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Chapter Four

Chapter Four. Nathaniel Hawthorne ( 1804 – 1864) 1.Born in Salem, Massachusetts and studied at Bowdoin College. 2.The Scarlet Letter (1850) brought him recognition as a major literary figure. Literary term. Romance

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Chapter Four

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  1. Chapter Four • Nathaniel Hawthorne ( 1804 – 1864) 1.Born in Salem, Massachusetts and studied at Bowdoin College. 2.The Scarlet Letter (1850) brought him recognition as a major literary figure.

  2. Literary term • Romance • Prose fiction that is conceived in terms of the fanciful and idealistic, rather than in terms of observation and faithful description of fact. A romance, on the other hand, while it must keep to “the truth of the human heart“

  3. – has fairly a right to present that truth under circumstances…of the writer’s own choosing or creation…he may so manage his atmospherical medium as to bring out or mellow the lights and deepen and enrich the shadows of the picture.

  4. Text study: The Scarlet Letter • Symbolic meaning of: Adultery Angel Able Admiration

  5. Hawthorne’s significance as a writer 1. Hawthorne is significant as a romantic writer. — He used the New England (Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut) regional past as subject and setting for his stories. — He showed great concern about the American past.

  6. He was interested in legends, in the remote, and in things that were clouded and obscure because of the passage of time. — His story displays a psychological insight into moral isolation and human emotion. —He was the first major novelist to wed morality to art, to combine high moral seriousness with transcendent dedication to art.

  7. 2. Hawthorne is significant for his themes. • the consequences of pride, selfishness, and secret guilt; • the conflict between lighthearted and somber attitudes toward life; • the impingement of past (esp. the Puritan past) upon the present;

  8. the futility of comprehensive social reforms; • the impossibility of eradicating sin from the human heart; • alienation and solitude; • nature and natural impulses; • unconscious fantasy and dream.

  9. 3. Hawthorne is significant for his style. • - Hawthorne wrote romance because he thought it the predestined form of American narrative. • - Hawthorne used symbols and setting to reveal the psychology of the characters, for example, masks, veils, shadows, emblems to give dramatic forms to the universal dilemmas of humanity.

  10. - Hawthorne wrote stories with narrative interest, ease in transition, coherence, and complexity. • - Hawthorne’s style is soft, flowing, and almost feminine. His touch is light, but his observation is somber. • - Hawthorne used ambiguity to keep the reader in a world of uncertainty. Important questions are never fully resolved.

  11. Questions to ponder • From the text, what are the attitudes the women showed to the punishment of Hester Prynne? • What Puritan perceptions are displayed through people’s attitude? • Do you agree with Hester’s people that she should be punished? • In his description, do you think Hawthorne shows his sympathy to Hester Prynne? How? And why?

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