The Scarlet Letter

1. A The Scarlet Letter Brady Haering Pd. AB

2. Nathaniel HawthorneJuly 4, 1804- May 19, 1864 Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts. His father died of yellow fever in 1808. He changed his name from Hathorne to Hawthorne to distinguish himself from his Puritan ancestors, whom he disagreed with in all aspects. His uncle wanted to fund his education, so that Hawthorne could be a doctor or lawyer. However, Nathaniel had no interest in these pursuits. About his college education, he said: “I do not want to be a doctor and live by men's diseases, nor a minister to live by their sins, nor a lawyer and live by their quarrels. So, I don't see that there is anything left for me but to be an author." It was ironic that he wanted nothing to do with the behaviors of humanity, considering that is what he most wrote about. He graduated in 1825 from Bowdoin College. While there, he met and befriended Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and future President Franklin Pierce. He continued to live with his mother in Salem, Massachusetts and researched his family history. His first book, Fanshawe, was published 1828 anonymously. Twice-Told Tales came in 1837. He married Sophia Peabody in 1842 and they moved to Concord, Massachusetts. In 1846 he published Mosses from an Old Manse. His literary pursuits had thus far been unsuccessful . Money was bad, so moved back with his mother, and worked in the Salem Custom House. In 1849 he found a letter A in his mom’s attic, it inspired the Scarlet Letter. The Scarlet Letter was very successful. His wife and he then moved to Lenox, Massachusetts. They lived in a very secluded manner and were, ironically, solitary together. The House of the Seven Gables was published in 1850. Later in his life, he wrote several children’s stories based on Greek myths. His final book was the Marble Faun, published in 1860. He died of unknown causes in 1864 while on a trip with Franklin Pierce. About his death Ralph Waldo Emerson, long time critic and friend of Hawthorne, wrote: "I thought there was a tragic element in the event, that might be more fully rendered,—in the painful solitude of the man, which, I suppose, could no longer be endured, & he died of it." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Hawthorne & www.egs.edu/library/nathaniel-hawthorne/biography/

3. Conflict Analysis: Hester Prynne Hester Prynne is most at conflict with the Puritan society throughout the story. However she does find herself at odds with her former husband, Roger Chillingsworth. This is most evident in Chapter 14 when she confronts him while on a walk with Pearl. She had decided to make appeal towards Chillingsworth, asking that he would stop his torment of Reverend Dimmesdale. Although she had originally agreed to keep Chillingsworth’s true identity a secret, she decided that she must reveal to Dimmesdale the true nature of his secret tormentor. They began the encounter as they had with any in the past seven years. They spoke as if they knew each other, but not more than one would know any neighbor in the Puritan society. Dimmesdale even remarked about removing the scarlet letter on page 152: ”It was debated whether or no, with safety to the common weal, yonder scarlet letter might be taken off your bosom. On my life, Hester, I made my entreaty to the worshipful magistrate that it might be done forthwith!” Hester did not take well to the idea and got straight to the point in her reasons for finding Chillingsworth on page 154: “When we last spake together,now seven years ago, it was your pleasure to extort a promise of secrecy, as touching the former relation betwixt yourself and me….. Since that day, no man is so near to him [Dimmesdale] as you. You tread behind his every footstep. You are beside him, sleeping and waking. You search his thoughts. You burrow and rankle in his heart! Your clutch is on his life, and you cause him to die daily a living death; and still he knows you not. In permitting this, I have surely acted a false part by the only man to whom the power was left me to be true!” This shows the guilt that Hester feels, seeing herself as partly responsible for Dimmesdale’s suffering. It also shows her understanding of Chillingsworth’s intentions of torment. On page 155 Chillingsworth both defends his physical treatment of the Reverend : “But for my aid, his life would have burned away in torments, within the first two years after the perpetration of his crime and thine.” And admits that he is the greatest cause of Dimmesdale’s internal suffering: “With the superstition common to his brotherhood, he fancied himself given over to a fiend, to be tortured with frightful dreams, and desperate thoughts, the sting of remorse, and despair of pardon; as a foretaste of what awaits him beyond the grave. But it was the constant shadow of my presence!—the closest propinquity of the man whom he had most vilely wronged!--and who had grown to exist only by this perpetual poison of the direst revenge! Yea, indeed!—he did not err!—there was a fiend at his elbow! A mortal man, with once a human heart, has become a fiend for his especial torment!“ Hester lets it be known to Chillingsworth that she intends to tell Dimmesdale about the doctor: “I must reveal the secret. He must discern thee in thy true character. What may be the result, I know not. But this long debt of confidence, due from me to him, whose bane and ruin I have been, shall at length be paid.” (Pg. 156) Chillingsworth dismisses Hester, claiming that he no longer cares about her actions: “Ye that have wronged me are not sinful, save in a kind of typical illusion; neither am I fiend-like, who have snatched a fiend’s office from his hands. It is our fate. Let the black flower blossom as it may! Now go thy ways, and deal as thou wilt with yonder man.” (Pg. 157). Hester would reveal to Dimmesdale Chillingsworth’s true identity during a secret meeting in the woods. They devised a plan to leave the colony and escape the fiend’s clutches. However, their plan was unable to come to fruition. On the colony’s election day, Dimmesdale died, but not before publicly revealing his affair with Hester.