For my midterm paper, I chose to write about The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I read this novel in high school and found it intriguing. It’s about a woman in Puritan New England who is punished for her adultery and refuses to admit her secret lover. She is ostracized by her community and must grapple with a life of deep shame, but unexpectedly experiences moral growth and strength. Deep down, I feel like the novel subtly illuminates many social issues.
My close reading essay would be targeted to a discourse community of intelligent adults but not literary experts. This is most appropriate for close-reading essays since they delve into the themes of specific novels rather than engage with literary criticism. Since I am trying to argue a claim, I would need to attend to my audience’s needs by providing sufficient context and information from the novel that they may need. Additionally, I would need to use syntax and diction most appropriate to them. I would assume that they may have read the novel and are interested in the topic, but that they would benefit from a clear context and background to fully understand my arguments and my interpretation of the novel.
The Scarlet Letter is generally considered a romance and historical fiction novel. Many classic romance novels tackled topics such as the idealization of nature, expression of emotion, and examination of the human condition, among others. How we think of the romance genre now is a bit different than the original genre; at the time, it focused on the ideas of reality and fantasy, often using nature as a space of convergence between the two. Similar texts to The Scarlet Letter are Emily Dickinson poems and Edgar Allan Poe stories, which both engage with elements of Romanticism. Dickinson’s poem, “She rose to his requirement,” is an example of a similar text. It features a defiant protagonist/speaker who is skeptical of conventions for women and marriage. Some generic conventions I identified are that Dickinson similarly features a freethinking female protagonist and uses a tone of skepticism and sympathy to critique social norms and how they affect its oppressed protagonist. Poe’s story “The Fall of the House of Usher” is similar to Hawthorne’s writing and themes, relating to Romanticism as well. Both stories use descriptive syntax and emphasize nature as a powerful force. They also build their plots based on suspense and uncertainty for its protagonist.
In my essay, I intend to analyze passages from Chapter 18 of The Scarlet Letter to examine the theme of empowerment from sin. This chapter, where Hester reconciles with her secret lover, embodies the novel’s overall challenge of religion and morality since Hester acts defiantly and gains moral growth on her own terms. I seek to delve into its devices that help inform the theme, such as symbolism, tone, and metaphor. I believe this novel can connect to the course’s themes through Hester’s position of marginality in her society and how she must find her own strength while enduring sexual degradation. This can explicitly relate to ideas of subject formation, social norms, and identity, since Hester experiences being cast out as an “other” in her community that uses religion as a tool for oppression while making hard decisions for what is best for herself and her illegitimate daughter.
I am not entirely sure how to best describe and connect Hester’s marginality to the course themes without trying to argue it’s just like other forms of oppression. I want to make clear that even though she is sexually degraded in her Puritan society, there are always other forms of gendered and racial oppression that can be more pernicious. I think I need to ensure that I am applying it to the context of Puritan America, where religion was the main issue at hand in the novel as it is implied to be misappropriated and oppressive.
Works Cited
Dickinson, Emily. “She rose to His Requirement.” Poetry.com, 2022, https://www.poetry.com/poem/12082/she-rose-to-his-requirement
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. 1850. Barnes and Noble Classics, 2005, pp. 166–168.
Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Fall of the House of Usher.” 1839. Project Gutenberg, 2010, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/932/932-h/932-h.htm