Nathaniel Hawthorne Symbolism

1. Nathaniel Hawthorne Symbolism Hao Guilian, Ph.D. Yunnan Normal University Fall, 2009

2. Historical background (1) • Americans had always produced a vital literary response to their experience: the Native Americans, the Puritans, the planters, the revolutionaries, the early Romantics. A convenient historical marker is Emerson's stirring lecture The American Scholar(1837), often called America's intellectual declaration of independence. • Increasingly, American writers, many of them directly inspired by Emerson, began to free themselves from European models.

3. Historical background (2) During a relatively few years, concentrating around Boston and the village of Concord, a number of writers appeared whom we now think of as "classic.'' Their work has for many readers a vitality and originality that endures, that transcends time and place. They produced work that has a scope and a depth that still reach us, still inspire us, still make us ask the great questions and face the most mysterious of realities. At times this literature celebrates the American, even the human, spirit. At times it criticizes the easy optimism that also marked the first half of the nineteenth century. Nathaniel Hawthorne was among the most important.

4. Nathaniel Hawthorne • An American novelist and short story writer. As a fifth-generation American of English descent, he was born in Salem, Massachusetts, a wealthy seaport north of Boston that specialized in East India trade, as Nathaniel Hathorne.

5. He later changed his name to "Hawthorne", adding a "w" to dissociate from relatives including John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials. Hawthorne attended Bowdoin College and graduated in 1825; his classmates included future president Franklin Pierce and future poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. • Much of Hawthorne's writing centers around New England, many works featuring moral allegories with a Puritan inspiration. His fiction works are considered part of the Romantic movement and, more specifically, dark romanticism. His themes often center on the inherent evil and sin of humanity and his works often have moral messages and deep psychological complexity.

6. Literary style and themes: • Hawthorne is best known today for his many short stories (he called them "tales") and his four major romances written between 1850 and 1860: The Scarlet Letter (1850), The House of the Seven Gables (1851), The Blithedale Romance (1852) and The Marble Faun (1860). Hawthorne defined a romance as being radically different from a novel by not being concerned with the possible or probable course of ordinary experience.

7. Many of his works are inspired by Puritan New England, combining historical romance loaded with symbolism and deep psychological themes, bordering on surrealism. • Hawthorne's works belong to romanticism or, more specifically, dark romanticism, cautionary tales that suggest that guilt, sin, and evil are the most inherent natural qualities of humanity. His later writings would also reflect his negative view of the Transcendentalism movement.

8. The Scarlet Letter, 1850 • Many of Hawthorne's stories are set in Puritan New England, and his greatest novel, The Scarlet Letter (1850), has become the classic portrayal of Puritan America. It tells of the passionate, forbidden love affair linking a sensitive, religious young man, the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, and the sensuous, beautiful townsperson, Hester Prynne. Set in Boston around 1650 during early Puritan colonization, the novel highlights the Calvinistic obsession with morality, sexual repression, guilt and confession, and spiritual salvation.

9. This 1860 oil-on-canvas was made under Hawthorne's personal supervision. The Scarlet Letter. Painting by T. H. Matteson.

10. 1995 film poster The Scarlet Letter

11. Major themes：Sin • Sin and knowledge are linked in the Christian tradition. The Bible begins with the story of Adam and Eve, who were expelled from the Garden of Eden for eating from the Tree of Knowledge. As a result of their knowledge, Adam and Eve are made aware of their disobedience, that which separates them from the divine and from other creatures. Once expelled from the Garden of Eden, they are forced to toil and to procreate – two “labors” that seem to define the human condition.

12. Major themes：Sin • The experience of Hester and Dimmesdale recalls the story of Adam and Eve because, in both cases, sin results in expulsion and suffering. But it also results in knowledge, in knowledge of what it means to be human. For Hester, the scarlet letter functions as “her passport into regions where other women dared not tread,” leading her to “speculate” about her society and herself more “boldly” than anyone else in New England.

13. Major themes：Sin • As for Dimmesdale, the “cheating minister” of his sin gives him “sympathies so intimate with the sinful brotherhood of mankind, so that his chest vibrate[s] in unison with theirs.” His eloquent and powerful sermons derive from this sense of empathy. The narrative of the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale is quite in keeping with the oldest and most fully authorized principles in Christian thought. His "Fall" is a descent from apparent grace to his own damnation; he appears to begin in purity. He ends in corruption.

14. Major themes：Past and present • Hawthorne himself had ambivalent feelings about the role of his ancestors in his life. There can be little doubt of Hawthorne’s disdain for the stern morality and rigidity of the Puritans, and he imagined his predecessors’ disdainful view of him: unsuccessful in their eyes, worthless and disgraceful. “A writer of story books!” But even as he disagrees with his ancestor’s viewpoint, he also feels an instinctual connection to them and, more importantly, a “sense of place” in Salem. Their blood remains in his veins, but their intolerance and lack of humanity becomes the subject of his novel.

15. Symbols: The Scarlet Letter • The symbolism behind the scarlet letter Achanges throughout this novel. Though initially this letter A symbolizes the sin of adultery, Hester Prynne alters its meaning through her hard work and charity. Some people begin to suggest that the A stands for "able," since Hester is such a capable woman. Others begin to recognize that the scarlet letter has begun to achieve holiness, righteousness. It has "the effect of the cross on a nun’s bosom. It imparted to the wearer a kind of sacredness, which enabled her to walk securely amid all peril. Had she fallen among thieves, it would have kept her safe" (13.5). Many years later, when Hester returns and voluntarily takes up the scarlet letter again, it has become, for her and others, a symbol of grace.

16. Symbols: The Scarlet Letter • By embroidering the “A” so finely and ornately, Hester takes control of her own punishment. She owns it. Though the letter causes Hester to live a lonely life of banishment, it seems almost immediately to become a symbol for something far nobler than “adultery.” The letter showcases her talent and artistry– skills that allow her to make a living as a single parent in Puritan Boston. As such, it represents her strength and independence. Such qualities set her apart from every other woman around her. Wearing the letter cuts her off from society, but it also frees her in many ways. She is able to observe the cold and strict ways of Puritan society from the perspective of an outsider.

17. Today’s task: Read Unit 7, at least one poem by each poet.