reaction to Scarlet Letter

I'd like to continue the line of inquiry I posed this morning on the relation between the chapter titled "The Custom-House: Introductory to 'The Scarlet Letter'" and what we might call the novel proper. Some of you talked about thematic connections and observed the similarity between the narrator and Hester Prynne, as both are drawn to a place "where some great and marked event has given the color to their lifetime" (chapter 5). Does the novel propose yet another reason for yoking these two sections together?

Obviously, the narrator uses the Custom-House setting to reveal how he discovered the documents that enabled him to piece together the story he tells of Hester Prynne. But beyond the convenience of establishing a reason for the telling of the tale, does the Custom-House introduction serve some other purpose? Perhaps a simpler way of putting the question is to ask whether the narrator is suggesting that what happened in Salem in the 1640s has any bearing on what is happening in Salem in the 1850s. In other words, what effect does a culture's past have on its life in the present? In answering this question, do not speak in generalities. Rather, find a place in the novel itself that seems to you to link the Salem of 1640 to the Salem of 1850.

Do not spend more than 30 or 45 minutes trying to answer this question. And remember, there is no "right" answer. Have some fun with this exercise.

Required novels for the semester

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

William Faulkner, Light in August

Walker Percy, The Moviegoer

Cormac McCarthy, Child of God

Flannery O’Connor, Wise Blood

Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

Chet Raymo, The Dork of Cork