The Scarlet Letter Introduction: The Custom House

1. The Scarlet LetterIntroduction: The Custom House Mrs. Wallace

2. Chapter Summary • Four significant goals of the preface • Outlines autobiographical information about the author • Conflict of writing fiction • Defines the Romance novel • Authenticates the novel

3. Chapter Summary • Nameless narrator working in a Salem “Customs House” finds a manuscript among a pile of old documents. • The manuscript is bundled together with a gold embroidered scarlet cloth in the shape of the letter A. • Narrator holds the letter A to his chest but drops it because it burns him. • Manuscript is the work of Jonathan Pue (custom surveyor 100 years before) • Pue, taking an interest in local history, wrote an account of the events taking place 100 years before his time (200 years before narrator’s time).

4. John Pue-Historical Record Frame Story Unnamed narrator decides to tell the story Hester Prynne

5. Major Character: The Narrator • Unnamed narrator • Young man politically appointed as a surveyor • Bored with his job and wants to do something more • After finding the documents of Hester Prynne’s life wants to write a fictional account of her life • Feels her life’s story is worth sharing

6. The Narrator Cont. • Narrator bears many similarities to Hawthorne himself • Tries to write the story, but feels conflicted • He is stuck in a job with no creativity and surrounded by old men that would not approve of “fiction” • After political changes lead to his losing his job, he feels free to write Hester’s story • He resembles Hester in that they are both free spirits that are stifled by their “Puritan” surroundings

7. Theme: Conflict between past and present “’What is he?’ murmurs one gray shadow of my forefather’s to the other. ‘ A writer of story-books! What kind of business in life,--what mode of glorying God or being serviceable to mankid in his day and generation—may that be? Why the degenerate fellow might as well have been a fiddler!’” (Hawthorne 10). • Displays the attitude of Hawthorne’s Puritan ancestors and the general disdain for fiction writing and the importance on holding a position that is well looked upon and provides for the greater good.

8. Critique Pease, Donald E. "Hawthorne In The Custom-House: The Metapolitics, Postpolitics, And Politics Of The Scarlet Letter." Boundary 2 32.1 (2005): 53-70. Literary Reference Center. Web. 26 Aug. 2013.

9. Critique Summary • Donald Pease points out that Hawthorne uses humor to satirize his ancestors’ hypocrisy • The custom house is “haunted” by the ghost of Surveyor Pue • Pue, unable to properly tell Hester’s story “speaks” to the narrator through the scarlet letter • Hawthorne used The Scarlet Letter as an “anti-curse” to remove the power of the Puritans to make such dreadful pronouncements against others • Hawthorne also uses “The Custom House” as a means to air his concern about the political unrest that he was a victim of

10. Critique Response • Pease gives the audience an inside look to Hawthorne’s conflicts with his life • Hawthorne was ashamed of the persecution so many experienced at the hands of his ancestors • He used the narrator as a way to excuse himself of the “crime” of writing fiction • The Custom House serves as a vehicle to speak out politically, religiously, and to set up similarities between himself, the narrator, and Hester Prynne.

11. What if? • What if Nathaniel Hawthorne would have left “The Custom House” out of the novel? • I believe that there would not a an emotional connection. Knowing the background of Hawthorne the reader is able to understand the frustration, hurt, and satirical language that he feels and uses.