Gambling Art: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Custom-House Introduction
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published 19/10/2007
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Summary
In the preface of the second edition of The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne discusses the “unprecedented excitement” generated by the publication of his novel (5). Ironically, this public excitement, and more importantly, the ensuing public discontent, originated not in the novel itself but in Hawthorne’s cleverly devised Custom-House introduction, a light-hearted sketch about his position at the Salem, Massachusetts Custom House. According to Hawthorne in Salem, a website funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities through the Peabody Essex Museum, “The Scarlet Letter was not a best seller, but the publicity surrounding Hawthorne's dismissal as surveyor at the Custom House was the equivalent of an interview on the "Today" show and boosted initial sales” (Whitney). Early readers, curious as to the circumstances surrounding such a prominent figure’s fall from grace, purchased the book initially for Hawthorne’s perception of the events before even realizing the merit of the story itself. Yet in his preface, Hawthorne seemingly minimizes the importance of the sketch, claiming it can be “wholly admitted, without loss to the public, or detriment to the book” (5).
Table of Contents
- The Custom-House introduction is unique in its strategic disconnectedness and simultaneous dependence on the main text.
- As a response to his removal as surveyor at the Salem Custom House, the satirical and almost-malicious quality of the Custom-House introduction is acceptable, not to mention believable.
- According to D. W. Winnicott, literature as art is directly related to the 'shifting boundaries between self and other within an interrelational arena that he terms ‘potential space??
- Hawthorne constructs emotional intimacy between the reader and the characters of The Scarlet Letter by deliberately forming this potential space through the Custom-House introduction and its erasure of the boundaries between reality and fiction.
- Without the Custom-House introduction, The Scarlet Letter would read like any other romantic novel.
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