1. Hawthorne, Romanticism, The Scarlet Letter, and Figurative Language

2. Nathaniel Hawthorne Born in Salem, MA in 1804
Descendant of early Puritan settlers, including Judge Hathorne of Witch Trial infamy
Ashamed of family name, so changed spelling to Hawthorne

3. Nathaniel Hawthorne
Puritan heritage informed and haunted all of his writing
Known for short stories and novels
First novel: Fanshawe
Other novels: The House of the Seven Gables, The Bilthedale Romance, and The Marble Faun

4. Nathaniel Hawthorne
Worked in the Boston Custom House to support writing
Good friends with other American Romantics and Transcendentalists: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Married Sophia Peabody in 1846
Died in 1864

5. The American Romantics
Stems from a break from the lack of fantastical and creative artistry of the Puritans
Reflects the still innocent, pre-Civil War United States
Prominent Romantics: Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Washington Irving, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau

6. The American Romantics
Characteristics of Romantic work:
Focus on a love of nature
Focus on the individual
Focus on truth as a universal concept
Imaginative, fantastical settings

7. The American Romantics
Highly symbolic
Features elements of the supernatural
Favors emotion over intellect
Development of national pride

8. The Scarlet Letter First published in 1850
Considered Hawthorne’s strongest longer work
Combines his experience in the Custom House with his Puritan heritage

9. The Scarlet Letter Major Themes: Appearance vs. Reality
Individual vs. Society
Quest of Individual Expression
Good vs. Evil; dark vs. light
Nature vs. Civilization
Need for human connection

10. Figurative Language
Hawthorne’s main device for communicating his message in The Scarlet Letter is figurative language
Figurative language connects any object or character to a symbolic meaning through simile, metaphor, allusion, or personification.

11. Figurative Language Symbol
An image, thought, object, person, or action that represents something else
Simile
A comparison of two objects using like or as:
My love is like a red, red rose
Her smile was as big as a clown’s

12. Figurative Language Metaphor
A comparison of two objects stating one object is the other:
The raindrops are pearls on a string.

13. Figurative Language Allusion
A reference to another literary work, historical event or culture meant to bring symbolic meaning to the text
In The Scarlet Letter, many of the allusions are Biblical or references to events during the height of the Puritans’ influence in New England

14. Figurative Language Personification
Giving an inanimate object characteristics of the living; giving an inhuman object human characteristics
The grain waved in the wind, as though it were the throng of a crowd, cheering for their football team