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.

So I suggest that after reading the introduction by Ross C. Murfin, you proceed to chapter 1, "The Prison Door," and begin reading there.  Next week we can read "The Custom House."

Murfin has an excellent introduction to the novel, so you'll find this introduction shorter than the one for Candide.

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 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.

The Life
See Murfin's introduction for the necessary biographical details.

Questions to Mull Over As You Read

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.

Works Cited

Reynolds, David S. Beneath the American Renaissance: The Subversive Imagination in the Age

"Declaration of Sentiments."  Antebellum American Culture. Ed. David Brion Davis. University Park,

Pennsylvania: Penn State UP, 1997. 91-93.