Monday 5 December Scarlet Letter introduction

In class today: collecting Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.
HOMEWORK :As you can see from the schedule below, you are responsible for for Chapters 1 and 2 tomorrow.
Pay particular attention to Hester's interior and exterior life. These questions are due at the beginning of class; you may also send them along before. the responses need not be extensive, but please use complete sentences. Nothing will be accepted late.
1. What do we know about the values of "the founders of a new colony [who] have invariable recognized it among their earlies practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemeter, and another portion as the site of a prison?"
2.Compare the attitude of the "God-fearing gentlemen", the "autumnal matron" and the "young wife, holding a child by the hand" towards Hester's punishment.
3. Describe the other countenance Hester saw as she stood on the scaffold.
4. Had Hester been a Papist she would have been an "image of Divine Maternity"? What is Hawthorned suggesting of the character in giving us this picture?
Words you need to know:
1. edifice n. building
2. ensue v. to take place afterward
3. feign v. to pretend
4. gesticulation n. expressive gesture
5. ignominy n. deep humiliation; disgrace
6. inauspicious adj. unfavorable
7. panoply n. full suit of armor; impressive array
8. tribunal- n. court or meeting at which a trial is carried out
Here is the reading schedule.
Tuesday 6 December Chapter 1 The Prison House and Chapter 2 The Market Place
Wednesday 7 December Chapter 3 The Recognition and Chapter 4 The Interview
Thursday 8 December Chapter 5 Hester at her Needle, Chapter 6 Pearl, Chapter 7 The
Governor’s Hall and Chapter 8 The Elf Child and the Minister
Friday 9 December Chapter 9 The Leech and Chapter 10 The Leech and his Patient
Monday 12 December Chapter 11 The Interior of the Heart, Chapter 12 The Minister’s Vigil,
Chapter 13 Another View of Hester
Tuesday 13 December Chapter 14 Hester and The Physician, Chapter 15, Hester and Pearl,
Chapter 16 A Forest Walk
Wednesday 14 December The Pastor and his Parishioner, Chapter 18 A Flood of Sunshine,
Chapter 19 The Child at the Brook-Side
Thursday 15 December Chapter 20 The Minister in a Maze, Chapter 21 New England Holiday,
Chapter 22 The Procession
Friday 16 December Chapter 23 The Revelation, Chapter 24 Conclusion

Please familiarize yourself with Hawthorne's background, especially the Transendentalist movement.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) was born in Salem, Massachusetts, a descendant of a long line of Puritan ancestors including John Hathorne, a presiding magistrate in the Salem witch trials. In order to distance himself from his family's shameful involvement in the witch trials, Hawthorne added the "w" to his last name during his early 20s. After his father, a ship captain, died of yellow fever at sea when Nathaniel was only four, his mother became overly protective and pushed him toward relatively isolated pursuits. Hawthorne's childhood left him overly shy and bookish, which molded his life as a writer. Hawthorne turned to writing after his graduation from Bowdoin College. His insufficient earnings as a writer forced Hawthorne to enter a career as a Boston Custom House measurer in 1839. After three years Hawthorne was dismissed from his job with the Salem Custom House, but by 1842, his writing finally gave Hawthorne a sufficient income to marry Sophia Peabody and move to The Manse in Concord, which was the center of the Transcendental movement. Hawthorne then devoted himself to his most famous novel, The Scarlet Letter. He zealously worked on the novel with a determination he had not known before. His intense suffering infused the novel with imaginative energy, leading him to describe it as a "hell-fired story." The Scarlet Letter was an immediate success that allowed Hawthorne to devote himself to his writing.

A reminder: who were the Pilgrims.
A religious group which migrated from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in New England in the early 1600s, the Puritans believed in a “pure” interpretation of the Bible which did not include some of the traditional practices of the Church of England. Although the Church did not officially control the State in Puritan settlements, religion and government were closely intertwined. The ministers counseled the magistrates in all affairs concerning the settlement and its citizens. The Puritans had strict rules against the theater, religious music, sensuous poetry, and frivolous dress.