Domesticity and Sentimentality: Hawthorne

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Lesson Plan/Teaching Notes

Terms/People to know
 Allegory: a story that can be read on multiple levels – a literal level (what is happening in the story), and more broadly, as a symbolic representation of another meaning (religious, political, cultural, ethical, historical, etc.).  Typically, allegories employ characters whose names personify a type (Goodman, Evangelist, Christian, Faith), and place them in similarly broad setting (the Forest, Vanity Fair, Slough of Despond).  Writers use allegories to invest a seemingly simple plot (man who thinks he’s good goes to forest and returns not so good) with richer meanings (note plural).  Fables and parables are kinds of allegories.

Romance: Hawthorne repeated stated that he was not writing realistic fiction (the then dominant mode of fiction with writers such as Charles Dickens), instead he wrote romances.  He offered the following definition in his Preface to The House of the Seven Gables “When a writer calls his work a Romance, it need hardly be observed that he wishes to claim a certain latitude, both as to its fashion and material, which he would not have felt himself entitled to assume had he professed to be writing a Novel.  The latter form of composition is presumed to aim at a very minute fidelity, not merely to the possible, but to the probable and ordinary course of man’s experience.  The former [ . . .] has fairly a right to present that truth under circumstances, to a great extent, of the writer’s own choosing or creation.  If he think fit, also, he may so manage his atmospherical medium as to bring out or mellow the lights and deepen and enrich the shadows of the picture.”  This expands the range of his fiction because it allows him to employ the supernatural into his fiction without readers rejecting it as "unrealistic."

Discussion questions on short stories (see extensive notes on The Scarlet Letter is below)

"Young Goodman Brown"

 1. What's the connection between 17th century New England and the story?

 1692: Thomas Brattle

“And here I think it observable, that often, when the afflicted do mean and intend only the apperance and shape of such an one, yet they positively swear that G. Proctor did afflict them; and they have been allowed so to do; as tho’ there was no real difference between the B. Proctor and the shape of G. Proctor” (qtd. in Levin 239)

 Hawthorne's great-grandfather, John Hathorne, was one of the original judges of the witch trials.  Like the judges.  They admitted "spectral evidence" as testimony.  Judge Hawthrone sentenced "Goody Cloyse, Goody Cory and Martha Carrier" to death.  He was one of the only judges who didn't later recant.

 After group discussion.

Group discussion questions

"Young Goodman Brown"
Remember to include quotes and page numbers

1.      In what time is the story set? Where is it set? Where do the main events take place? What are some elements of the setting that lend the story its supernatural qualities?  Be specific.
2.      Who says "Evil is the nature of mankind."  Does Brown endorse this view?  Does Hawthorne? (note his depiction of Faith and others)
3.      What evidence can you find that the story exposes the fallacy of “specter evidence” (Levin 241)? (specter evidence was not allowed in a puritan trial because the devil can assume shapes, or specter’s, and thus eyewitness testimony should be questioned).
4.      How would the story be different w/o the last three paragraphs?
5.      How many levels of allegory can you find in this story?
6.      Using the questions in the packet on psychoanalytic criticism as a guide (particularly 1, 3, and 4), what can you glean from this kind of interpretation?

Extras

"The Minister's Black Veil"

Remember to include quotes and page numbers

1.    Why a black veil? Why over the face/eyes? What could it symbolize?
2.    Why a minister?  Why not, say, a blacksmith, or the governor? Why does it make him a better minister?
3.    Why not reveal it to his betrothed? Why not on his death bed?
4.    What’s the most important line/paragraph?
5.    Why set this in Puritan times?  Would it work if set in the 19th century?
6.    What mood/tone is set in this story?  How . . . how do author’s set moods?
7.    How does this work from a psychoanalytic perspective? (see packet again)
8.    What do both “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Minister’s Black Veil” suggest about isolation?

"Rappaccini's Daughter"

      1.    Why is Giovanni a medical student? 
2.    How is Rappacini characterized?  Through him, what is the narrator/Hawthorne suggesting about science? How is Rappacini different from Giovanni?
3.    Why a garden, not a forest? What’s the difference between a garden and a forest?  Note, too, that the garden is enclosed.
4.     Where does Hawthorne foreshadow the end of the story?
5.    How can this story be read as a conflict between feeling and intellect?
6.    What connections (note the plural) between these three stories?

The Scarlet Letter (Scarlet color -- get it?)

True confession time. When I first read this novel in high school, I couldn't finish it. The problem? Two-fold: number one, I was too young and ignorant to appreciate it; number two, I couldn't get past the "Custom House" section.

Flash forward to college. When I read the novel for an American Literature survey course, I thought it was the best novel ever written. The change? Two-fold: number one, I was older (though not necessarily less ignorant) and could better appreciate a story about love; number two, I rushed through the "Custom House" (though I lingered a bit in the attic when Hawthorne writes about finding the old manuscript) to get to the story itself.

Why am I telling you all this? Because I don't want you to get turned off to the novel by getting lost in the "Custom House" as I did.

One thing to note are the connections between Stowe and Hawthorne. Though they seem radically different, look at the way women and the home is portrayed.

Another point to consider is the relation of the Puritan material to the Scarlet Letter. How, for example, does Cotton Mather's biographies of criminals tie into the novel?

The Times
Social/Cultural
What's this? A female heroine -- who committed adultery -- in the middle of the nineteenth-century? Wasn't antebellum America the time when women were "Angels in the Parlor:" pious and always content with their lot?

Well . . . not exactly. The first American woman's rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848, just two years before the novel was published. At that convention, leaders such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott offered their "Declaration of Sentiments" which began "The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her" (91). While the prevailing ethos valued submission from women, it is obvious that some objected to the yoke.

Adultery? The trope of the paradoxically virtuous "fallen woman" regularly appeared in the fiction of the period, both English (cf. Nancy in Dickens's Oliver Twist [1838]) and in various essays, stories and novels in America. In both English and American culture, this idea of a woman retaining a kind of innocence (though she is inevitably punished for her "sins") in spite of being tainted by sexuality was connected to the reform movements so prevalent in the period.

Nineteenth-century was obsessed with the perfectibility of man. To that end, any number of reform movements, such as temperance, anti-slavery, anti-prostitution, feminism, periodically swept the land. In most cases, these movements agitated for change by trying to make the dominant, or hegemonic, culture more accepting of differences. How does this fit into the novel? Well, why did the Puritans come to America? Were they a kind of reform movement as well? A more germane questions is what does Hawthorne suggest about these movements?

The Arts
One thing that may have lost some of its punch to our jaded sensibilities (and due to Hawthorne's subdued tone) is the salacious nature of the novel. This is after all a seduction story -- and a minister is involved. While some contemporary readers may have objected to the scandalous subject matter, Hawthorne was only exploiting a well-established literary convention: the Reverend Rake. The 1840s saw a rise in writings (both fiction and non-fiction) dealing with ministers caught in comprising positions. In an 1848 article in the Police Gazette, a writer warned

The reader now may see what some of these preachers are! Hypocrisy, cant, espionage, malice, lust, and all uncharitableness pour from their hearts as filth from a corrupted fountain, and while they raise their voices to rebuke the harmless derelictions of the common world, they stand chargeable with the most heinous crimes themselves and reeking with defilement to the very lips. (qtd. Reynolds 261)

Indeed, Hawthorne's own "The Minister's Black Veil" (1836) dealt with a minister who committed an unknown sin and wore a black veil to cover his face for the rest of his life. In other stories, such as "Young Goodman Brown," and "Ethan Brand," he probes the psyche of people tortured and eventually consumed by secrets.

Another trait of popular novels from the period was the likeable criminal, particularly when that criminal is an "outsider" trying to buck the tide of the mainstream culture.

Finally, Hawthorne touches on the differences between realism and romance in the "Custom House" chapter. By categorizing the novel a romance rather than a novel, Hawthorne turns it from a reportage of facts (a la' Dickens) to a text which can revel in ambiguity and the supernatural.

Science/Philosophy
The nineteenth-century is, of course, when the Industrial Revolution kicked into high gear, and most Americans welcome new technologies with open arms (some things never change, eh?). Associated with this was a belief in the benefits of science and rationality (traces of the Enlightenment?). Of course, the science during this period, with its phrenology, magnetism, and mesmerism -- was often of a dubious nature. And not everyone welcomed the rise of intellect with open arms. For instance, some took a romantic stance towards science -- i.e. nature good, science . . . if not bad, than not so good. Additionally, the skeptical view required by science often lead to questions about the piety of those who studied it. And questions of piety in the predominately christian culture of nineteenth-century America were not taken lightly.

Terms/People to know

Group discussion questions

The Scarlet Letter

Remember to include quotes and page numbers

 1.      What is Hester like?  What are her salient characteristics?  What does the narrator admire in her character?  What does the narrator condemn?

2.      What are Dimmesdale’s salient characteristics?  What does the narrator admire in his character?  What does the narrator condemn?

3.      What is Chillingworth’s background? How does it effect his character?

4.      Who is the central character?  I had a professor who once said that it was Dimmesdale and it's bugged me since then.  Hester seems to be the central character, but was my professor right?

5.      Dimmesdale to Hester: "That old man's revenge has been blacker than my sin.  He has violated, in cold blood, the sanctity of a human heart.  Thou and I, H., never did so!" (1438).

6.      How are the other Hawthorne stories, “Young Goodman,” “Minister’s,” and “Rappinici,” similar to Scarlet?  For one, compare Hester to Beatrice – how are they similar?

 

The Scarlet Letter Redux

Remember to include quotes and page numbers

  1. Setting: How does the forest function in the story? How does the town function? What does Europe represent?  What is symbolic about the location of Hester’s house?

  2. How is Hester a feminist? Through Hester, does this book, ultimately, acknowledge the power or the weakness of women?

  3. In an 1844 notebook entry, Hawthorne wrote the following idea for a story: “Sketch of a person, who, by strength of character, or assistant circumstances, has reduced another to absolute slavery and dependence on him.  Then show, that the person who appears to be the master, must in inevitably be at least as much a slave, if not more, than the other.  All slavery is reciprocal” (32).  How is this idea born out in the novel?

  4. List and explain two connections between the “Custom House” and The Scarlet Letter.

    Would we (modern readers) respect Hester as much if she didn’t come back?

 

The Scarlet Letter Redux2

1.      Setting: How does the forest function in the story? How does the town function? What does Europe represent?  What is symbolic about the location of Hester’s house?

2.      At the end of the novel, there is an odd comment on a specific aspect of the setting.  With Hester standing next to the scaffold waiting for Dimmesdale to come out after preaching the Election Day sermon, the narrator notes that “her whole orb of life, [. . . ] was connected with this spot, as with the one point that gave it unity” (1464).  How is this so?  How does the scaffold, indeed, provide a “unity” or structure to the novel?

3.      Who is the central character?  I had a professor who once said that it was Dimmesdale and it's bugged me since then.  Hester seems to be the central character, but was my professor right?

4.      How does the narrator (Hawthorne?) feel about Hester’s and Dimmesdale’s actions?  Does he condone or condemn them?  Some other adjective? cf. 1422, 1440-41,1452

 

Discussion questions (general

  1. The novel as a critique of Puritanism.
  2. What is Hawthorne's opinion of science and emotion? Is it as simple as one is good and one is bad?
  3. What does this novel imply is the role of women in society? Is it hopeful? Resigned? Tragic?
  4. What is Pearl's function?
  5. What role does the Devil play in this novel?
  6. What does nature symbolize in SL?
  7. What significance does the scaffold have in the essay?
  8. What do the images of the Other (native Americans, Europeans) mean? Why are they there?
  9. What role does the supernatural play in this novel? What is its purpose?
  10. What light does the "Customs House" shed on the novel? What is its purpose?
  11. Why is Hawthorne so often ambiguous with his descriptions?
  12. What is Chillingworth's role in the novel?
  13. Argue that either Chillingworth, Pearl, Dimmesdale, or Hester is the central character in the novel.
  14. Does Haw's use of light and dark imagery have any symbolic meaning?

Critics have developed four basic approaches to the novel. Each deal with the problem of sin, which seems to be a central theme in the book.

  1. "Sin is permanently warping" coloring all aspects of life -- it spawns other sins ultimately leading to tragedy.
  2. Fortunate fall: without sin there would be no recognition of evil and thus no growth. Only by learning of sin -- and even committing sins, can we learn from it. This learning curve usually involves suffering and ultimately redemption
  3. Society itself is guilty: no sin has been committed because it is natural for two people to love one another. "Man is good; institutions are bad because they thwart nature"
  4. Psychological reading of SL -- sin "as an element which may . . . disturb . . . physic balance." -- the sin is important only insofar as the individual allows himself to be affected by it.

Voices from the Past

Upon returning from September 1850 Sunday morning service at Broadway Tabernacle, a New Yorker named William Hoffman, who was punctilious about his religious observances, had the "pleasure" to observe through a peephole in his room "the perfect female form of the two Miss Whitings, young girls or ladies about 17 & 19 years old . . . for about 20 minutes with every part of their bodies exposed." Without revealing any compunctions, he notes that he attended the Tabernacle again that evening (Saum 35).

Grayson, P. W. From Vice Unmasked, an Essay, Being a Consideration of the Influence of Law Upon the Moral Essence of Man. New York, 1830. Rpt. in Notions of the Americans 1820-1860. Ed. David Grimsted. New York: George Braziller, 1970. 45-60.

"Wherever we find evil, no matter how venerable it may seem from the sanctity of its origin, or reputable from the customary regards of men, we should not scruple, even for an instant, to tear off the disguises which conceal its enormity, and, exposing the viciousness of its essence, strike for its extinction!" (Grayson 46)

Tuthill, Louisa C. The Young Lady's Home. Philadelphia: Lindsay and Blakiston, 1848.

"Woman's lot may be deemed a lowly one, by those who look not into the deeper mysteries of human life; who know not the silent, resistless influences that mould the intellectual and moral character of mankind. Woman's lot is a high and holy one; and she "who fulfills the conditions required by conscience takes the surest way of answering the purposes of Providence." Conscientiously and cheerfully, then, go on with your own education, mental, physical and moral." (Tuthill 14)

"Woman owes her present elevation of character and condition to Christianity; in all countries where its benign, holy influence is unfelt, she is still and unintellectual, a degraded being, -- and just in proportion to its purity and its power over a people, is her domestic happiness" (Tuthill 93)

"The silent, resistless influence of home and the affections, -- this is woman's true glory" (Tuthill 99)

One 1848 guidebook advised young women that their "waking thoughts" should "be upon my Heavenly Father, who has spread over me the wings of love, and opened my eyes upon another day" This should be followed, "before breakfast" with a half hour of bible reading or prayer (Tuthill 184). And of course, upon retiring, "God's holy book" should be read, and a final benediction "for the aid and guidance of his Holy Spirit" offered. (Tuthill 185)

Sprague, Achsa. "Selections from Achsa Sprague's Diary and Journal." Ed. Leonard Twynham. Vermont History 9 (1941): 132-184.

born 1828.

Reformer, woman's rights activist (mainly unpublished) author

1855 Dec. 10: "Women must either by a slave or a butterfly or at least she is so at the present time. And if, following the prompting of the intellectual or philanthropic energies of her mind she dares to think, she dared to act out of the beaten tracked marked centuries ago for her to tread, straightway she become something out of the course of nature, a something for the curious to gape at in astonishment, & the world, & particularly her own sex (I speak it with shame) to censure. As if a woman ought not to be firm as well as gentle, energetic as well as yielding in her nature, strong minded as well as pure, & intellectual as well as amiable. Should not all these qualities be combined? And if they are so, what woman can smother these energies & those aspirations till their light shine no further than the fireside? Woman can be woman as the wife, the mother & yet as the Teacher & the Reformer. More than all should the mother be strongminded & energetic, firm & high souled, natural & developed intellectually as well as socially, that her children may wear the stamp of something that lives within itself. . ." (Sprauge 156-57)

Pictures from the Past


Title page (in Hawthorne's hand) to The Scarlet Letter.
Click to enlarge
(From American Literary Autographs)

Title page of first edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Click to enlarge

The Ghal's of Boston. Cover of salacious "expose" fiction from 1850
Ghal's was a slang term for a prostitute.
Click to enlarge

Advertisement from Ghal's to the left
Click to enlarge

Title page of first edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Quotes from critics

"In his notebook for 1836 Hawthorne drew a direct connection between human sinfulness and popular crime trials. "There is evil in every human heart . . .which may remain latent, through the whole of life, but circumstances may rouse it into activity . . . . This appetite may be traced in the popularity of criminal trials" (Reynolds Beneath 178)

"Beginning in the early 1830s, sex scandals were often featured in penny papers, dark-reform literature, and trial pamphlets, and in time a frankly erotic popular literature emerged. Whitman mentions in his notebooks having read 'erotic poetry and stories, dwelling on the lusty and copulative'" (Reynolds Beneath 211)

"sexuality in antebellum literature had little to do with natural passion or honest feeling. Increasingly, erotic themes became the special province of militant radical democratic who went to perverse extremes to expose what they viewed as the rottenness of America's ruling class They believed that the most effective way of doing this was to depict outwardly respectable figures . . . engaged in secret sexual intrigues that exposed them as scheming and bestial" (Reynolds Beneath 223)

"by the 1840s it had become virtually impossible for an American novelist to portray a sympathetic clergyman figure because of the satirical stereotype of the reverend rake. The female moral exemplar became a chief means of reconstructing moral value in a world of devalued, amoral males." (Reynolds Beneath 342)

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Last Revised August 2002
David Bordelon