Hawthorne: Author and Narrator

Introduction

In fiction, the first-person narrator is usually distinct from the author. Understanding the differences, subtle or pronounced, between an author and the narrator he or she creates is essential to understanding a work of fiction.

Learning Objectives

1 Help students understand how the point of view of the narrator and the point of view of the author are not the same. How does the author represent the narrator? Do they necessarily share common opinions, beliefs, or characteristics? Have students write a short description of the narrator of The Scarlet Letter, drawing evidence from the introductory chapter and elsewhere in the book. Or you might have students write a short description of school life in the style of the novel's narrator. Another way to understand narrative perspective is to think about how The Scarlet Letter would be different if one of the other characters, such as Hester, Dimmsdale, or Pearl, were the narrator. Have students write a passage from the story from the perspective of one of these other characters.

2 Help students to see Hawthorne in the context of his times, as a contemporary of Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louisa May Alcott, Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Herman Melville, Margaret Fuller, Walt Whitman, and Abraham Lincoln. To what extent was he engaged by the transforming political and technological forces at work in his society, and to what extent was he (like the narrator of The Scarlet Letter) estranged from his times by an overriding attachment to the American past?

Extending the Lesson

Selected EDSITEment Websites

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Walt Whitman

Africans in America

Fredrick Douglass

The American President

Abraham Lincoln

The Internet Public Library

Louis May Acott
Henry David Thoreau
Margaret Fuller

The Life and Works of Herman Melville

Herman Melville

Nathanial Hawthorne

The Scarlett Letter

Women and Social Movements in United States, 1820-1940

Elizabeth Cady Stanton