“The Birthmark”

1. “The Birthmark” Woah! Did you see that? That was amazing! Nathaniel Hawthorne

2. Family History • His great-great-grandfather, William Hathorne, ordered the whipping of Anne Coleman and four others in the streets of Salem. • His great-grandfather, John Hathorne, was the magistrate presiding over the trial of the accused witches of Salem (1692).

3. Childhood • Born July 4, 1804 in Salem, MA • Father died when Hawthorne was four years old • Sent to private school once his relatives discovered his storytelling abilities • Sent to Bowdoin College in Maine

4. College in Maine • Classmates included Franklin Pierce and Henry Longfellow • Pierce- future President of the USA • Longfellow- poet, educator, linguist • Graduated in 1825

5. Reclusive Years in Salem • He first anonymously published short stories and a novel, Fanshawe. • Hawthorne later formally withdrew most of this early work, discounting it as the work of inexperienced youth. • He burned most of his works from these years.

6. Back into Society • Editor for The American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge in 1836 • Appointed to the Boston Custom House in 1839 • Became engaged to Sophia Peabody, married in 1842

7. Concord • After his marriage to Sophia, moved to the Old Manse in Concord. • Joined the writing circles of Thoreau, Emerson, and Louisa May Alcott. • The Transcendentalists believed that human existence transcended the sensory realm, and rejected formalism in favor of individual intuition and imagination.

8. Governmental Offices • Between 1846 and 1849 he served as a surveyor of the Salem Custom House. • He was ousted from that job in 1849, when the incoming political party, The Whigs, fired him to put in their own political appointees • Hawthorne wrote a biography for Presidential candidate Pierce for his campaign. Pierce had attended college with Hawthorne. • President Pierce then appointed Hawthorne to serve as the US Consul to Liverpool, England.

9. Influences on Hawthorne • His early childhood in Salem and work in the Salem Custom House. • His Puritan family background. • He believed in the existence of the devil. • He believed in determinism, a theory of predestination

10. Works • Fanshawe (1828) • Mosses from an Old Manse (1846) • The Scarlet Letter (1850) • The House of Seven Gables (1851) • The Snow-Image (1851) • The Blithedale Romance (1852) • Life of Franklin Pierce (1852) • The Marble Faun (1860)

11. Final Days • Returned to the US from Europe in 1860 • Returned to Concord • Became ill and underwent a loss of literary creativity • Journeyed to the White Mountains hoping to restore his health • Died in Plymouth, NH on May 19, 1864 • Buried in the Sleepy Hollow cemetery in Concord

12. Academic Vocabulary • Anti-Transcendentalism - emphasized human fallibility and proneness to sin and self-destruction, as well as the difficulties inherent in attempts at social reform. (Also called Dark Romanticism)

13. Academic Vocabulary • Protagonist – The main character of the story. Often referred to as the “hero” or “good guy.”

14. Academic Vocabulary • Characterization - the creation and convincing representation of fictitious characters. • Direct vs. Indirect Characterization • Direct – Facts are stated directly about a character i.e. John is tall. • Indirect – A character is described through actions and what he/she says. i.e. Suzy stopped and dumped her spare change into the man’s bucket.

15. Academic Vocabulary • Active/Passive Voice – • Active – The subject is performing an action on a direct object. • Example: The man must have eaten five hamburgers. • Passive – The order of the sentence is changed so that the direct object comes first. • Five hamburgers must have been eaten by the man.

16. Cause & Effect • To analyze the relationship between actions and consequences, we’re going to diagram the cause (the action) and effect (the outcome).

17. Post-Reading Questions(The story is on page 192) • Who or what is the real protagonist of "The Birthmark"? Who is the real villain? • Our favorite question: what's the moral/theme of the story? • Identify instances of foreshadowing in "The Birthmark." What purpose do these passages serve in terms of plot and in terms of theme (particularly the whole "man is foolish" theme)? • The narrator shows us a conversation between Georgiana and Aylmer in which they discuss her birthmark before he stops to explain to us that Georgiana has a birthmark. What's the deal with this narrative decision? Is this out of order? Is it intentionally so? What effect does it have on the way we process the information? • Why does the narrative cut off before we get to see Aylmer's reaction to his wife's death?