Week 10--The Scarlet Letter as Autobiography?

I was interested in the idea that Hawthorne wrote to "exorcise demons," that is, to get a troubling thought out of his head. Hawthorne says at the end of The Scarlet Letter that he "would gladly, now that it has done its office, erase its deep print out of our own brain; where long meditation has fixed it in very undesireable distinctness." "It" refers to "the portent" on Dimmesdale's chest, aka the Scarlet Letter.

This to me is the most convincing argument that The Scarlet Letter is autobiographical (I agree that "autobiographical" is more accurate than "autobiography"). Hawthorne is drawing an obvious connection between himself and Dimmesdale here: like Dimmesdale, he has "meditated" on The Scarlet Letter even though he wants to forget it. If you choose to believe that Dimmesdale self-inflicted the A on his body, then Hawthorne did much the same kind of penance by writing the book, if he just wants not to think about it, as he says. But they both had to do it in order for the scarlet letter (The Scarlet Letter) to be revealed to the world and their "sin" to be absolved. I don't know what Hawthorne considered his sin (Prof Dalke mentioned some relationship with his sister?), but it seems clear that he struggled with guilt. He must have to have written a novel completely structured around it.

Did writing help him put his guilt to rest? I doubt it, since the autobiographical elements are not really obvious, and as a whole I think it was received more like Dimmesdale's self-condemning sermons in church than his final stand with Hester on the scaffold.  And, as the book argues, the only way to be (relatively) at peace with yourself is to make your sin explicitly known to the world.

-On Tues we talked about what drives the SL. Is it an autobiography or a romance?

-Does the reader have a right to be told the truth or does the author have a right to keep certain things private?

-Does the real ever totally exist in autobiographies?

-Hawthorne thinks he can write autobiographically without violating author rights or reader rights.

-Blogs are contemporary autobiographies.

-We discussed the question of what is real and what is a reflection in the novel. Dimmesdale felt like he was a shadow and his life was false until he saw the A in the sky. The A felt like a representation of himself.

-We talked about the Id, Ego, and Superego and applied these to characters. Hester could be the ego, Dimmesdale the superego, and Chillingworth and Pearl the Id. (Pearl has not been affected bye the outside world while Chillingworth has. 

-Hawthorne is playing out himself through characters in his autobiography .

-A critic (Frederic Carpenter) said: Hester's passions are good and society is evil for condemning her. 

-We can look a the minor characters and see who Hawthorne is trying to be, but struggling.

-Another critic (Jonathan Arac) argued that the novel is neither puritanical or psychological, but rather political. It represented the 1850 political thoughts. The book was about slavery. He thinks people should do nothing about slavery and in the course of time providence will cause it to vanish.

-SL was read in a feminist and symbolic light in high school.  

Notes will be continued on the post titled part two.  

If I have not brought it up enough in class enough already, I am currently in Love of Three Oranges being directed by Aaron Cromie, here at Bryn Mawr. The piece is Commedia Del Art, which means it is masked. When teaching the class mask technique, Aaron said something that I think might be useful to our reading of The Scarlet Letter as an autobiography. "Masks reveal more than they conceal." At first, I wasn't sure about this concept. However, having now worked in mask for several months, I can call it a story that I accept. When in mask, I feel that I can allow portions of myself to reveal themselves that are often concealed by the social mask I carry around daily. Before you imbue a mask with the characteristics of any certain character, a mask is a clean slate. You are not limited by the constraints of "your own" personality, and are then able to explore the possibilities of yourself; the one's that were always there, but that perhaps break the cohesive bonds of your person, and to then, be able to return.

I'm thinking of The Scarlet Letter like a theatrical mask, or veil in Hawthorne's own terms. The theatrical mask, which is found varying cultures, styles, and ages, does not violate the audience members right to see a performance, get a story. However, it does also not violate the actor's right to use parts of their personality that would be limited by their more permanent physical mask, and then return to their "in most Me," once the performance is over. So, is Hawthorne putting on masks?

"As if the printed book, thrown at large on the wide world, were certain to find out the divided segments of the writer's own nature and complete his circle of existence by bringing him in communion with it... But, as thoughts are frozen and utterance benumbed unless the speaker stand in some true relation with his audience it may be pardonable to imagine that a friend ... is listening to our talk." (The Custom House page 1)

That's what I hear him saying. He is dealing with the divided segments of his own nature, but it's no good without an audience. The novel is a performance, and without it's performitive qualities, he would be unable to protect the segment which he and society most cherishes.

Should readers expect rights?  I don't think so, at least not in literature.  A person reading a scientific article or textbook has a right to truth.  The author should make it clear what is a proven fact, what is a theory, what is opinion, etc.  This type of writing is read for the sole purpose of gaining knowledge and understanding, and a whole system of peer-reviewing exists to make sure that the reader gets the most accurate information possible.

But literature is different, because we read it for very different reasons.  If an author claims a work to be non-fiction or entirely fiction or part auto-biographical, we tend to believe them (at least, at the start), but we don't sign a contract.  And we don't have to read it.  I think part of choosing to read a novel is choosing to accept the perception given by the author while you're reading it.  You can disagree with it and apply your own interpretations to it, which I think is part of the process of reading, but I don't think it's fair to the author to feel like you have a "right" to something, because you can always close the book.