Challenge Your Students

When reading The Scarlet Letter, don't overlook the crucial introductory section, "The Custom-House." Encourage your students to tackle the challenging prose and see how they rise to the occasion. Some may wonder, "Why should I make my students read such challenging prose? Can’t it just be skipped?" Remember, it’s essential to engage advanced students too. By providing an outline and strategically pairing reading buddies, you might be surprised by how much your students can grasp. I advocate for reading "The Custom-House" because it weaves together the central themes of The Scarlet Letter.

The question you're asking is why Hawthorne wrote "The Custom House" as his introduction to The Scarlet Letter. ?It's a good question. ?Hawthorne answers it for you. As Hawthorne relates, in the flowing music of his prose that I love so well, an author is compelled to find within his reading public some kindred spirit who will connect with what he has written. ? However, authors are skittish about revealing too much of themselves. ?Some parts of the human soul are not so eagerly revealed. ?

So we have The Scarlet Letter. ?It is, as Hawthorne admits, his expiation for the sins of his forebears. ?It is an unlikely attempt at salvation for his family name and his place of birth in that it is a work of literature that will, somehow, make public amends for the evil done in Salem. ?Hawthorne is known as an author -- not as a man of commerce, government or business who would be looked upon more favorably in Hawthorne's native town by his ancestors and their society. The Scarlet Letter, the novel, is Hawthorne wearing his own red letter. ?He wears it for his forefathers. ?He also wears it to expose the sins that come from too close of a reliance upon commerce and custom. ? More provocatively, he wears the novel to force his own brandishing of his personal sins -- the sins that make him only half reluctant to reveal his true soul openly as a writer, as well as the sins that could lead him to either a rote literary existence or an overwhelming nostalgic yearning for the comfort of native soil.

What of the officers of the Custom House? ?What does Hawthorne feel about them? ?Conflicted. ?He becomes one of them, in a way, as he loses his ability to write and craft any writing of intellectual means when consumed with the practicalities of commerce. ?And yet -- he cannot live as they do. ?Hawthorne aspires to exploration of the ideas that link humanity. ?The Custom House officers do not and cannot so aspire. ?However, as much as Hawthorne feels that the Custom House leads to evil and corruption, he understands that there is humanity to be revealed in the stories of the officers. ?Hawthorne appears to be working out a resolution to the natural bonds that tether human beings to the lands and customs of their birth, but which must be snapped to ensure self reliance and human progress. ?Salem's witch trials, one can extrapolate, were planted in the very earth of Salem by Hawthorne's (literal) ancestors. ?Without the influence of the outside world and other customs from other places, and a resistance to the publication of contrary thought, those roots of the Puritans became long, invasive roots that led to destruction.

So it would appear that Hawthorne wrote "The Custom-House" for several purposes, all tied to his major themes. ?He wrote it to engage the reader in the real life situation that inspired his writing of The Scarlet Letter. ?He wrote it to expose his own potential lapses into sin and self involvement. ?He wrote it so that we all remember that we all exist, partially, in a Custom House, ourselves. ?We are our ancestors' descendants and we are, as well, our own escape from their (and our) ruin.