TOPIC 46: HISTORICAL CONFIGURATION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:

FROM INDEPENDENCE TO THE SECESSION WAR. REFERENCE NOVELS: "THE

SCARLET LETTER"; "THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE".

1. Outline
2. Introduction
2.1 Laws
2.2 Bibliography
3. Historical Background
3.1 From the foundational colonies to the independence of America

3.2 Configuration of the first American states

3.3 Development of democracy in America and westward expansion

3.4 The war of secession (civil war) and its consequences

4. Literary Overview
4.1 Reference novels: The Scarlet Letter and The Red Badge of Courage.
5. Teaching implications
6. Conclusion

INTRODUCTION

TEACHING IMPLICATIONS

CONCLUSION
1. INTRODUCTION

2. FROM THE FOUNDATIONAL COLONIES TO THE INDEPENDENCE OF AMERICA

-Causes of the Revolution

-The Revolutionary War

3. CONFIGURATION OF THE FIRST AMERICAN STATES

-The Constitution

-The Presidents: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James

Madison

4. DEVELOPMENT OF DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA AND WESTWARD EXPANSION

-Nationalism

-Presidents: James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln

5. THE WAR OF SECESSION (Civil War) AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 1861-1865

-Causes of the War

-Four years of fighting

6. REFERENCE NOVELS

-The Scarlet Letter

-The Red Badge of Courage

7. CONCLUSION

8. BIBLIOGRAPHY
 1. INTRODUCTION

The 18th C. is the era of the Enlightenment. This new trend means an evolution of

ideas. Philosophers such as Voltaire, Montesquieu and Rousseau defended the

separation of powers, the equality of all men, and the representatives chosen by

popular election. Locke elevates the concept of the government as a servant of the

governed.

On the political side, Adam Smith elaborates his theories about liberalism in

economy. He writes a work of economic and social theory titled: Inquiry into the

Nature and causes of the Wealth of Nations, commonly known as The Wealth of

Nations.

These principles stated by French and English philosophers were influential and

incorporated in the attitudes of the Colonial intellectual life.

2. FROM THE FOUNDATIONAL COLONIES TO THE INDEPENDENCE OF AMERICA

-Causes of the Revolution

The desires of Americans to be independent from Britain arose out of a long series of

disagreements about money and political control.

Britain had had colonies in North America since 1607 ( Massachusetts, New Jersey,

New York, Rhode Island ....) and kept soldiers there to defend them from attack by the

French and Spanish, and by Native Americans. In order to raise money the British

Parliament tried to make colonists pay taxes.

From 1651, Britain passed a series of laws called Navigation Acts, which said that the

colonists should trade only with Britain. Taxes imposed in the 18th C increased ill

feeling towards Britain. In 1765 the Stamp Act put a tax on newspapers and official

documents. Opposition to this was strong and the following year Parliament had to

remove the tax.

By then, people in both America and Britain were arguing about who had the power

to tax the colonies.

Some colonists, called patriots, began to want independence from Britain. They

expressed their feelings in the slogan “no taxation without representation”.

In 1767 the Townshend Acts put taxes on certain products including tea. The

assemblies of the colonies refused to help collect the money and Parliament

responded by closing them down. All this caused many more people to want

independence. The Tea Act gave a British company the right to sell tea to the

colonists and actually lowered the price for legally imported tea. On 16 Dec 1773, when

ships arrived in Boston Harbour carrying the tea, a group of patriots dressed up as

Native Americans went onto the ships and threw the tea into the water. After the

Boston Tea Party, as the event was later called, Britain passed the Intolerable Acts,

laws to increase her control over the colonies.

More Americans began to support the revolution.

-The Revolutionary War

The Continental Congress suggested that Britain and America should make an

agreement, but Britain refused and so, on 4 July 1776, members of the Congress

signed the Declaration of Independence. This document, written by Thomas

Jefferson, gave the Americans reasons for wanting to be independent. It included

ideas that were rather new, e.g. that ordinary people had certain rights that

governments should respect. Since the British king George III refused to accept this,

America had the right, and duty, to form their own government.

There were victories and defeats on both sides during the 7 years of war.

Lafayette brought French soldiers to fight on the American side. With this help, the

Americans won a victory at Saratoga, New York.

After the American victory in the battle of Saratoga (1777) and Yorktown (1781), Britain

recognized the Independence of the US in 1783. They signed the TREATY OF PARIS

(Versailles) by which the Independence was recognized legally, and it also stated that

Britain retained Canada; Spain received Florida; and France won some West Indian

islands: Tobago, Santa Lucia, and Senegal.

3. CONFIGURATION OF THE FIRST AMERICAN STATES

-The Constitution of the United States of America

In 1787 the American statesmen met in Philadelphia and proclaimed the

establishment of a Presidential Federal Republic. Later on, in the same year, the

Convention of 55 delegates met in Philadelphia State House promulgated the

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. This was the 1st written

fundamental law, and it declared:

a) Separation of powers: Legislative, Executive and Judiciary

Legislative consisted of

-House of Representatives (chosen by the principle of proportion, as reached in the

CONNECTICUT COMPROMISE)

-Senate (with equal representation of each state, 2)

Executive, consisted of a single person, The President

Judiciary, a Supreme Court was created (9 members)

b) Strong federal government that had the power to declare war and make peace

and to tax and regulate commerce.

Another issue was how to count the slaves for representation and taxation. It was

resolved that a slave was counted as 3/5ths. of a person.

The Constitution did not come into force until 2 years later, that is in 1789 and 22

Amendments were added to it. The 10 first are commonly known as the Bill of Rights.

-The Presidents

GEORGE WASHINGTON (Federalist, from 1789 to 1797)

He was the 1st President of the US. He made important contributions since all the

decisions he took set precedence. He chose Jefferson as his Secretary of State,

Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury, and Henry Knox as his Secretary of War. His

vice-president was John Adams. During his period of rule the bases for American

Capitalism were set. His term was also marked by an important industrial

development. He was elected President of the US twice, but he refused to be

President for a 3rd time.

JOHN ADAMS (Federalist, from 1797 to 1801)

John Adams was elected President in 1797. Jefferson became vice-president. This

period was marked by strained relations with France. In this year the conflicts with

the Southern States began. He was not re-elected

THOMAS JEFFERSON (Republican, from 1801 to 1809)

He was an important member of the Continental Congress and wrote most of the

Declaration of Independence.

He became the leader of a group who were to form the Democratic-Republican party.

As a Republican he reacted against the centralism of the Union. He was an advocate

of states’ rights and freedom for the farmer.

His main concern was the foreign affairs and especially territorial expansion. In 1803

he ordered the purchase of Louisiana, and the Slave Trade officially stopped being

legal.

His darkest hour was an embargo he authorised on all American exports, due to the

fact that Britain and France had imposed orders and decrees that limited American

trade with Europe. Jefferson inaugurated the period of the “Virginia Dynasty”

Presidency.

JAMES MADISON (Republican, from 1809 to 1817)

He is sometimes called “Father of the Constitution” because of his work at the

Constitutional Convention in 1787. During the period he ruled, commercial restrictions

to force France and Britain to respect freedom of the seas were approved. American

relations with both Britain and France degenerated.

He started the War of 1812 against Great Britain, and it was called “Mr Madison War”.

During the war, US soldiers attacked Canada, but without success. The British

captured
Washington, DC, and burned the Capitol and the White House. American successes,

however, led to the Treaty of Ghent ,Belgium (1814) which ended the war.

4. DEVELOPMENT OF DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA AND THE WESTWARD

EXPANSION

-Nationalism

The years after 1815 were marked by a surge of nationalism throughout the country,

an enhancement of national power.

The American government had decided to create new states which entered the Union

on an equal basis with the other states. The 13 original states were soon

outnumbered by the new admissions of the 19th C. Five new states were created by

1816: Kentucky (1792), Tennessee (1796), Ohio (1803), Louisiana (1812) and Indiana (1816).

More admissions were accepted during the following years.

This expansion was made by a remarkable increase in the American population. This

increase was aided by immigrants who poured into the US during the 19th C ,

attracted by the prospect of land, economic prosperity and a high degree of

religious and political freedom.

-Presidents

JAMES MONROE ( Republican, from 1817 to 1825)

During his ruling the major crisis on the question of the expansion of slavery arose. It

was in 1819 when Missouri applied for the Union. The problem was that this territory

expanded both to the North (free states) and to the South (slavery). The question was

whether to admit the territory as a free state or as a slave state. In 1820 with the

COMPROMISE OF MISSOURI , Missouri entered the Union as a divided state: the

northern part of the line 36 30’, entered as a free state. The southern part entered as

a slave state. The number of states rose to 23 by then.

Monroe also bought Florida from Spain in 1819.

In a speech in 1823 he stated his Monroe Doctrine, that countries of Europe should

not get involved in the affairs of the countries of North and South America, and, in
exchange for this, the US would not get involved in European affairs. It was

summarized in the sentence: “America for the Americans”

All in all, his time as President was called the ‘Era of Good Feeling’.

ANDREW JACKSON (Democrat, from 1829 to 1837)

He won a resounding victory in the elections, which meant the end of the presidents

from Virginia and the coming of popular democracy. The suffrage was expanded.

During his term the following changes took place:

-Political transformation

It was based on a two-party system: Democrats and Republicans.

The Democrats wanted freedom of state, a society more equal, and economic

liberalism

The Republicans were more conservative.

-Demographic growth

In 1820 there were 9 million inhabitants, and in 1860 there were 32 million (mainly due

to European immigrants)

-Economic development

Labour was required for factories, and gold fever started (search for gold)

-Territorial expansion

Oregon, Texas, New Mexico and California annexed the Union

With the admission of Nebraska the compromise of Missouri was broken. Nebraska

was divided into 2 territories: Kansas and Nebraska, and they had to sort out the

question on slavery.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN (Republican, from 1861 to 1865)

He was a Republican and anti-slavery politician. He won political support in the

Northern States because of his speeches against slavery, but this made him

unpopular in the Southern States.

The American Civil War started soon after he became President.

 5. THE WAR OF SECESSION (CIVIL WAR) AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

-Causes of the War

The American Civil War was fought between the northern and southern states from

1861 to 1865. There were two main causes of the war. The 1st was the issue of slavery:

should Africans who had been brought by force to the US be used as slaves. The 2nd

was the issue of states’ rights: should the US federal government be more powerful

than the governments of individual states?

The North and the South were very different in character. The economy of the South

was based on agriculture, especially cotton. Picking cotton was hard work, and the

south depended on slaves for this. The North was more industrial, with a larger

population and greater wealth. Slavery, and opposition to it had existed since before

independence 1776, but, in the 19th c. the abolitionists, people who wanted to make

slavery illegal, gradually increased in number. The South’s attitude was that each

state had the right to make any law it wanted.

Many southerners became secessionists, believing that the southern states should

secede the Union (= become independent from the US).

As Abraham Lincoln was against slavery, the southern states began to leave the

Union in 1860. There were then 34 states in the US. 11 of them (South Carolina,

Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Lousiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas,

Tennessee, and South Carolina) left the Union and formed the Confederate States of

America, often called the Confederacy.

Jefferson Davis became its President.

-Four years of fighting

On 12 April 1861, the Confederate Army attacked Fort Sumter, which was in the

Confederate state of South Carolina but still occupied by the Union army. President

Lincoln could not ignore the attack and so the Civil War began.

The Union army tried to take control of the South. After the battle of Gettysburg in

1863, in a speech known as the Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln said that the

North was fighting the war to keep the Union together so that ...’government of the
people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth’. In the same

year he issued the Emancipation Proclamation which made slavery illegal.

On 9 April 1865, when the South could not fight any more, General Robert Lee

surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox Court house in Virginia.

A total of 620 000 people had been killed and many more wounded.

John Wilkes Booth, an actor who supported the South, decided to kill President

Lincoln. On 14 April 1865 he approached the President in Ford’s Theatre in

Washington and shot him.

The killing of President Lincoln showed how bitter many people felt. The South had

been beaten, but its people had not changed their opinions about slavery or about

states’ rights.

During the war, the differences between the North and the South had become even

greater. The North had become richer. In the South, cities had been destroyed and

the economy ruined.

6. REFERENCE NOVELS

-The Scarlet Letter

It was written by the US writer Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850. The story is about

Puritans in 17th c. New England. Hester Prynne is found guilty of adultery and is made

to wear a scarlet (= red) letter “A” on her dress. There have been 3 film versions,

including one in 1995 with Demi Moore as Hester.

The main characters are:

-Hester, she is the main character and the adulterous woman who wears the letter “A”

-Pearl, she is Hester’s daughter, fruit of her adultery

-Chillingworth, he is Hester’s husband

-Arthur Dimmesdale, a pastor, Pearl’s father

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1809 in Salem, Mass. One of his ancestors was a

judge of witchcraft trials. Consequently he had a mood of sin and guilt. These are the
recurring themes in his works. His novels are set in New England during the time of

the Puritans.

Opposite to the optimistic philosophy of the Transcendentalists, he had a tragic

vision of life. His hero is always a man alienated from society with a hidden sin.

Other works are The House of the Seven Gables (1851). His best-known collections of

short stories are the two volumes of Twice-Told Tales (1837, 1842).

-The Red Badge of Courage

It was written in 1895. It is the story of a young boy, Henry Fleming, who joins the army

when he hears that there is a war in his country. This is the Civil War of the US. His

major concern as a soldier is to cope with fear of death, and to preserve his esteem

within the regiment. At first he is flooded with fear and wants to come back home. He

meets two brave soldiers there: Jim, who is killed in the war, and Wilson.

Later Henry becomes an aggressive soldier. He is encouraged to fight and becomes

the flag bearer. He has constructed his own mental defences against fear. The story

has a happy ending.

Stephen Crane (1871-1900) was a US journalist who wrote poems and realistic novels.

His ancestors were soldiers and this influenced his work. He rebelled against the

dogmas of vices: novel, theatre, baseball, tobacco and alcohol.

This novel, which is a psychological portrayal of fear, is an attempt to achieve with

words what the Impressionists achieved with painting: to capture discrete moments.

The theme of war had hardly been treated before by the American realists; The Civil

War fascinated his generation because it was their own war, and not a war against

Europeans.

7. CONCLUSION

The importance of the 1770s and 1870s was the emergence of the United States of

America in a form that we can recognise today.

It's important to develop our students' interest in American literature and history in

order to understand the social characteristics, religious beliefs and political

evolution of this country, the United States, with such a huge influence in our culture

nowadays.

8. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Berryman, J. 1950. Stephen Crane. Methuen, London

Cunliffe, Marcus, 1970. The Literature of the United States. Penguin

Encyclopædia Britannica
Guide to British and American Culture. Oxford, 1999

James, H. 1956. Hawthorne. Ithaca.

Ousby, Ian. The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English.CUP

The Norton Anthology of American Literature

http://eldred.ne.mediaone.net/nh/hawthorne.html
ORIGINS: The discontent of the colonies began to be truly obvious in the war fought
between 1689 and 1763. At the end of this war England had acquired from France:
Canada and all the land between the Appalachians and the Mississippi, and from
Spain Florida.
The war brought about fiscal and administrative problems.
To solve them, a tariff was proposed on sugar, molasses and rum imported into
America from the West Indies. The colonies fought against it and won, denying the
right of the British Parliament to tax the colonies without representation.
The same happened with the Stamp Act, imposing that stamps be affixed to
newspapers, pamphlets, legal documents… the British gov. Repealed the act, but
imposes the Declaratory Act asserting the Parliament´s right to legislate for the
colonies.
Apart from these financial problems, another source of discontent in the colonies
was the presence of the British Army with headquarters in NY and later in Boston.
There were many clashes between colonialists and Red Coats. The worst: the Boston
massacre in 1770.
In 1767, Townshend Acts, imposing duties on certain imports. Once again the British
gov. Had to retreat, but left a tax on tea (The tea Act) to demonstrate that the
Declaratory Act was being upheld. By the Tea Act, the East India Company, acquired
a monopoly of the tea trade with America. The colonial response was to dump into
the water a whole cargo of tea that had arrived to Boston harbour. This episody is
known as the Boston tea Party.
The king of England, George III, decides to use the force, and the parliament passes a
series of punitive measures, the Intolerable Acts. The result was a closer tie between
the thirteen colonies.
September 1, 1774, a Congress was held in Philadelphia, where a boycott of British
goods, and a Declaration and Resolves were adopted, declaring the colonists´right to
life, liberty, and property.
From this date until July 4, 1776, the Americans fought against the British, not
explicitly seeking independence.
July 4, 1776, John Hancock, president of the congress, signed a declaration of
independence.
The war lasts until September 3, 1783. A definitive treaty is signed in which United
States secure its independence, with the Mississippi as its western boundary, and the
right to fish off Newfounland and Nova Scotia.
CONSEQUENCES:
CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES: A constitutional system based on the consent of the
people was established. This constitutions were revolutionary, although based on the
colonial charters. The powers of the governor were deeply restricted, and those of
the legislature, increased.
All states, except Connecticut and Rhode Island adopted constitutions with this
principle.
Massachusetts went even further when it submitted its constitution to the ratitication
of the people.
The Virginia constitution added a Bill of Rights, which would be the model for
following constitutions.
SOCIAL AND ECONOMICAL CHANGES:
Property law. Entail (an inheritance life state) and primogeniture (exclusive
inheritance by the first-born male) were abolished.
Religious area. Disestablishment of the church of england and the extension of
religious tolerance.
Reform of criminal law.
SLAVERY
This institution was untouched. The war triggered a movement in the northern states
to abolish it, but the southern states were against it. Some southerners as Thomas
Jefferson and Henry Laurens expressed their opposition to slavery, but the people
were not ready for such a change. They had a long way to go, in a nation where half a
million people lived in slavery.
THE MAKING OF A NATION
The social and economic problems that had become evident after the revolution
were an important element in the closer union of the states. In 1786 a meeting was
called in Annapolis, Maryland, to resolve commercial difficulties. Only representatives
from 5 states came. But the result was the drawing up of the Federal Constitution.
Its main characteristic is the concern for protecting individual rights against the
pretensions of authority. James Madison was the principal author of the document.
The constitution defined a central authority but maintained the existing structure of
state and local authority as a check on the central authority.
Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, ,and James
Madison were the man who made possible the establishment of the new government.
In 1778, they sign an alliance with France. In the 1790s, Hamilton wants an open war
with France (France and England were supposed not to respect maritime American
rights), breaking the alliance. Adams was opposed to the war. Both were of the
Federalist Party, but as a result of the disagreement, Hamilton abandones it.
The signing of the Jay Treatment with Britain, divided the public. Two parties
emerged: the Federalist (in favour of the treaty) and the Democratic Republicans
Washington and Hamilton, they are opposed to the treaty, and to every involvement
in European affairs. They try to erase the vestiges of the French Alliance.
When Jefferson became president in 1801 he maintained the same position, but when
the British and French renewed attacks on American shipping, he decreed an
embargo on all foreign commerce. The majority was against, and Congress had to
repeal the act.
James Madison (1809) renews the embargo and in 1809 America goes to war with
Great Britain. At the end of the war, if there is a winner, that is the Republican Party,
who claims to have won honourably against a powerful enemy. The Federalists can´t
help being considered in the enemy's part, and disintegrate.
James Monroe came to the presidency in 1817 and old divisions seem to fade.
When Spain begins to lose its American empire, both Britain and America hope to
profit from it. England proposes a statement supporting Latin independence. When
they back away, the United States decide to do it alone. The result was the Monroe
doctrine, which states that the American Continents are not to be considered
subjects for future colonization by any European power, and the United States
renounces any intention of interfering in internal problems of Europe: the United
States had achieved total independence as a nation.
4 SLAVERY AND THE CIVIL WAR
Contradiction: “all men are created equal” <—> 6th of population slaves
Society had been brought up in the conviction that the black race was an inferior
one, and even men like Jefferson had their doubts about it. But the ideologies of the
18th century influence the Unites States, and the conflict arises.
The 1st victory of the antislavery agitation occurred when Vermont, prohibits slavery in
its constitution. One by one, all the northern states followed its example. From this
point, the agitation against southern slavery began.
The critical time: 1819. Missouri (in which slavery existed) was to become a state. There
existed the idea (fantastic!) of emancipation under the condition of expatriation to
Africa, but the blacks belonged to a generation that didn´t even know that continent.
Meanwhile abolitionists in Britain got slavery abolished in 1833.
The struggle becomes violent. In 1836, the Gag Rule, provided that every petition to
congress on the subject of slavery be automatically disregarded. John Quincy
Adams, tries over and over to challenge the rule, but every time is silenced by his
fellow members. The gag rule continued to be applied until 1843.
The Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian church, were split in sections, pro and anti
slavery. From the pulpits of all the nation, slavery was denounced by some and
justified by others.
The future of slavery was intertwined with the issue of territorial expansion. When
Texas revolts against Mexico. The United States supports Them, and the result is its
annexation in 1835. The democrat candidate Polk supported following expansion into
Oregon, and south into Mexico, which makes him win the election. Later he
precipitates a war against Mexico over the issue of expansion, which is won in 1848.
This makes the problem bigger, since this expansion also meant the expansion of
slavery.
In Clay´s time, a compromise is reached.
Pro slavery anti-slavery
Calif. Into Union fee. Utah and New Mexico
Left to local settlers
Strengthened fugitive Slavery trade over
Act was passed in Columbia
Soon becomes dead letter as one northern state after other passes personal liberty
laws that made almost impossible to apply the act. North gives back nulification of
Gag Rule.
By 1860, the voters went to the polls, the long agitation of the last decades becomes a
civil war. Peace was restored in 1865, slavery was removed, but the constitutional
sentence still was, and is, in contradiction with the social reality of the United States.

The scarlet letter and the red badge of courage.

He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachussets. He was a descendant of a long line of

puritan rulers. As a child, he heard many different stories from this puritan past. One
of his forefathers was the one that prosecuted the famous witches of Salem, an
episode that illustrates the puritan intolerance.
After graduating in Bowdoin College, he returned to his home town, where he spent 12
years in semi-isolation. During these years, he draws information about the early
story of america, and writes his first tales. These are alegoric tales, centered in moral
conflicts and in the effects of puritanism in the colonnies of New England. These
tales were recopilated in Twice told tales. The historical past of America, and the
roots of this country would always be a point of reference in his career. Journal of a
solitary man is a sort of autobiographical work, about a man who spends a long time
in isolation. When he leaves this isolation, he can no longer mantain a normal
relationship with the other members of the community. Characters in Hawthorne´s
novels are usually out of touch with the real people in conventional situations. His
main characters are usually allienated, in some way or other.
In 1841 he spends 6 months in the communal society of Brook Farm, trying to get an
economical stability that would allow him to get married, and to have time to write.
Blithedale farm, a novel inspired in his stay in Brooke farm.
The following year he marries Amelia Peabody, from Salem, and they settle in
Concord, Massachussets. During this period, in which he works for the government,
he sets off to write his masterpiece, The scarlett letter, a story about an adulter
puritan, Hester Prynne, which refuses to reveal the name of his lover.
In 1850, he moves to Lenox (Massachussets), where he enjoys the friendship of one of
his admirers, the novelist Herman Melville. There he writes The house of the seven
gables , about the decadence of puritanism in an old New England family, and
HAWTHORNE AND THE PAST
Another constant in his production is the constant dealing with the past. Past in
Hawthorne is not just a temporal context for his novels and tales, but also the only
way to understand present. He talks about American puritan past to make people
reflect about American present, and about what America has inherited from that
past. Besides, situating the facts in the past, allows him to create an atmosphere of
vagueness, as if time had removed the limits between legend and reality, imagination
and memory. He mixes real elements and supernatural ones, he introduces allegories
and comparisons, abstract terms supplying concrete ones, creating a climate of
vagueness, as if we saw facts through the fogs created by time. In this sense, he is an
example of magic realism, which Suramerican writers would develope a century later.
Besides, we have an intrusive narrator, which helps to increase the sensation of
distance between the reader and the text.
THE SCARLETT LETTER
PURITANISM
We can´t talk about this novel without understanding what puritanism was and what
represented in the first times of the American community.
Puritanism is a religious reform movement in the Church of England during the late
XVI and XVII century. It sought to purify the church from rests of Roman Catholic
popery. Puritanism is the American version of Calvinism, the doctrine of the first
colonists who arrived to America (1620, Plymouth Rock, Massachussets), from the U.K..
It is a very fatalistic and pessimistic doctrine. Puritans see the world as a sacred text
written by God, and in which they must read the meanings which are hidden in every
fact, circumstance, or event. For the Puritan, everything is extremely significative and
symbolic. For them, law and religion is the same thing, God´s law and man made law is
the same, and going against law is going against God himself. Example: what
independence meant for Puritans.
PLOT AND MEANING: As we have said before, this novel presents the story of a
woman, Hester Pryne, who is condemned by all the puritan community in Boston, to
wear a badge of shame because she has committed adultery. She has a daughter,
Pearl, fruit of this adulterous relation, and she rejects to tell the community who the
father is. The other characters are Arthur Dimmesdale, Pearl´s father and minister of
the puritan community, and Roger Chillingworth, Hester´s husband. Hawthorme
presents her as a good natured woman, who has sinned against the laws of men, but
who hasn´t sinned against God. It is an attack on ad condemnation of Puritanism. He
makes an heroine of a “fallen woman”, and presents the puritan community as the
real sinners.
Hawthorne uses an exuberant imaginery to reflect this contraposition.
One example is the scene in the forest. Arthur and Hester meet in the forest after
having repressed their love for seven long years. It must remembered that Nature, for
the puritans, was the source of temptation and evil. As Hester removes the stigma
that society has placed on her for her sin, the badge of shame, nature responds with
ablessing on the couple in the form of a flood of sunshine, and Hester´s beauty,
which has been dimmed over the years of shame, appears fully again. Sin only exists
in the context of society, it is the repression of society the real sin in the novel. What
society condemns, nature smiles upon and blesses.
This contrast between what is natural and good and what is agaainst conventions,
and therefore, bad is evident in the emblematic letter A that Hester is forced to wear
on her breast as a symbol for shame. Hester transform this symbol in a thing of
beauty. The author describes it as artistically done, in accordance with the taste of
the age, but beyond what was allowed by the austere regulations of the colonny.
The author uses this American puritan past to offer a reflection about sin, crime, and
the effects of feeling guilty on the human beings.
STRUCTURE
The novel is structured around 3 parallel scenes in the book, that mark three
different stages. The common factor of these three scenes is that they take place in
the scaffold raised in the square of the town.
The first scaffold scene presents a confrontation between Hester, accompanied by
Pearl, and the puritan community. It is important here the symbolic use of colours
used in this scene by Hawthorne:
Hester is wearing colourful garments, red clothes, she has shiny glossy hair. The
intrusive narrator already mentioned identifies her with the virgin. The puritan
community is wearing dim garments and gloomy clothes.
In this part of the novel, we are presented the dilemma the novel deals with.
The second scaffold scene takes place at night, the protagonist of this scene is
Arthur Dimmesdale. he feels guilty and he can´t bear this psychological torture. He
goes up the scaffold because he needs to confess his crime, although he knows there
is nobody there to hear him. However he is heard by Roger, Hester´s husband. From
this moment, Roger will display all his evil power to torture Arthur psychologically. In
this scene we can see one of the examples of supernatural powers in the novel. There
is a storm and
The lightning draws the letter A, now standing for Arthur, in the sky.
The third scaffold scene coincides with the end of the novel. Arthur delivers a sermon
in which he insinuates that he is Pearl´s father. He dies in the arms of Hester. Some of
the presents can see the letter A burnt on his flesh.
The letter A is a symbol, which stands for Adultery in the first scene, for Arthur in the
second, and for Angel in the last one.
PEARL
The Scarlett letter is also the story of Pearl, Hester´s daughter, who is the scarlett
letter, the symbol for adultery, in human form. To the child, the letter A stands for
Arthur. The first thing she sees, when she begins to become aware of the world
surrounding her, is the letter A on her mother´s bossom. In the first scene on the
scaffold, Arthur urges Hester to confess who Pearl´s father is. She keeps silent, but
Pearl, holds her arms at Arthur, with a half pleasant half plaintive murmur. This
chapter is called “the recognition”. Allthroughout the rest of the novel, Pearl will urge
her father, by means of insinuations and bits of play, to recognize her as his
daughter.
Finally, we must say that the value of this masterpiece are found in Hawthorne´s
ability to transform the raw materials of social, religious, and familiar history into
works of literature, and his dealing with the past as key for the understanding and
correcting of the present and as a literary device to achieve the magic and semi
legendary atmosphere that surrounds his narrative.