Thoughts on the Custom-House
Sorry for the late post! After reading through some of your posts, I was glad to see that my recognition of the presence of the juridico-discursive model was shared…hopefully this means applying Foucault to our readings won’t be as impossible as I had imagined.
I was particularly interested in the Custom-House section of this reading. First I thought it was interesting that Hawthorne extensively justified any direct personal involvement between the author and the reader. I think that there is often a desire for the reader to know about the author in order to understand what was meant in the literature. Personally, I prefer to learn about the author after I’ve read their work so that I can form my own reading, but then discern what the work might have meant for them. Hawthorne seemed to use this auto-biographical snippet to explain that he is qualified to tell a tale that might witness criticism, so I can appreciate the gesture.
As I read through the heavily and beautifully (I thought) detailed descriptions of the location and people Hawthorne witnessed, I noticed some very specific language targeted towards women. I was most drawn to the passage about the statue of the American eagle:
“Nevertheless, vixenly as she looks, many people are seeking, at this very moment, to shelter themselves under the wing of the federal eagle; imagining, I presume, that her bosom has all the softness and snugness of an eider-down pillow. But she has no great tenderness, even in her best of moods, and, sooner or later,-oftener sooner than late,-is apt to fling of her nestlings with a scratch of her claw, a dab of her beak, or a rankling wound from her barbed arrows”(36).
This passage shows some degree of disillusionment, from Hawthorne’s perspective, toward America or more specifically to the way that America is glorified by outsiders, who, upon coming through the custom house, will see a side of the “American dream” that looks a lot more like a nightmare. It is interesting, though the way Hawthorne characterizes the eagle as specifically female. The use of words like “vixenly” suggest that there is an anxiety towards the way that women are able to draw men in with promises of “comfort” in this case, her bosom. There seems to be a fear of the danger that lies within relationships with or putting faith in women as sources of nurture. This attitude, I think, is incredibly important for the events of the novel that follow.
Another important idea that came up throughout the Custom-House was the notion of human nature or a pervasive spirt, essence and lineage. I was thinking about the essays we read two weeks ago regarding essentialist vs. social constructionist perspectives on society. Hawthorne, at this point, seems a strong advocate for the essentialist perspective. Several phrases throughout this introduction stood out, for example “This long connection of a family with one spot, as its place of birth and burial, creates a kindred between the human being and the locality, quite independent of any charm in the scenery or moral circumstances that surround him. It is not love, but instinct” (40). The last part of this passage is key, I think, to how we understand characters and situations within The Scarlet Letter.
The fact that Hawthorne ascribes mostly to an essentialist perspective will also be an interesting contrast to Foucault, which might make applying Foucauldian concepts to the text difficult, but ultimately, I think will make our readings more multi-dimensional and relevant, considering that this novel is relatively dated in it’s assertions about society.
Interestingly, though Hawthorne does offer some open-endedness to the essentialist perspective he assumes. On the next page he states, “Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil”(41). This is more social-constructionist, but the fact that Hawthorne suggests the existence of human nature puts his position in opposition to Foucault, whose perception of identity is entirely constructionist.
I will be interested to think more deeply about the way character identities and plot conflicts are understood and the way we perceive them through our own lens, Hawthorne’s lens and Foucault’s lens. It should make for a really rich reading of The Scarlet Letter.
Tags: Essentialist, Foucault, Identity, Social Constructionist, The Scarlet Letter
February 28th, 2012 at 1:06 am
Whitney, I never thought about applying essentialism/social-constructionism to Hawthorne himself–an interesting observation. I agree with you that Hawthorne is favorable towards the “instinct[ive]” side of sexuality, perhaps due to his own life experiences.