Introduction to The Scarlet Letter

Unlike the last two books I summarized, this is a book that I have actually read before, though I read it back in high school, which is more than half my lifetime ago at this point. The only thing I really remember about it is the surprise ending, which I will not reveal here, lest my captive audience be unawares. Spoilers yo. Back in yesteryear when I read it for the first time, I remember that when our English teacher handed them out to us, she said “I really hate that the edition they gave us spoils the ending in their summary, so make sure you don’t read the back cover.” It was a wise move to make sure the big reveal was not ruined, because telling someone NOT to do something is definitely the best way to make sure it never happens. Especially teenagers. Thus the big reveal was not a surprise even during my first reading.

I was underwhelmed by the book in high school, but my vocabulistics (yes, it’s a word…I think) and appreciation for literature has grown quite a lot since then, even if my maturity level has not. A good friend of mine generously donated the funds to get this site hosted for the first year, so in return I offered to let her choose the next book I would read, and she chose this. Considering the last two were from ye olde British authors, jumping across the pond to a ye olde American one is a change of pace. I also imagine I will get more out of it as an adult than I did as a child. As a bonus this edition also includes a thirty page short story titled “The Custom-House” that serves as a sort of prologue to how the book came to be.

I learned my lesson from Tale of Two Cities that it would probably be a good idea to get an understanding of where the author was coming from, and what audience he was writing to. The first thing I did before reading was to look up the author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, to get the deets of where he was coming from with writing this. His great-great-great-grandfather, William Hathorne (note the spelling difference), was an early immigrant (1630s) and a justice and magistrate of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. As you probably know, the early immigrants to New England were Puritans who bravely stood up against the Church of England and moved to the new world where they could have the freedom to force everyone who came there to be Puritans just like them. Right from the get-go they showed everyone how wrong it was for the Church of England to force their beliefs on people by punishing Quakers for not being Puritans. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s great-great-great gandpappy William was a model Puritan and gained a reputation for handing down extra harsh sentences. His son, John, carried on this noble family tradition by being one of the judges for the Salem witch trials. Basically Nathaniel came from a fine upstanding family.

Our author was born in 1804 in, you guessed it, Salem. His dad died when he was young and his uncles helped take care of him, his siblings, and his mother. They insisted he go to university, which he really didn’t want to do, and was quoted as saying:

I was educated (as the phrase is) at Bowdoin College. I was an idle student, negligent of college rules and the Procrustean details of academic life, rather choosing to nurse my own fancies than to dig into Greek roots and be numbered among the learned Thebans.¹

His first job out of college was as editor for the American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge, which I think we can all agree is a pretty great title. So far dude is pretty solid in my book. He changed his name from Hathorne to Hawthorne in an attempt to distance himself from his totally crappy ancestors, and he was not a fan of Puritanism. Despite being super anti-Puritan, pretty much all of his literary works were set in Puritan New England and dealt with the inherent sin and wickedness of mankind, and the requisite punishment. Dude clearly had some issues he had to work out.

He had the hots for Sophia Peabody, who lived in a Transcendentalist commune. Transcendentalism was a movement that focused on the inherent goodness of people and how even mundane, everyday experiences could be spiritual. Did he believe any of that? No. Since he had the hots for Sophia though he did the most reasonable thing and pretended to be a Transcendentalist. He made a generous donation to the movement, moved into the commune so he could “get to know” Sophia, and live on the cheap so he could save money to marry her. Seemed to work out for both of them though since according to Wikipedia, the fount of all knowledge:

He referred to her as his “Dove” and wrote that she “is, in the strictest sense, my sole companion; and I need no other—there is no vacancy in my mind, any more than in my heart … Thank God that I suffice for her boundless heart!” Sophia greatly admired her husband’s work. She wrote in one of her journals:

I am always so dazzled and bewildered with the richness, the depth, the … jewels of beauty in his productions that I am always looking forward to a second reading where I can ponder and muse and fully take in the miraculous wealth of thoughts.

Seems kind of shifty to slide into a commune like that, but hey, it worked out I guess. Especially since he later sued the commune to get his donation back. All in all it looks like it was a pretty great marriage, and they were happy together.

Hawthorne published a lot of short stories. In fact, along with his buddy Edgar Allen Poe he is credited with creating the whole idea of a short story. He never made a ton of money from his writing, so he sort of did it as a side gig while he worked doing boring adult things.

In summary, Hawthorne was a dude who didn’t like academic life, wanted to do his own thing, and apparently had some major Puritan issues he needed to work out. With that, I begin my second dive into The Scarlet Letter.

¹https://landhscarletletter.weebly.com/nathaniel-hawthorne.html