The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne

"A Christmas Snow" by Tate Hamilton

Some reading for a snowy weekend:

The Snow Image: A Childish Miracle
(from Twice-Told Tales)
By Nathaniel Hawthorne

One afternoon of a cold winter's day, when the sun shone forth with chilly brightness, after a long storm, two children asked leave of their mother to run out and play in the new-fallen snow. The elder child was a little girl, whom, because she was of a tender and modest disposition, and was thought to be very beautiful, her parents, and other people who were familiar with her, used to call Violet. But her brother was known by the style and title of Peony, on account of the ruddiness of his broad and round little phiz, which made everybody think of sunshine and great scarlet flowers. The father of these two children, a certain Mr. Lindsey, it is important to say, was an excellent but exceedingly matter-of-fact sort of man, a dealer in hardware, and was sturdily accustomed to take what is called the common-sense view of all matters that came under his consideration. With a heart about as tender as other people's, he had a head as hard and impenetrable, and therefore, perhaps, as empty, as one of the iron pots which it was a part of his business to sell. The mother's character, on the other hand, had a strain of poetry in it, a trait of unworldly beauty,--a delicate and dewy flower, as it were, that had survived out of her imaginative youth, and still kept itself alive amid the dusty realities of matrimony and motherhood.

continue reading story...

Encapsulation Projects

We definitely had some interesting and entertaining "encapsulations." I put the word in quotation marks because most of the projects seemed to be closer to abridged dramatizations.

Here are some strengths I saw/heard in the projects:

1. Subtle inclusion of Hawthornian literary elements and characters from stories other than the one being dramatized -- e.g., bare-branches forest scene, the minister's black veil, Hester & Pearl, Georgiana (in Lady Eleanore), etc.

2. Inclusion -- subtle or otherwise -- of elements that resonate with the class: e.g., a character reading from Clerestory, the return of Soapy, reference to "those whom we do not mention."

3. Use of varied accents and speech patterns to differentiate characters, especially in the audio presentations.

4. In some cases, excellent costumes (e.g., Lady Eleanore), props (e.g., Birthmark), and setting (e.g., Rappaccini's Daughter)

5. And, in at least one case (Birthmark), excellent frame composition (e.g.,painting reflected in the armoir mirror), lighting and sound.

6. Use of soundtrack music (e.g., Happy Days) and subtle humor.

The common weaknesses I suspect are more a product of the limited availability of time and technical expertise: e.g., sound ("turn down sound on the waterfalls"), lighting ("my, it sure is dark in this house"), sound ("I think we may need to use subtitles"), and sound ("would someone please stop the cars from driving down our street?").

Suggestions for future reference:

1. Oft-times, less is more. Limit the number of actors and characters involved.

2. Pay careful attention to what's going on in the background! It is easy to get too involved with the foreground. But viewers notice the background of every shot just as much as the foreground. Again: Less is more. Choose backgrounds that are simple and not distracting to what's going on in the foreground.

3. Carrying around scripts in a movie is, um, not the best technique. Memorize lines or use queue cards like the Birthmark people did (though, be careful of the wandering eye).

4. Don't let the credits and theme music overshadow your project. Integrate.

Lady Eleanore's Mantle is available on Youtube. Click the window above to view. Or, if you'd like to see the bloopers, click on the window below. NOTE: If any other projects are online, please let me know and I'll link to it here. If you'd like me to post it, send me your video file -- and I will post it for purposes of posterity and immortalization.

Encapsulation -- Preview: Lady Eleanore's Mantle

Encapsulation projects are due on Tuesday -- a week from today -- in case anyone needs a reminder. Film projects should be ready on DVD format by then. Let me know if you need to make alternative arrangements. For now, I see one of the projects has its own trailer. From the Hof-Con-Son triumvirate, Lady Elenore's Mantle.

Encapsulation Scripts

Feathertop takes a bow

I am posting the encapsulation scripts here so that you can all read through them over the short Christmas vacation. Familiarize yourselves with the stories, and certainly offer any helpful comments or suggestions should you have any.

The Birthmark [PDF]
"Let the attempt be made at whatever risk. Danger is nothing to me. This hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and disgust. Either remove this dreadful hand, or take my wretched life!"

The Bosom Serpent [PDF]
"Oh, there is poisonous stuff in any man’s heart sufficient enough to generate a brood of serpents. I myself have only one, some people have giant hordes, but you have none in your bosom, therefore you cannot sympathize with the rest of the world. It gnaws me! It gnaws me!"

Lady Eleanore's Mantle [PDF]
"Nay, your Excellency shall not strike him. When men seek only to be trampled upon, it were a pity to deny them a favor so easily granted -- and so well deserved!"

Ethan Brand [PDF]
"Leave me, ye brute beasts, that have made yourselves so, shriveling up your souls with fiery liquors! I have done with you. Years and years ago, I groped into your hearts and found nothing there for my purpose. Get ye gone!"

Rappaccini's Daughter [PDF]
"I know this wretched girl better than you know her yourself! She is as poisonous as she is beautiful! Rappaccini was a vile enough man to offer up his daughter to this fatal life! What then will be your fate? Rappaccini will not stop at anything!"

I am still in need of the script for "Feathertop." Pedro?

The Scarlet Letter -- Symbols

The Scarlet Letter arguably boasts the most number of distinct symbols used in any single American novel to date. Here's the list I started to compile. Anyone have any to add?

The prison door
The rose bush
The beadle
Pearl
Pearl's clothes
The scarlet letter
The scaffold
The A-shaped meteor
Dimmesdale
The red mark on Dimmesdale's chest
Chillingworth
The Black Man
The forest
The Indians
The governor's decaying garden
The governor's armor
Hester
Hester's cap
The brook
The sun and sunlight
The moon and moonlight
Mistress Hibbins

Scarlet Letter -- Question Set #2

Since we did not have school yesterday, I am making available Question Set #2 so that you have a chance to look over the questions before meeting in your discussion groups on Wednesday. Unfortunately, the discussion group time will be shortened due to the fact that I had to move the vocabulary test to Wednesday. If, however, you would all like to start class early at 11:05, I will show up early to accommodate.

Click here to see the PDF of Question Set #2
I am also making available a PDF of the Reader Response Essay

N.B. I am going to give you the weekend to finish your encapsulation scripts. They will now be due on Monday. Here are some upcoming important dates to remember before Christmas break:

Wed., Dec. 9: Vocab test #1
Thu., Dec. 10: Class discussion + Question Set 2 due
Mon. , Dec 14: Encapsulation script due + Vocab test #2
Wed., Dec 16: Scarlet Letter Essay due
Thu., Dec 17: Question Set 3 due

And, looking ahead to the rest of the semester:

Mon., Jan 4: Vocab test #3
Tue., Jan 5: Encapsulation presentations
Wed., Jan 6: Scarlet Letter exam and data sheet
Mon., Jan 25: Presentations of 1st book, Term+data sheet

In-Class Essay: Lopsided Results

Artist's rendering of "The Birth-Mark"

Of those dozen of you who completed the in-class essay assignment today, nine wrote on "The Birth-Mark," two wrote on "Ethan Brand," and one on "The Minister's Black Veil." One hundred percent of the girls chose "The Birth-Mark" -- even those who are going to dramatize "Rappaccini's Daughter" and "Lady Eleonore's Mantle." I wonder if somehow this particular Hawthorne story was more vivid than the others? Or simply easier to write about?

Artist's rendering of Georgiana

Other results: The only Hawthorne story not chosen to be encapsulated and dramatized is "My, Kinsman, Major Molineaux." I guess no one wanted to get tarred and feathered.

History of the Pillory

Enduring the barrage of smelly eggs and rotting vegetables, dead cats or animal offal, sticky mud and human waste...

When we were reading The Crucible, I mentioned the various modes of public punishments used by the Puritans. The pillory, in particular, as described vividly on page 50 is important to The Scarlet Letter. Note, however, that Hester is sentenced only to "stand a certain time upon the platform, but without undergoing that gripe about the neck and confinement of the head." Here's the beginning of a brief illustrated history of the pillory:

Although Puritans left England to escape religious persecution, people living in the Massachusetts Bay Colony were expected to conform to strict, autocratic standards established by the community’s leaders. All of the leaders, of course, were men.

Seeking to remain essentially British, as they tried to purify the Church of England from within, the Puritans carried on with certain customs they had known before The Great Migration. One of those traditions was punishment in the pillory.

Tracing its history to the 12th century, the pillory was a common sight in towns throughout Britain and on the continent. It consisted of an upright board with a hole in the middle where a person's head was set. As often as not, a person's ears were nailed to the board. Usually there were two openings for hands.

Also known as a neck-stretcher, the pillory's purpose was to publicly punish (and humiliate) people for all kinds of offenses. Frequently, a pillory could be rotated, so members of the public could get a good look at the person on display, as depicted by William Pyne in The Costume of Great Britain (1805). The most famous pillory in London was at Charing Cross.

Sometimes people locked in a pillory had bricks, or other heavy objects, thrown at them. Not a few died as a result, since they were unable to protect themselves with their hands.

Others, like Daniel Defoe (the author of Robinson Crusoe) who spent three days in the Charing Cross pillory (beginning July 31, 1703) for writing a pamphlet (The Shortest Way with Dissenters), were showered with flowers by a sympathetic crowd. Most, however, endured the more usual barrage of smelly eggs and rotting vegetables, dead cats or animal offal, sticky mud and human waste.

Read full history and more...

Hawthorne Museum & Custom House

Remember The House of Seven Gables? Did you know the house was modeled after a real residence in Massachusetts? The house (above -- notice how the lighting affects the image) is now a Hawthorne museum, and it has its own website:

http://www.7gables.org/

One section of the site includes information (and a photo) of the Custom House -- or "Counting House" as it's called -- in Salem.

http://www.7gables.org/tour_countinghouse.shtml

The Counting House, circa 1830, is typical of the small buildings in which sea captains, or “supercargoes” like Salem-native, Nathaniel Bowditch, completed much of their business. This was a place to balance accounts, pay fees due, and figure profit before or after a sea journey. While this building dates slightly later than the time our merchant families were active in the Triangle and China Trades, it is a prime example of a counting house from Salem.

John Inglefield's Thanksgiving

Yes, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a Thanksgiving story: "John Inglefield's Thanksgiving," which begins like this:

On the evening of Thanksgiving day, John Inglefield, the blacksmith, sat in his elbow-chair, among those who had been keeping festival at his board. Being the central figure of the domestic circle, the fire threw its strongest light on his massive and sturdy frame, reddening his rough visage, so that it looked like the head of an iron statue, all aglow, from his own forge, and with its features rudely fashioned on his own anvil. At John Inglefield's right hand was an empty chair. The other places round the hearth were filled by the members of the family, who all sat quietly, while, with a semblance of fantastic merriment, their shadows danced on the wall behind then. One of the group was John Inglefield's son, who had been bred at college, and was now a student of theology at Andover. There was also a daughter of sixteen, whom nobody could look at without thinking of a rosebud almost blossomed. The only other person at the fireside was Robert Moore, formerly an apprentice of the blacksmith, but now his journeyman, and who seemed more like an own son of John Inglefield than did the pale and slender student.

Read full story...

The Custom House -- First Sentence

You may have noticed that in Hawthorne's introduction to The Scarlet Letter -- called "The Custom House" -- he is rather verbose and convoluted in his descriptions. A wonderful example of this writing style comes in the first paragraph of the actual tale -- on page 4 in your edition:

"In my native town of Salem, at the head of what, half a century ago, in the days of old King Derby, was a bustling wharf--but which is now burdened with decayed wooden warehouses, and exhibits few or no symptoms of commercial life; except, perhaps, a bark or brig, half-way down its melancholy length, discharging hides; or, nearer at hand, a Nova Scotia schooner, pitching out her cargo of firewood--at the head, I say, of this dilapidated wharf, which the tide often overflows, and along which, at the base and in the rear of the row of buildings, the track of many languid years is seen in a border of unthrifty grass--here, with a view from its front windows adown this not very enlivening prospect, and thence across the harbour, stands a spacious edifice of brick."

I was just commenting to Voice of Reason earlier today that it would be a real romp of an exercise to diagram that sentence. Lo, I find that someone has actually done this. Click here or onto the diagram above to enjoy the full-size diagram.

More Hawthorne Short Stories

Here are a few more worthy and representative Hawthorne short stories in addition to those we've already studied. You may choose from among these or the stories we've already studied, or Rappacini's Daughter, which was already featured here.

The Bosom Serpent (also known as "The Egotism")
George Herkimer visits his old acquaintance, Roderick Elliston, who is rumored to have a snake residing in his bosom. Herkimer says he brings Elliston a message from his wife Rosina, but he retreats into his house before receiving it. Elliston and Rosina had separated four years earlier. Soon, people noticed a green tint to his skin and often heard a hissing sound coming from his bosom. Elliston sought the attention of others and pointed out the snakes they possessed within their own bosoms. His relatives placed him in an asylum, but his doctors decided his affliction did not demand confinement...

Feathertop
In seventeenth-century New England, the witch Mother Rigby builds a scarecrow to protect her garden. She is so taken with her own handiwork that she whimsically decides to bring the scarecrow to life and send it into town to woo Polly Gookin, the daughter of Judge Gookin, toward whom Mother Rigby bears an unspecified grudge. Once the stuffed man does come alive, Mother Rigby gives him the appearance of a normal human being - and a pipe, on which the Scarecrow must puff to keep himself alive...

Lady Eleanor's Mantle
Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe moves to Boston to live with her distant relative, Colonel Shute. She is known not only for her immense pride but also her magnificently embroidered mantle, which was made by a dying woman and is believed to possess magical qualities. When she arrives in town, Jervase Helwyse, a man who loves her but only receives her scorn, offers for her to step on him as she exits her coach. She accepts his offer. A ball is held in honor of her arrival. Although she remains within a circle, Rochcliffe looks upon the festivities with scorn. Helwyse arrives and asks Rochcliffe to drink from his silver cup to prove that she has not placed herself above the sympathies of others. He also asks her to remove her mantle. Laughing at him, she pulls it tighter over her head.

My Kinsman, Major Molineux
In the days before the American Revolution, Robin, a youth, arrives by ferry in Boston seeking his kinsman. Major Molineux, an official in the British Colonial government, has promised him work. Yet no one in town tells him where the major is. A rich man threatens the youth with prison, and an innkeeper calls him a runaway bond-servant. At every turn he meets a man with a red-and-black face, who seems at the center of many evil things. Later, he runs into the man with the painted face again, after blocking his path with a cudgel, he finally gets the answer that his kinsman will soon pass by. He waits at the spot on the steps of a church where he is greeted by the first polite gentleman he has met all night. Soon, the two men hear the roar of an approaching mob. At its head is the man with the red and black face and in its midst is Major Molineux, tarred and feathered...

Ethan Brand -- What Is a Limekiln?

Bartram is a lime-burner who works a limekiln, just as Ethan Brand once had. So, what's a limekiln? Here's a little info:

A lime kiln is a type of furnace that burns marble, limestone, or another material to produce lime, a solid made up of calcium oxide (CaO). If it is free of impurities, it is white and is called pure lime or quicklime. When mixed with water, lime turns into a powder, calcium hydroxide—Ca(OH). Lime is used in the production of cement, paper, glass, whitewash, and agricultural preparations that reduce the acidity of soil.

More photos of limekilns...

The Birthmark -- Dramatized in Three minutes

Here is a brief and amusing dramatization of Hawthorne's "The Birth-Mark." Doesn't the actress look just a wee bit familiar?

Rappaccini's Daughter -- The Original Femme Fatale

Though we won't be studying this short story in class, I still recommend reading it. Here's a brief summary of "Rappaccini's Daughter":

The story is set in Padua in a distant, but unspecified past. From his quarters, Giovanni, a young student of letters, observes Beatrice, the beautiful daughter of Dr. Rappaccini, a scientist working in isolation. Beatrice is confined to the lush and locked gardens in which experiments involving poisonous plants take place. Having fallen in love, Giovanni ignores the warning of his mentor, Professor Baglioni, that Rappaccini is up to no good, and he and his work should be shunned. Eventually, Giovanni sneaks into the forbidden garden to meet his lover, and begins to suffer the consequences of the encounter with the plants - and with Beatrice, who dwells among them and has been rendered both immune to their effects and poisonous to others.

Read the entire story...

Nathaniel Hawthorne's Short Fiction

Next week, we are going to turn from Poe to Hawthorne -- beginning first with some of his short fiction, which Hawthorne referred to as "tales." Both were two of the leading lights of American Romanticism, and Poe wrote several reviews of Hawthorne's various compilation of tales, which he characterized as high art. Here's an except of Poe's review of Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales:

Of Mr. Hawthorne's Tales we would say, emphatically, that they belong to the highest region of Art--an Art subservient to genius of a very lofty order. We had supposed, with good reason for so supposing, that he had been thrust into his present position by one of the impudent cliques which beset our literature, and whose pretensions it is our full purpose to expose at the earliest opportunity; but we have been most agreeably mistaken. We know of few compositions which the critic can more honestly commend then these Twice-Told Tales. As Americans, we feel proud of the book.

You will be required to read three of Hawthorne's tales as listed below. I here include links to these in case you want to get a head start on reading over the weekend. If you have not already read "Young Goodman Brown" and "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment," please do so in addition to the three tales below. You will need to be familiar with these before we read The Scarlet Letter, which I will distribute next week along with hardcopy of these three short stories:

The Minister's Black Veil
There's a new reverend in town, and he's wearing a black semi-transparent veil that obscures all of his face but his mouth and chin from view. This creates a stir among the townspeople, who begin to speculate about his veil and its meanings.

The Birth-Mark
Georgiana has a single hand-shaped birthmark on her cheek. Men are invariably attracted to her, and many find the birthmark attractive. However, her husband Aylmer, a scientist, begins to detest the birthmark more intensely with each passing day.
Ethan Brand
Ethan Brand has returned to town after a long absence. He's been off in search of the Unpardonable Sin, and he claims to have found it -- but not everyone believes him.