Indians in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Indians in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Materials prepared by:
Cathy Eaton, Department of English
New Hampshire Technical Institute, Concord, NH
Joseph R. Modugno, Department of English
North Shore Community College, Danvers, MA
A Gleam of Sunshine from chapter entitled "A Flood of Sunshine" in The Scarlet Letter
The Scarlet Letter
takes place fifteen or twenty years after the settlement of Boston when the
wilderness inhabited by Indians encroaches upon the 'civilized' Puritan town.
Hester Prynne, who has been imprisoned because she is pregnant and unmarried,
is forced to stand before a derogatory crowd on the scaffold outside her jail
as an example of one type of outcast or sinner who is typically punished by
the Puritans for crimes. Although Indians do not play a major role in The
Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne refers to them throughout the novel in their stereotypical
role of outcast, heathen, healer, or romanticized dweller of the primordial
forests.
