The Scarlet Letter - Hawthorne (week 1)

The Scarlet Letter (1850) is a cornerstone of American literature. Through Hawthorne's intricate blend of psychological insight, symbolism, and societal critique, it captures and defines the essence of early America and early American literature, respectively.

In 17th-century Puritan Massachusetts, Hester Prynne must bear the dual burdens of secret love and public shame. She is forced to wear a scarlet letter "A" as punishment for adultery, but few realize the depths to which her fate is bound to that of the community which seeks to deny her.

The novel probes the collision of stark moral codes and the raw complexities of the human heart, sin and punishment, heroism and hypocrisy, individuality and society. It is "a psychological romance" wherein the heart is "anatomized, carefully, elaborately, and with striking poetic and dramatic power" (Evert Duyckinck); and a "perfect work of the American imagination" (D. H. Lawrence).

Schedule:

• Week 1 (June 15): Chapters I-X
• Week 2 (June 22): Chapters XI-XXIV

The Scarlet Letter: ~190pp

• Gutenberg
• Archive
• Google Books
• Librivox 9h25m

Extracts:

• "... I have thus far omitted all mention of his “Twice Told Tales,” and “Scarlet Letter.” Both are excellent, but full of such manifold, strange and diffusive beauties, that time would all but fail me, to point the half of them out. But there are things in those two books, which, had they been written in England a century ago, Nathaniel Hawthorne had utterly displaced many of the bright names we now revere on authority." ("Hawthorne and His Mosses")
• "... this ineffable folly, Pierre, brands thee in the forehead for an unaccountable infatuate!" (Pierre, 9.4)
• "... only three of them ever got back to the ship again, and one with his face damaged for life, for the cursed heathens tattooed a broad patch clean across his figure head." (Typee, 5)
• "The whole system of tattooing was, I found, connected with their religion; and it was evident, therefore, that they were resolved to make a convert of me.... Like the still more important system of the 'Taboo', it always appeared inexplicable to me." (Typee, 30)

This meetup is part of the series Fig Leaves and Fancy Pants.