"Scarlet Letter..it is a true story"

[CoOL-GiRL]

..
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Hi everyone...


-I like to share with u some points that related to Howthorne's book, The scarlet Letter.

-actually, I like this novel so much, I enjoied every chapter., I feel sorry to Hester and the poor Pearl.

-The ideas in this novel comes from Howthorne's expereince
When he was working in the custom house, he was working in some dicuments. He found the story about the woman of scarlet letter whom made a sin also he found the scarlet letter (A) itself.

- The novel is full of metafors Like:

1-The Rose Bush: which simbolize a survival and love ,and there is a life after prison.

2-Prison: The symbol of religous, strik socity and lack of freedom

3-The scarlet letter (A): symbol of Adult and Able.

...

[vitriol]

erm the beginning, about the custom house is actually part of the novel
the person that narrates the book, although very much like hawthorne, is not hawthorne
the scarlet letter it is entirely fictional

oh and the letter means adulterer, not adult, but it symbolizes much more than that
hawthorne likes to hit you over the head with a hammer of symbolism

[baba yaga]

Though I agree that the symbolism in the Scarlet Letter expands far, far beyond this list it is actually true that Hawthorne worked in the customs house of Salem, MA... though I can't verify that he ever encountered the actual scarlet letter. It is possible though, I do know that at those times the poor were sometimes made to don the letter P.

[cassiope]

Agree with Vitriol. Hawthorne did work in the Custom House (and was kicked out of there aswell but the reason wasn't at all what he said in the Custom House) the fact that the Custom House 'sounds' sincere is just a ploy to make the reader trust him as a narrator (which he later exploits though he tries very hard to stay 'neutral') and therefore make the story he tells more believable (Hawthorne wants you to think about the moral value in the story as though it were actually something that happended)
Hawthorne isn't the narrator but he wants you to think that is the case. Besides, even if you wanted to rely on Hawthorne's word and believe that the sory is based on real events (Poe's notes and witnesses tetimonies about a hundred years later) there is still much to be left to the author's imagination.

[raybee]

In " The custom house" help explain how the imaginary is made to appear actual.

[JudyW]

Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins Victor C Sanbor, ; Stephen Bachiler and Unforgiven Purit an; Excerpt from "History of the Town of Hampton, New Hampshire" page 589-590; Excerpt from the "Press Reference Library, Notables of the Southwest" page 13 . When Robert Beadle died and on February 14, 1648, his farmstead was confirmed to his widow, Mary Bailey by the town of Kittery. Mary accepted a job as housekeeper for the 83 year old reverend who came to Kittery from Lynn, Massachusetts in 1644, the widower Stephen Bachiler (Batcheler). He was recently excommunicated by the Puritans for allegedly attempting to seduce a neighbors wife in nearby Hampton, New Hampshire, a town that he helped found in 1638. Oliver Wendell Holmes described the Reverend as "that terrible old sinner and ancestor of great men…There has been some controversy afl to the fitness of the first distinction, but of the second there can be no doubt. Among his well-known descendants are Daniel Webster, orator; John Greenleaf Whittier, poet; General Benjamin F. Butler, soldier and lawyer, Wm. Pitt Fessenden, statesman; Caleb Cushing, diplomat; General R. N. Batcheler, Grant's Chief Quartermaster of the Army of the Potomac, and many others of lesser note." Townspeople of Kittery became concerned when Mary took a job with the tainted reverend, enough to cause him to write a letter to the Maine Governor Winthrop that "it is a world of woes to think what rumors detracting spirits raise up, that I am married to her [Mary Bailey-Beadle] or certainly shall be; and cast on her such aspersions without ground or proof." On the first of April, 1650, the Reverend married Mary. On April 9, 1650, the Reverend was fined ten pounds by the court at Salisbury for not publishing his marriage according to law, and it was further ordered that he and Mary, regardless of the legitimacy of the alleged marriage, should live together as they agreed or face a fine of 50 pounds each. Later that same year at the York court, Mary Bailey-Beadles-Batcheler and her next door neighbor, George Rodgers, were charged with 'living in one house together and lieing in one room”. On October 15, 1651 they were convicted of adultery. George was sentenced to 40 stripes and Mary was sentenced to 30 stripes, six weeks after the birth of her baby with George. Kittery also mandated she wear the letter 'A' on her clothing. The baby, Mary Bachiler, was born, grew to adulthood, married William Richards, and lived a respectable life in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Meanwhile, Captain William Hawthorne live three farms north of the Batcheler home, documented Mary’s unique form of branding for adultery, and retold the story to his grandson, Nathaniel, who modeled Hester Prine in The Scarlet Letter after Mary.

On 14 October 1652, Mary was charged by the Kittery District Court for “entertaining idle people on the Sabbath”. Nevertheless, on 16 November 1652, she was the only woman among forty men who signed the Certificate of Submission required by the Puritan government of Massachusetts. She signed her name, when half the men could not. Signing the document brought her additional land in 1653 and 1654. Amid the years of adultery, the Reverend Batcheler returned to England and died in 1660. Mary meanwhile caught the attention of Thomas Turner, a laborer for the Hansom Ship Yard at Kittery, who wanted to marry her, but was unable to do so because the Reverend failed to get a divorce. Mary appealed to the Massachusetts General Court in 1656 to obtain a divorce, arguing that she did not want to live on the “charity of others and needed her freedom to remarry for assistance in rearing two ailing children and preserving her estate”. Her petition was granted and she married Tom in 1657.