Chapter 4

Romanticism and the

beginning of the novel
Table of Contents
Dictionary of entries

Romanticism in the United States

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Scarlet Letter

Questions & Curiosities

 Dictionary of entries
Glossy – something smooth or shiny
Puritanism – the belief that pleasure is
wrong or unnecessary
Engraved - to cut words, pictures, or
patterns into the surface of metal, stone, etc.
Grim - worrying, without hope
Haughty - unfriendly and seeming to
consider yourself better than other people
Embroidery - patterns or pictures that
consist of stitches sewn directly onto cloth
Apparel - clothes of a particular type when
they are being sold in a shop
Embroider - to decorate cloth or clothing with
patterns or pictures consisting of stitches that
are sewn directly onto the material
Ignominy - total defeat in the last election.
Attire - clothes, especially of a particular or
formal type
Grisly - extremely unpleasant, especially
because death or blood is involved
Abashed - embarrassed
Romanticism in the USA

❑ American Romanticism, like other literary movements, was developed on the

heels of romantic movements in Europe.

❑ The romantic period of American literature took place from 1830 to 1870 and
emphasized nature, symbolism, transcendentalism, and individualism. Key
authors of this period include Emily Dickinson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar
Allan Poe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Walt Whitman.
The Importance of romanticism in literature
Romanticism in English literature emerged in the late 18th century and
had a strong influence on the development of literature throughout the
19th century. It elevated nature, emotion, imagination and individual
experience to a higher level of artistic importance. Romanticism
emphasized creativity, emotion, instinctive perception and the pursuit of
beauty, and shifted the focus of literary studies away from the
investigation of human behavior and politics. Additionally, it was a
reaction against the rationalism and scientific thinking of the
Enlightenment. It celebrated the joys of life and belief in the power of the
individual.
 Historic moment in the USA
❑1765-1783: The American Revolution ❑ 1841: Ralph Waldo Emerson
The thirteen American colonies publishes Essays: First Series. ❑1850: Nathaniel Hawthorne
manage to free themselves from With this collection of essays, publishes The Scarlet Letter
British rule. Emerson establishes himself Thanks to this novel, the
as an important figure in the scarlet letter "A" becomes a
❑1803: The Louisiana American Romantic age. part of the American popular
Purchase And his first lesson: be self-reliant. imagination.
The U.S. government buys a
chunk of territory from the
French in the west, and the
American frontier is expanded.
Nathaniel Hawthorne

❑ Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was

an American novelist and short story writer. His works
often focus on history, morality, and religion.
He is remembered for his works such as The Scarlet Letter,
The House of the Seven Gables and The Blithedale Romance.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Why is Nathaniel Hawthorne
important?
❑ Nathaniel Hawthorne was a skillful
craftsman with an architectonic sense
of form, as displayed in the tightly
woven structure of his works, and a
master of prose style, which he used to
clearly reveal his characters’
psychological and moral depths.
What was Nathaniel Hawthorne’s
family like?
❑ Nathaniel Hawthorne’s family had
lived in Salem, Massachusetts, since
the 1600s. One ancestor was a
magistrate who, in determinedly
defending Puritanism, sentenced a
Quaker woman to public whipping.
❑ Another was a judge in the Salem
witch trials.
❑ During the 1700s the family went into
decline—perhaps, Nathaniel was to
think, because of his ancestors’
behaviour.
What did Nathaniel Hawthorne do
for a living?
❑ Nathaniel Hawthorne was a writer
but struggled to make a living from
his writing.
❑ To make ends meet, he resorted to
working as a customs officer in
Boston, living briefly at the utopian
commune Brook Farm, and serving as
U.S. consul in Liverpool, Lancashire.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
What were the major novels of Nathaniel
Hawthorne?

The most famous and best novels were:

❑The scarlet letter is The Scarlet Letter is a novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne set in
seventeenth-century Puritan Boston. It follows the struggles of Hester Prynne, a young woman who is
condemned by the town for bearing a child out of wedlock. She must wear the scarlet letter throughout
her punishment, which causes her to confront guilt, hypocrisy, and secrets from her past.
❑ The House of the Seven Gables is a somber study in hereditary sin based on the legend of a curse
pronounced on Hawthorne’s own family by a woman condemned to death during the witchcraft trials. The greed and
arrogant pride of the novel’s Pyncheon family down the generations is mirrored in the gloomy decay of their seven-
gabled mansion, in which the family’s enfeebled and impoverished poor relations live. At the book’s end the
descendant of a family long ago defrauded by the Pyncheons lifts his ancestors’ curse on the mansion and marries a
young niece of the family.
❑ The Marble Faun is a story of a trio of expatriate American art students in Italy that become peripherally
involved to varying degrees in the murder of an unknown man; their contact with sin transforms two of them from
Scarlet Letter Short Summary
❑ Set in the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony during the years 1642 to 1649, the
novel tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter with a man to
whom she is not married and then struggles to create a new life of repentance
and dignity.
❑ The birth of little Pearl, becomes the fruit of a sin and proof of Hester's adultery.
Thus, she is tried, condemned and forced for the rest of her life to wear a scarlet
letter
❑ The Scarlet letter is an embroidered across her breast to mark her sin, a symbol
of shame, revulsion, disdain, contempt and adultery.
❑ After her trial, we follow the lives of Hester and her daughter, Pearl, from the
judged and disgusted looks of Salem's Puritan community, surviving without
help from anyone.
❑ In addition to raising a daughter alone and enduring humiliation, mockery and
public segregation, Hester Prynne's mission is to protect the secret about the
name of her daughter's father, a secret that becomes threatened with the arrival
of a new resident in the Community (her husband, who prefers to stay
undercover so as not to face the “shame” of his wife's betrayal )
❑ Hawthorne brings in The Scarlet Letter an almost explicit criticism of the
morality of Puritanism in the Puritan society in the mid-17th century in the
United States.
❑ He also criticizes human hypocrisy while valuing the strength of a woman who
struggles to give her daughter life and hope.
Scarlet Letter’s Main Themes

❑ The Nature of Evil.

❑ Human Nature and Society.

❑ Morality & human hypocrisy

❑ Female Independence and Liberty.

❑ Guilt.

❑ Empathy.

❑ Criticism to puritanism.
Questions & Curiosities

❑ What is the irony in The Scarlet Letter story?

❑ Do you know why was The Scarlet Letter banned shortly after being published in
1850?

❑ Who is the biggest hypocrite in The Scarlet Letter?

❑ Why is The Scarlet Letter considered a dark romantic novel?

Explanation of the subject
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