What follows here is background information for The Scarlet Letter. This novel moves us out of the genre of comedy and into the genre of romance, although it is not the typical definition we have of romance. The connection that can be made between comedy and romance has to do with the idea of transformation. In Pygmalion, the transformation that occurs in Liza—from flower girl to lady—happens for satiric effect; Shaw uses her transformation, as well as what happens to her father, to critique English society. In The Scarlet Letter, transformation has more to do with the power of the imagination to transform reality. Hawthorne also wants to critique his society and to show how man-made laws can often be profoundly unjust, but in order to do this, he uses historic details (the reality) and builds an imaginary story out of those details: thus he transforms reality. There is a love affair in The Scarlet Letter and—like in Pygmalion—this love affair is used as a way to critique the society around the lovers, but in Hawthorne’s novel, unlike Shaw’s play, this love affair is not played for laughs: being in love with Arthur Dimmesdale, the town minister, causes Hester Prynne great suffering and turns her into a social outcast. She suffers because she has given birth to a child but she is not married, and in Puritan society, a woman having a child before she is married is a crime. The town wants to punish the baby’s father, as well, but Hester refuses to reveal his identity; she protects Dimmesdale’s identity at all costs. As you read, you should think about the reasons why Hester protects her lover and why Hawthorne creates this situation: what point is Hawthorne trying to make here?
Background information:
Hawthorne called his novel a “romance,” which has a slightly different meaning than the typical love-and-marriage idea. This is a novel about a love affair, but it is also about American society, about American history, and about some of the conflicts in both society and history:
The novel begins with a sort of introductory story called
“The Custom-House,” which is set in Hawthorne’s time period (1850) and
has to do with Hawthorne’s desire to be a writer (despite his family’s
displeasure at such a profession), with his political connections, and
with the mysterious piece of fabric he finds in the attic of the Custom-House.
The story of Hester Prynne and her scarlet letter is set much earlier,
during the time of the Puritans. Hawthorne was very interested
in American history and in using American topics as the subject for his
fictions, in much the same way as Whitman would use America as the subject
for “Song of Myself” and Leaves of Grass, starting in 1855.
You can see that during the middle of the nineteenth century, writers and
artists in the United States were trying to create a particularly “American”
art form; they wanted to use American ideas and topics rather than always
thinking about European topics or subjects.
In the story of the custom-house, Hawthorne explains
that he owes his position in part to political connections, and when the
political party in power changes, Hawthorne loses his job.
Hawthorne dislikes his job, but he needs the job in order to pay his bills.
He is more interested in being a writer and tells us, his readers, that
he has had some success with a few earlier books and stories, which explains
the reference to the Old Manse in the first paragraph: one of his collections
of short stories was titled The Old Manse. Hawthorne worries
that working at the custom-house will kill his imagination and prevent
him from further writing. Hawthorne thinks of himself as an
artist, and he is worried about the role of the artist in society: does
the artist have a job to do in society, or is the artist irrelevant?
One of the things to notice as you read the story of Hester Prynne,
is that eventually Hester becomes a sort of artist-figure herself, although
she isn’t a writer. Instead, Hester creates beauty with her needle—she
can sew beautifully; sewing is her art form.
Hawthorne also uses the story of the custom-house to talk about his own family history. He claims to have had relatives who were Puritans as well as relatives who were involved in the Salem witch trials. During the witch trials, many innocent people were put to death because the townspeople claimed they were witches: the witch trials became a way for people to try and get rid of neighbors who they disliked, or whose property they wanted, or against whom they carried a grudge for one reason or another. When you read his descriptions of his ancestors, think about whether these descriptions are positive or negative: does Hawthorne sound like he approves of what his ancestors did?
Hawthorne defines a “romance” as the place where the Actual and the Imaginary meet, which he explains by using the analogy of a room filled with moonlight (37). In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne puts his ideas about the Actual and Imaginary into practice: he uses the “actual” fact of finding the scarlet letter in the custom-house and then builds around the letter the “imaginary” story of Hester Prynne’s life. So “romance,” in this case has less to do with courtship and marriage and more to do with transformation. In The Scarlet Letter, transformation happens outside of society—in natural environments like the forest outside of Salem, or along the seashore. As you read the novel, pay attention to what sorts of things happen in what sorts of environments.