1.14.08| Hawthorne (day1)

• GoPost• Theory Wrap up• Stakes?• “The Custom House”• HW– Keep reading. We will be discussing the first (of three)

pillory scenes. – You can being making your responses. Three (3) are

due by 5pm this Friday, but you can post them anytime this week.

GoPost• Pretty good for first effort. • Same mistakes throughout– Problem: logical leaps are too big.

• Claim to support: there is explanation but it doesn’t explain the relationship.

• Quotation to explanation: many times people drop the quotation in, seemingly as a warrant to talk about whatever.

– Solution: • more explanation• more transition• Think about your reader. Ask yourself, have I done enough

to allow someone to follow the train of thought.

Theory Wrap-upWhat should I remember?

• Saussure– Structure of the sign: Signifer/Signified– Connection is arbitrary, but conventional– Meaning requires chain.– Not a substance, but a form.

Cont.

• Sontag– Return to the text.– Don’t turn it into symbol hunting, a=b=c your way

out of the work.– Overemphasis on content, neglects that it can’t be

divorced from form– Sensation, surfaces (not emotion) over depth and

hidden meanings.– Erotics of the text.

Cont.

• Barthes– Author is not a person, but the term we use for

origin and true meaning. – Writing is multivocal– Reader is the focus point for the voices, but not a

personality.– The life of the reader is at the expense of the

death of the author.

What are stakes?

The stakes are what is at risk. As a result, the stakes are often the reason for the writing and the reason why readers should care about it.

What might the stakes be for Saussure, Sontag, or Barthes?

What place do stakes have in the theory we have looked at? (just keep this question in mind for now)

Hawthorne: “Maybe, he just wanted to write a nice story”• "The truth seems to be, however, that, when he casts

his leaves forth upon the wind, the author addresses, not the many who will fling aside his volume, or never take it up, but the few who will understand him, better than most of his schoolmates and lifemates." -pg. 3

"The author is constrained, therefore, to republish his introductory sketch without the change of a word" - pg. xx

Who is Hawthorne's audience?What is it he hopes they will understand?

The Custom House

• What is a "custom house?"• What does Hawthorne do there, according to

the story?• How does he feel about his experience there?• What effect, if any, does his experience there

have on his writing?

Salem, MA

• What is Salem famous for?• What is the narrator's relationship to

Salem?• So, what, then, is the context for the

writing of The Scarlet Letter, which is set in Boston, MA?

How do you tell if she is a witch?

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp_l5ntikaU

• SIGNS!!!