Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter tells a story illustrating the conflict between the private and public good, while suggesting friendship as a way of bridging the two and resolving the conflict. For Hawthorne, the source of liberty lies in the mystery of the individual heart, but both individual happiness and the health of the political community depend on an ability to share in that mystery. This paper compares how Hawthorne critiques both Puritan New England and his own contemporary antebellum society, which he presents in “The Custom-House” sketch that serves as preface to The Scarlet Letter. Unlike the tight-knit Puritan community, which tries to control even the inner lives of its members, the Custom House is marked by isolation and fragmentation from the goods of community life. Hawthorne’s novel offers a correction to these defective societies in its exploration of friendship. Not only does Hawthorne demonstrate how his characters fail in friendship and at times express its potential, he also explicitly presents himself as a friend to the reader and realizes this role in his manner of writing.

Publication Type: Proceeding