Why the Custom-House?
September 4, 2007 6:31 PM Subscribe
LitFilter: Why did Nathaniel Hawthorne choose to include "The Custom-House" at the beginning of The Scarlet Letter?
The somewhat biographical introductory sketch of course reflects Hawthorne's own thoughts and experiences, but was there a greater reason why he felt that it was necessary to his novel?
Facts about Hawthorne's life, historical evidence, literary analysis, and pure speculation are all entirely welcome.
The somewhat biographical introductory sketch of course reflects Hawthorne's own thoughts and experiences, but was there a greater reason why he felt that it was necessary to his novel?
Facts about Hawthorne's life, historical evidence, literary analysis, and pure speculation are all entirely welcome.
Response by poster: Yeah, I realized that as I looked back at it. Sorry, that's not what it is meant to be at all. Scratch everything about analysis and speculation. I just wanna know if there was some specific thing that nudged Hawthorne to include it. It seems to me like it really did improve the novel, but why did he personally think it would?
posted by joshers13 at 7:03 PM on September 4, 2007
posted by joshers13 at 7:03 PM on September 4, 2007
It's basically just a frame story -- none of it is true. Back at the time there seemed to be a lot of effort put into lots of novels and such to provide them with some sort of "veracity" and "prove" that they were more than mere fiction.
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:10 PM on September 4, 2007
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:10 PM on September 4, 2007
Ditto DoctorFedora. It's backstory. We see that all the way up to the present day.
posted by fiercecupcake at 7:32 PM on September 4, 2007
posted by fiercecupcake at 7:32 PM on September 4, 2007
It's basically just a frame story -- none of it is true.
Actually, some of the frame story is 'true.'
Hawthorne's personal "work history" was defined by his role in 1839 as a weigher and gauger at the Boston Custom House and then later in 1846 as a 'Surveyor of the Port' at the Salem Custom House.
I suspect that the inclusion of a recounting of his three-year tenure in the Custom House at Salem in the preface of 'The Scarlet Letter' was intended to provide 'gravitas' to the novel -- and much in keeping with what DoctorFedora and fiercecupcake refer to as 'backstory.'
BTW, there is this from the National Park Service website:
Actually, some of the frame story is 'true.'
Hawthorne's personal "work history" was defined by his role in 1839 as a weigher and gauger at the Boston Custom House and then later in 1846 as a 'Surveyor of the Port' at the Salem Custom House.
I suspect that the inclusion of a recounting of his three-year tenure in the Custom House at Salem in the preface of 'The Scarlet Letter' was intended to provide 'gravitas' to the novel -- and much in keeping with what DoctorFedora and fiercecupcake refer to as 'backstory.'
BTW, there is this from the National Park Service website:
"Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804, in a small house three blocks from the Custom House. By the 1840s, he was a well known author, but he found it difficult to support his family on his writing. Fortunately, his best friend was Franklin Pierce, who later became President of the United States. Pierce and other friends in the Democratic Party got the job of Surveyor for Hawthorne (who had worked for the Customs Service in Boston a few years earlier) in 1846. With the change in administration from the Democratic to the Whig Party in 1848, however, Hawthorne lost his job after a painful and prolonged fight to continue as Surveyor.posted by ericb at 8:53 PM on September 4, 2007
He turned the pain, anger, and betrayal he felt into his first great novel, 'The Scarlet Letter.' In the introduction to the novel, he describes the Salem Custom House and pretends to find the story among the papers of a previous surveyor."
Well, it's really a bit more than "just" a frame story. It's also an extended exploration of what it means to be a writer.
On that level, it's pretty clearly a chance for Hawthorne to expose just how much conscious thought he dedicated to things like:
- The act of writing
- His relationship to his characters
- How his stories might stem from the real world, but are transformed through his imagination
Given that The Scarlet Letter was the first novel he published under his own name, it's no surprise that he would have prefaced it with a small tour de force like The Custom-House. Sort of an opening statement, making it clear that he's a genuine, thoughtful writer, and that he intends the novel that follows to be taken very seriously.
(Plus, while the story's not strictly autobiographical, he _had_ been Surveyor at a Custom-House, himself--he lost that position to politics just a year or two before Custom-House/Scarlet Letter was published. There are pretty obvious parallels between the transition his character talks about, and what was going on in his own life.)
posted by LairBob at 9:08 PM on September 4, 2007
On that level, it's pretty clearly a chance for Hawthorne to expose just how much conscious thought he dedicated to things like:
- The act of writing
- His relationship to his characters
- How his stories might stem from the real world, but are transformed through his imagination
Given that The Scarlet Letter was the first novel he published under his own name, it's no surprise that he would have prefaced it with a small tour de force like The Custom-House. Sort of an opening statement, making it clear that he's a genuine, thoughtful writer, and that he intends the novel that follows to be taken very seriously.
(Plus, while the story's not strictly autobiographical, he _had_ been Surveyor at a Custom-House, himself--he lost that position to politics just a year or two before Custom-House/Scarlet Letter was published. There are pretty obvious parallels between the transition his character talks about, and what was going on in his own life.)
posted by LairBob at 9:08 PM on September 4, 2007
(Also, if you want to get all lit-majory, you could write a whole paper on how in The Custom-House, he finds the "scarlet letter" in "the second story". Come to think of it, about 25 years ago, I think I _did_. Good times.)
posted by LairBob at 9:12 PM on September 4, 2007
posted by LairBob at 9:12 PM on September 4, 2007
Also, the writing styles in The Custom House and The Scarlet Letter differ greatly - so greatly, in fact, that many people consider them to be foils in writing style. The Custom House is so candid, straight-forward, and conversational, that it just serves to emphasize all of the literary devices that make The Scarlet Letter into the premier work of the American Romance genre - full of symbolism and ambiguity, so unlike The Custom House.
posted by The Esteemed Doctor Bunsen Honeydew at 10:29 PM on September 4, 2007
posted by The Esteemed Doctor Bunsen Honeydew at 10:29 PM on September 4, 2007
we were led to believe in 10th grade that the Custom House was, yes, a framing, and also an opportunity for Hawthorne to write a little criticism about the romantic style -- of course, this is pretty much the go-to analysis and straight from the Cliff Notes:
Hawthorne begins The Scarlet Letter with a long introductory essay that generally functions as a preface but, more specifically, accomplishes four significant goals: outlines autobiographical information about the author, describes the conflict between the artistic impulse and the commercial environment, defines the romance novel (which Hawthorne is credited with refining and mastering), and authenticates the basis of the novel by explaining that he had discovered in the Salem Custom House the faded scarlet A and the parchment sheets that contained the historical manuscript on which the novel is based.
I'm sure there's more nuanced interpretations out there, but I'm not sure they're going to come in the form of a comment. Maybe folks could recommend good literary criticism they've read on the Scarlet Letter? You may have to venture into a library for this one.
posted by fishfucker at 7:53 AM on September 5, 2007
Hawthorne begins The Scarlet Letter with a long introductory essay that generally functions as a preface but, more specifically, accomplishes four significant goals: outlines autobiographical information about the author, describes the conflict between the artistic impulse and the commercial environment, defines the romance novel (which Hawthorne is credited with refining and mastering), and authenticates the basis of the novel by explaining that he had discovered in the Salem Custom House the faded scarlet A and the parchment sheets that contained the historical manuscript on which the novel is based.
I'm sure there's more nuanced interpretations out there, but I'm not sure they're going to come in the form of a comment. Maybe folks could recommend good literary criticism they've read on the Scarlet Letter? You may have to venture into a library for this one.
posted by fishfucker at 7:53 AM on September 5, 2007
In the same vein of a few of the comments here, I always though of the Custom House - Scarlet Letter being an expression of biblical typology. I haven't read it recently enough to make a solid case for that, but I think if you read that wiki article after having read your Hawthorne, it'll at least give you some food for thought.
posted by SmarterChild at 12:30 PM on September 5, 2007
posted by SmarterChild at 12:30 PM on September 5, 2007
SmarterChild, even though my second comment was a little flip, I think you're absolutely right. It's really a matter of just how much you're willing to read into a text like Custom-House. If you want to wade into the deeper waters--where you're willing to give works like this and Moby Dick a lot of credit for the depth of symbolism and allegory they contain--there are definitely structural patterns between the first story and the second that can reward closer thought.
Certainly, even just looking at your reference to biblical typology makes it clear that people have been thinking in terms of symbol and allegory for a _very_ long time. If you're willing to look at Hawthorne as a shining light in a long historical line of sophisticated, metaphorical thinkers, then it makes sense to look at the very small details of the first story, and explore how they resonate with the larger novel that follows.
posted by LairBob at 9:25 PM on September 5, 2007
Certainly, even just looking at your reference to biblical typology makes it clear that people have been thinking in terms of symbol and allegory for a _very_ long time. If you're willing to look at Hawthorne as a shining light in a long historical line of sophisticated, metaphorical thinkers, then it makes sense to look at the very small details of the first story, and explore how they resonate with the larger novel that follows.
posted by LairBob at 9:25 PM on September 5, 2007
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by emyd at 6:41 PM on September 4, 2007