, and guilt

Symbols and Symbolic Patterns • The narrator introduces three chief symbols that will serve to give structure to the novel on thematic level • The opening Chapter: sadcoloured garments suggestive of the darkness, and sombreness characteristic of this society • ‘Oak, iron spikes’ - the rigidity… • ‘gray, steeplecrowned hats’ – the suggested fundamentalist adherence to the hierarchical authority of church elders and the strictness of their religious dogma and moral doctrines

From Chapter 2 p 47 The Market-Place • The grass-plot before the jail, in Prison Lane, on a certain summer morning not less than two centuries ago, was occupied by a pretty large number of the inhabitants of Boston; all with their eyes fastened on the iron-clamped oaken door. • Amongst any other population, or later period in the history of New England, the grim rigidity that petrified the bearded physiognomies of these good people would have augured some awful business at hand. It could have betokened nothing short of the anticipated execution of some noted culprit, on whom the sentence of a legal tribunal had but confirmed the verdict of public sentiment.

From Chapter 1 p 47 That early severity of the Puritan character… Religion and law were almost identical, and in whose character both were so thoroughly interfused that the mildest and severest acts of public discipline were alike made venerable and awful. Meagre, indeed, and cold, was the sympathy that a transgressor might look for, from such bystanders at the scaffold.

Cont from p 47 On the other hand, a penalty which, in our days, would infer a degree of mocking infamy and ridicule, might then be invested with almost as stern a dignity as the punishment of death itself. • Sentence orders its components in relationships of temporality

The Discipline of the Puritan Family p 82 • The discipline of the family, in those days, was of a far more rigid kind than now. The frown, the harsh rebuke, the frequent application of the rod, enjoined by Scriptural authority, were used, not merely in the way of punishment for actual offences, but as a wholesome regimen for the growth and promotion of all childish virtues.

Areas of Conflict The Private Self versus the Public Life • Puritanical society calls for the suppression of the private self; • At times it seems such a society has no notion that an inner (private) self exists; • Men of books and the dark study come across as being ignorant of all questions pertaining to “human guilt, passion, and anguish” Chapter 3

The Public Display of ‘A’ • Puritanical society at other times seems to be obsessively aware of the secret self; • And to be convinced that it is thoroughly evil only to be cleansed by ceasing to be secret— • “A blessing on the righteous Colony of Massachusetts, where iniquity is dragged out into the sunshine! Come along, Madam Hester, and show your scarlet letter in the market-place” – Chapter 2

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• The Puritans insisted on a thoroughly public society; Why? • Because they believed they needed the full energies of each individual for the difficult task of establishing a lasting settlement; • Society, civilization — is incompatible with privacy so far as they were concerned;