What is 'A' in this novel, is the theme of this presentation.

1. ‘Politics of ‘A’ :
The Scarlet Letter’
Name: Saryu D. Baraiya
Subject: The American
Literature [Paper – X]
Roll No: 25
Study: M.A.
Year: Semester- III
Submitted to: Department of
English
University: Maharaja
Krishnakumarsinhji
Bhavnagar University
saryubaraiya93@gamil.com

2. The Scarlet Letter: Politics of ‘A’
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Born: 4th July, 1804
 American writer
 Short-story writer and novelist
 First novel: ‘Fanshawe’
 Much of his writing centers on
‘New England’
 Moral allegories
 Inspired by ‘Puritan thoughts’
 His fiction: Part of Romantic
Movement
 Romanticism to Dark Romanticism
 Died: 19th May, 1864

3. The Scarlet Letter: Politics of ‘A’
 A Romantic Fiction work
 written: 1850
 Historical novel
 Set: 17th Century, Puritan background,
Boston
 Story of Hester Prynne
 Story of self realization
 Story of repentance
 Story of dignity
 Characters:
o Hester Prynne
o Pearl
o Roger Chillingworth
o Arthur Dimmesdale
o Governor Bellingham
o Mistress Hibbins
o John Wilson
o Unnamed narrator

4. The Scarlet Letter: Politics of ‘A’
 Why letter ‘A’????
Why in Scarlet color????

5. The Scarlet Letter: Politics of ‘A’
The Letter ‘A’ stands for:
Beginning of the
novel: ‘Adultery’
Middle of the novel:
‘Able’
End of the novel:
‘Angel’

6. The Scarlet Letter: Politics of ‘A’
Letter ‘A’ as Adultery:
“Speak, woman!” said another voice, coldly and sternly,
proceeding from the crowd about the scaffold. “Speak; and
give your child a father!”
 “I will not speak!” answered Hester, turning pale as death,
but responding to this voice, which she too surely
recognized. “And my child must seek a heavenly Father; she
shall never know an earthly one!”

7. The Scarlet Letter: Politics of ‘A’
Letter ‘A’ as Able:
 “When she is in nature, ―the mother-forest, and these
wild things which it nourished, all recognized a kindred
wildness in the human child.”
 “And Pearl was the oneness of their being. Be the
foregone evil what it might, how could they doubt that
their earthly lives and future destinies were conjoined,
when they beheld at once the material union, and the
spiritual idea, in whom they met, and were to dwell
immortally together?”

8. The Scarlet Letter: Politics of ‘A’
Letter ‘A’ as Angel:
 “But there was a more real life for Hester
Prynne, here, in New England, than in that
unknown region where Pearl had found a home.
Here had been her sin; here her sorrow; and here
was yet to be her penitence”

9. Thank you….