Teaching The Scarlet Letter

Webinar Leader

Jennifer Fleissner

Associate Professor of English, Indiana University, Bloomington; National Humanities Center Fellow

Webinar Details

The Scarlet Letter often looks to modern readers like an affirmation of individual desire in the face of communal repression. In fact, however, Hawthorne’s exploration of individualism was ambiguous enough that his contemporaries were left unsure as to whether his book was celebrating its doomed lovers, or condemning them. How can we read Hawthorne’s masterpiece today so as to acknowledge the complexity of its portrayal of self-exploration?