The Scarlet Letter: A – for Adultery, Antinomian, or America Itself?

The Scarlet Letter banned

N
athaniel Hawthorne is renowned for deep symbolism and psychological insight. So, what’s The Scarlet Letter really about? It’s definitely about more than a misbehaving minister.

Unlike a lot of other books, there’s no short answer as to why The Scarlet Letter was banned. Whenever Hawthorne’s work has been challenged, the objections have come from all directions. That’s because Nathaniel Hawthorne had a complicated relationship with his subject matter. Needless to say, Hawthorne is inextricably linked with Puritanism. He wrote The Scarlet Letter, after all.

When we read a book, it’s important to consider the author and their historical context.  And, when we read Hawthorne, it’s important to understand that his relationship with Puritanism falls squarely in the love/hate category. That’s especially apparent in The Scarlet Letter.

The Scarlet Letter banned

It’s no secret that Hawthorne was haunted by his Puritan lineage. He was so bothered, he added the letter W to his name to separate himself from his Puritan forefathers.[1] It’s easy to see why. His great, great, great grandfather, Major William Hathorne, was infamous as a “bitter persecutor” of Quakers, having them “scourged out of town.”[2] Hathorne is mostly remembered for ordering “Anne Coleman and four of her friends” to be whipped, while tied to a cart and forced to walk the 60 miles from Salem to Boston.[3]  And William’s son, John, “made himself conspicuous” as a “witch judge” and chief interrogator during the Salem Witch Trials.[4]

Hawthorne talks about the ancestral guilt he carries as a result of their actions in The Custom House, the opening chapter of The Scarlet Letter. He ends the passage by praying that any family curse caused by their actions “may be now and henceforth removed.”[5] These feelings are undoubtedly the source of what Herman Melville described as the “mystical blackness” that pervades Hawthorne’s work.[6]

On the other hand, Hawthorne still wasn’t inclined to embrace the religious shift that had occurred in New England during the nineteenth century, toward individual experience and an optimistic faith in the perfectibility of human beings.[7] His Puritan ancestry gave Hawthorne a sense of rootedness, “a home-feeling with the past.”[8] And he may not have been a “churchly man,” but his heritage gave him an appreciation for the culture and moral foundation that emerged from Puritan doctrine.[9] His very nature, it’s been said, was imbued with “the temperamental earnestness of the Puritan.”[10]

It’s no surprise, then, that multiple and often paradoxical perspectives are common in Hawthorne’s works. In fact, Hawthorne’s technique has been referred to as “the device of multiple choice.”[11] Hawthorne himself described The Scarlet Letter as “turning different sides” of the same idea “to the reader’s eye.”[12] So, it should be even less surprising that The Scarlet Letter has been banned and challenged for contradictory reasons as well.

The Scarlet Letter banned

For example, one literary critic reviewing The Scarlet Letter the year it was published thought Hawthorne’s depiction of Puritanism was too severe.  He didn’t say Hawthorne was wrong. He just wondered why, “of all features of the period,” Hawthorne chose practices that “reflect most discredit” on the Puritans.[13]

Another early critic, however, thought Hester’s punishment wasn’t painful and obvious enough. Merely being condemned to wear the scarlet letter didn’t make Hester contrite. It didn’t make her repent. And Hawthorne didn’t “excite the horror of his readers” enough to keep them from following in Hester and Dimmesdale’s footsteps.[14]

So, it isn’t just the passage of time that causes contemporary readers to see oppressive patriarchy (like the Seattle teacher who tweeted he’d “rather die” than teach The Scarlet Letter), when some nineteenth-century critics found what we would call feminism.[15] It isn’t caused by cultural shift. And it’s more than Hester’s “light punishment” that lead to objections about how the book advocates women’s rights. Reverend Arthur Cleveland Coxe specifically expressed concern that Hawthorne’s book encouraged a message way too close to views expressed at the first National Woman’s Rights Convention, held in Worcester, Massachusetts the same year The Scarlet Letter was published.[16]

Granted, we’re more on the lookout for feminist themes these days. But, they were clearly in the text all along. And, they’re right beside passages that seem to say Hester should accept her fate, and fall in line with patriarchal Puritan society.

It is true, however, that the most consistent objection to The Scarlet Letter has been the topic of adultery. The notion that adultery is quite simply not a “fit subject for popular literature” didn’t begin with the 1961 challenge in Michigan, or the Arizona challenge in 1967.[17] That mindset has been around since 1850. And there’ll probably always be someone who takes offense at Hawthorne’s use of adultery as a vehicle for examining his multiple perspectives and paradoxical themes. Unfortunately, this mindset squashes any real understanding of what The Scarlet Letter has to say. And this superficial (mis)reading begins with the title.

After all, if the focus of Hawthorne’s book was the scandalous behavior of an adulterous woman, he would’ve titled it Hester Prynne, or A Fallen Woman.[18] That would have been more consistent with the novels of adultery that were popular in nineteenth-century literature, like Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, or Madame Bovary by Flaubert.[19] While these novels revolve around the theme of “love against the world,” Hawthorne calling his work The Scarlet Letter tells the reader that the letter’s function as symbol is actually the central subject of the book.[20]

This reading is reinforced by the fact that Hester and Dimmesdale’s adulterous act isn’t depicted (even in nineteenth-century terms), and the word adultery never appears in the text. Yes, requiring that a capital A be stitched to your clothes a historically accurate penalty for adultery in Puritan Massachusetts. But, the law is precise about its size and placement. Hester embellishing the letter with gold threat would not have been tolerated.  And other aspects of the punishment Hawthorne depicts don’t line up with the statute’s requirements.[21] Hawthorne is clearly using the scarlet letter as a symbol, a word that does appear in his book some twenty-four times, specifically in reference to the A on Hester’s bosom.[22]  The question at the heart of Hawthorne’s work, then, is “What does the scarlet A actually mean?”
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The Scarlet Letter banned

The Custom House.

 The opening chapter of the book provides a cryptic key, so to speak, to unlocking Hawthorne’s symbolism, enabling readers to see that The Scarlet Letter is about more than a misbehaving minister. By locating the red cloth letter that inspired his work in Salem’s Custom House, wrapped in a package from before the Revolutionary War, Hawthorne establishes a connection between seventeenth-century Puritan New England and nineteenth-century American culture.

In this context, the A becomes a cultural artifact, one that simultaneously expresses Hawthorne’s culture as well as the one that produced it.[23] Hawthorne reaches back through the A to America’s myth of national origins and does what we continue to do, return to the Puritans to reclaim a sense of purpose, while also demonstrating progress. The A embodies the shift from Puritanism to the Revolution, as well as America’s continued development from that time forward.[24]

The American Revolution prompted social changes just as significant as the political changes it brought about. The spirit that triggered the Revolution, with its declaration of inalienable rights, self-evident truths, and the equal creation of all, undoubtedly played a role in the decline of Puritanism and its foundational Calvinist doctrine, a theology that emphasizes the depravity of humankind.[25]  Hawthorne considers this transition from the religious perspective, a psychological outlook, as well as a historical viewpoint, all of which are reflected in the book.
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The Scarlet Letter banned

Dimmesdale looks back,
and Hester is forward looking.

Founders of new ethics are invariably deemed sinful/heretical, because they challenge the authority of an existing/old ethic, a collective whose aim is to maintain equilibrium. And that’s the case in The Scarlet Letter. Hester Prynne, who is forced to literally wear a label identifying her as sinful, represents a new ethic. And Arthur Dimmesdale is a concrete expression of the American Puritanism that Hester challenges. Not only is Dimmesdale a Puritan minister, he embodies the psychological consequences associated with trying to adhere to such an authoritarian ethic. [26]

Guilt stemming from sinful acts is frequently identified as a major theme in The Scarlet Letter, but it’s more complicated than that. Two basic psychological mechanisms are at work within an authoritarian ethic like Puritanism (with its harshly implemented moral Laws and publicly enforced taboos), suppression, and repression. Suppression is the process of consciously pushing tendencies that don’t align with the ethical system out of our awareness. And the best-known forms of this technique are discipline and asceticism.[27]

Hawthorne is known as a master of psychological insight, and he tells us it’s “essential” to Dimmesdale “to feel the pressure of a faith about him.”[28] And we see Dimmesdale use both discipline and asceticism to keep himself in check. He exhibits discipline when he tells Pearl that he won’t appear publicly with her and Hester in the town square the next day:

“Nay; not so, my little Pearl,” answered the minister; for, with the new energy of the moment, all the dread of public exposure, that had so long been the anguish of his life, had returned upon him; and he was already trembling at the conjunction in which—with a strange joy, nevertheless—he now found himself.[29]

As much as Dimmesdale might wish he could claim his place alongside Hester and Pearl, he doesn’t dare fly in the face of Puritanism’s moral Law. And suppressing that impulse becomes a pleasant experience in itself. It’s also revealed that Dimmesdale’s conflicted soul not only leads him to whip himself with a “bloody scourge,” but fast to the point of collapse as “act[s] of penance.”[30]

While suppression operates on the conscious level, repression functions on the unconscious level. Inclinations that are at odds with the dominant ethic are rejected from the conscious mind. These tendencies may become unconscious, but according to depth psychology, they “lead an active underground life of their own.”[31] Needless to say, nothing good can come from this situation.

What does happen is that two psychic systems develop within the personality, one an outgrowth of suppression, and the other a byproduct of repression. Suppression leads to a “façade personality,” a mask that signals we’re conforming to the dominant ethic of the age, and hides our true nature.[32]  Though it’s easy to interpret Dimmesdale’s actions as mere hypocrisy, this is what occurs when he hides his guilt. [33]  The scene at the scaffold when Hester is first released from prison, demonstrates a façade personality at work:

“Hester Prynne,” said he, leaning over the balcony and looking down steadfastly into her eyes, “thou hearest what this good man says, and seest the accountability under which I labor. If thou feelest it to be for thy soul’s peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer! Be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him.[34]

Dimmesdale makes his true feelings known. But he does so through a mask that signals to everyone but Hester that he’s conforming to the strict Puritan ethic.

The Scarlet Letter banned

The other psychic system that develops is a shadow figure, which is a byproduct of repression. Taboo impulses are rejected so emphatically they become psychologically severed as “not me,” and as mentioned above, take on a life of their own. Chillingworth embodies this shadow figure.[35]  As such, he’s fully aware of what Dimmesdale is repressing. And his mission is to keep the torture of living under such an authoritarian ethic “always at red heat,” which literally drains the life out of Dimmesdale like the blood-sucking leech Hawthorne describes Chillingworth as.[36]

While Dimmesdale is an expression of American Puritanism, Hester looks toward a new ethic, and the social shifts that result from it. Like we said earlier, founders of new ethics are consistently deemed heretical. And Hawthorne associates Hester Prynne with Anne Hutchinson, who was expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony during the seventeenth century. Hutchinson was banished for her role in the “Antinomian controversy,” a theological conflict that was essentially between power and freedom of conscience.[37]

The Scarlet Letter banned

By associating Hester with Hutchinson, Hawthorne indicates that Hester’s real crime is indeed heresy rather than simply breaching Puritanism’s rigid moral code (though she did that as well). A passage stating that Hester “assumed a freedom of speculation” our Puritan forefathers would have considered “a deadlier crime than that stigmatized by the scarlet letter” confirms this interpretation.[38] In associating Hester with Hutchinson, Hawthorne also characterizes her heresy as being antinomian in nature.[39]

At its root, antinomianism means “against or opposed to the law.”[40] In a Christian context, antinomianism embraces the existence of an “inner light” within every individual, which presumes a spirituality based on inner experience with the Holy Spirit rather than conformity to religious laws.[41] Hester’s antinomian tendencies are evident in her declaration to Dimmesdale, where she’s clearly judging the validity of their relationship through her conscience and inner spiritual experience rather than the Puritan power structure and religious Law:

What we did had a consecration of its own. We felt it so! We said so to each other! Hast though forgotten it?[42]

Antinomianism’s “inner light” has been described as an “ancestor” to the philosophy of self-reliance held by nineteenth-century antinomians like Ralph Waldo Emerson and his circle of Transcendentalists. [43] Critics of unthinking conformity (religious or otherwise), the Transcendentalists urged each person to find, as Emerson put it, “an original relation to the universe.”[44] It’s a complex word, Transcendentalism, especially for such a simple idea – that men and women (in equal measure) have knowledge about the world around them that goes beyond what they can see, touch, hear, taste, or feel (transcends it, in other words). And, that people can trust their own intuition to know what is right.[45]  Antinomianism’s “inner light” has clearly been influenced by the post-Revolutionary spirit mentioned earlier (with its secular notion of self-evident truths, declaration of inalienable rights, and the equal creation of all), resulting in these Transcendentalist principles.

The Scarlet Letter banned

Hawthorne became acquainted with the Transcendentalist circle during the years he and his family spent in free-thinking and reform-minded Concord, which brings us to Margaret Fuller and her influence on The Scarlet Letter.[46]  Fuller is best known for her feminist work Woman in the Nineteenth Century, and she inspired Hawthorne’s “dark heroines,” the first of which was Hester Prynne.[47] In the chapter titled Another View of Hester, Hawthorne follows Fuller’s description of three stages in the advancement of women toward self-realization and social equality. The first stage is legal and institutional. Second is revised concepts about gender. And the third phase is female character itself, to primarily live in and for her own development.[48] According to Hester:

As a first step, the whole system of society is to be torn down, and built up anew. Then, the very nature of the opposite sex, or its long hereditary habit, which has become like nature, is to be essentially modified, before woman can be allowed to assume what seems a fair and suitable position. Finally, all other difficulties being obviated, woman cannot take advantage of these preliminary reforms, until she herself shall have undergone a still mightier change; in which, perhaps, the ethereal essence, wherein she has her truest lie, will be found to have evaporated.[49]

Those who knew Margaret Fuller best, described her as “The Friend:”

This was her vocation. She bore at her girdle a golden key to unlock all caskets of confidence. Into whatever home she entered she brought a benediction of truth, justice, tolerance, and honor.[50]

Consistent with her forward-looking role, by the end of The Scarlet Letter, this characterization also applies to Hester Prynne, marking the acceptance of the nineteenth century’s reform-minded ethic of individual experience and self-reliance.

[Women] came to Hester’s cottage, demanding why they were so wretched, and what the remedy! Hester comforted and counselled them, as best she might. She assured them, too, of her firm belief, that, at some brighter period, when the world should have grown ripe for it, in Heaven’s own time, a new truth would be revealed, in order to establish the whole relation between man and woman on a surer ground of mutual happiness.[51]
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The Scarlet Letter banned

Pearl: Transition Personified.

Symbolically speaking, children typically represent the future. Though Pearl is often associated with evil, it is the process of transition that she personifies. She embodies the chaotic liminal stage between one stable mode of being and another, when we are no longer in one mode, but not yet in another. We are “betwixt and between,” in this an old ethic and a new one. [52] Hester’s concerns about her daughter reflect the anxiety often experienced by those on the cusp of a new ethic, dreading the worst possible consequences while holding onto glimpses of the best possible outcome.[53]

[Hester] remembered—betwixt a smile and a shudder—the talk of the neighboring towns-people; who, seeking vainly elsewhere for the child’s paternity, and observing some of her odd attributes, had given out that poor little Pearl was a demon offspring; such as, ever since old Catholic times, had occasionally been seen on earth, through the agency of their mother’s sin, and to promote some foul and wicked purpose. Luther, according to the scandal of his monkish enemies, was a brat of that hellish breed.[54]

The new ethic alluded to by mentioning Luther is, of course, nothing less than the establishment of Protestantism itself. Pearl, however, specifically represents the transition between seventeenth-century Puritanism, and the new, nineteenth-century ethic. She is, after all, the daughter of Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne:

Her nature appeared to possess depth, too, as well as variety; but—or else Hester’s fears deceived her—it lacked reference and adaptation to the world into which she was born. The child could not be made amenable to rules. In giving her existence, a great law had been broken; and the result was a being whose elements were perhaps beautiful and brilliant, but all in disorder. [55]

As Hawthorne shows us, Pearl possesses Dimmesdale’s depth of character, but also has Hester’s antinomian nature. As a child, however, she’s developing and evolving, like the young country of America itself.
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The Scarlet Letter banned

The love plot parallels the shift in American culture.

The arc of Hawthorne’s love story reflects the shift in American culture that occurred between the conflicting ethics that Dimmesdale and Hester embody. The tale begins in Boston, the very colony established by John Winthrop, and the Puritan forefathers credited with founding America, those we still envision in black cloaks and steeple-crowned hats.  And Hawthorne explicitly states that at this point in America’s history, Boston is a theocracy, a form of government where religion and law are “thoroughly interfused.”[56]

We’re introduced to Hester as she is released from prison, and crosses the threshold of its heavy oaken door, a significant symbol indicating change. Hawthorne makes it clear that her thinking (and therefore the ethic she embodies) conflicts with the strict, authoritarian Puritan doctrine. After all, Hester is being released from prison, where (not coincidently) she gave birth to baby Pearl (and all that she embodies). In this scene, we also learn that Dimmesdale is an integral part of the theocratic machinery. And Hawthorne drops enough hints that we know he’s the father of Hester’s baby.

Hawthorne spends the next segment of the narrative examining the differing ethics at work, and their psychological repercussions. The love story peaks with the scene in the forest between Hester and Dimmesdale, when she proposes that they put the past seven years behind them, leave Boston, and start a new life somewhere else:

Begin all anew! Hast thou exhausted possibility in the failure of this one trial? Not so! The future is yet full of trial and success. There is happiness to be enjoyed! There is good to be done![57]

Hester’s plan involves more than a future with Dimmesdale. Symbolically, her proposal amounts to a re-founding of America on the basis of nineteenth-century principles – development of the self, individual experience and self-reliance, as well as the new morality and corresponding social forms they give rise to.[58]

If real progress is to take place, however, Pearl must come to terms with Dimmesdale, which she finally does:

Pearl kissed [Dimmesdale’s] lips. A spell was broken. The great scene of grief, in which the wild infant bore a part, had developed all her sympathies; and as her tears fell upon her father’s cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor forever do battle with the world, but be a woman in it. Towards her mother, too, Pearl’s errand as a messenger of anguish was all fulfilled.[59]

With Pearl’s kiss, seventeenth-century Puritanism and the nineteenth-century’s antinomian ethic of self-reliance are symbolically married, if you will.[60] And with that, Dimmesdale passes away, just like the era defined by Puritanism ultimately did. Signifying Puritanism’s continued influence on America, Chillingworth bequeaths “a great deal of property, both here and in England” (the birthplace of Puritanism) to Pearl.[61] And it’s no coincidence that the top two figures of the Puritan hierarchy were executors of the estate.

In Hester’s return to Boston after many years away, she is doing what Americans continue to do (especially given that she crosses the threshold back into her old cottage wearing the scarlet letter on her bosom). She’s reaching back through the A to America’s myth of national origins, and returning to the Puritans to reclaim a sense of purpose, while also demonstrating progress.

The Scarlet Letter banned

Finally, the tombstone Hester ultimately shares with Dimmesdale is engraved with an escutcheon, the shield that forms the foundation for coats of arms. And Hawthorne tells us that the motto etched into it serves as a “brief description of our now concluded legend:” [62]

On a field, sable, the letter A. gules [63]

…Sable and gules are terms used in heraldry for the colors black and red. As coats of arms are intended to do, this phrase crystalizes the cultural history of its owner.[64] The sable/black stands for the Puritanism America is grounded in, the doctrine that produced what Hawthorne describes as “black-browed” followers, and future generations continue to associate with black cloaks and steeple-crowned hats.[65] And the A once again functions as a cultural artifact, only this time not as a token of shame, but as a crest representing progress toward the nineteenth-century ethic of individual experience and self-reliance.
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In Conclusion.

So, what does Hawthorne’s A actually stand for? Is it the adultery so many parents have found objectionable in their challenges? Or is the feminist message, with its implied antinomianism that nineteenth-century critics took issue with? Or does the A stand for America itself?

Like all well-constructed symbols, there’s a lot packed into Hawthorne’s scarlet A. So, consistent with his multiple-choice style, the answer is a paradoxical yes. Hawthorne’s A is for – Adultery, Antinomianism, and America itself.

That’s my take on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter– what’s yours?
Check out this discussion guide to get you started.

#Hawthorne      #symbol    #witch trials   #betwixt & between   #banned   #liminal     #Puritan

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Endnotes:

[1] James, Henry. “Hawthorne.” In English Men of Letters. Edited by John Morley. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1879), 6.
[2] Brooks, Rebecca Beatrice. “The Life of Nathaniel Hawthorne.” History of Massachusetts Blog. Sept 15, 2011; “The Paternal Ancestors of Nathaniel Hawthorne: Introduction.” Hawthorne In Salem. hawthorneinsalem.org; Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. (New York: Penguin Books, 2016), 11.
[3] Moore, Margaret. The Salem World of Nathaniel Hawthorne. (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2001), 31; In 1662 “Robert Pike Halts a Quaker Persecution in Massachusetts.” New England Historical Society. https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/1662-robert-pike-halts-quaker-persecution-massachusetts/
[4] Hawthorne-The Scarlet Letter, 11; “The Paternal Ancestors of Nathaniel Hawthorne: Introduction.”
[5] Hawthorne-The Scarlet Letter, 11.
[6] Melville, Herman. “Hawthorne and his Mosses.” Herman Melville. Edited by Harrison Hayford. (New York: The Library of America, 1984), 1159.
[7] Howells, W. D. “The Personality of Hawthorne.” The North American Review. Vol. 177, No. 565. (Dec. 1903), 882.
[8] Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. (New York: Penguin Books, 2016), 10.
[9] Milder, Robert. “‘The Scarlet Letter’ and Its Discontents.” Nathaniel Hawthorne Review. Vol. 22, No. 1 (Spring 1996), 21.
[10] Wendell, Barrett. A Literary History of America. (New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1900), 433.
[11] Matthieson, F. O. American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1941), 276.
[12] Fields, James T. Yesterdays with Authors. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1893), 51
[13] Coxe, Arthur Cleveland. “The Writings of Hawthorne.” The Church Review. January, 1851. Vol. 3, No. 4., 506.
[14] Sova, Dawn B. Banned Books: Literature Suppressed on Social Grounds. (New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006), 254; Brownson, Orestes. “The Scarlet Letter.” Brownson Quarterly Review. October, 1850.
[15] Gurdon, Meghan Cox. “Even Homer Gets Mobbed; A Massachusetts school has banned ‘The Odyssey.’” Wall Street Journal (Online). Dec. 27, 2020;
[16] Coxe, 510.
[17] Brownson, Orestes. “The Scarlet Letter.” Brownson Quarterly Review. October, 1850; Sova, 254.
[18] Milder, Robert. “Nathaniel Hawthorne.” The Cambridge Companion to American Novelists. Edited by Timothy Parrish. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 14.
[19] Perotta, Tom. “Foreward.” The Scarlet Letter. (New York: Penguin Books, 2016), ix.
[20] Bercovitch, Sacvan. “The A-Politics of Ambiguity in ‘The Scarlet Letter.’” New Literary History. Vol. 19, No. 3. (Spring, 1988), 631, 632; Milder- “Nathaniel Hawthorne,” 14.
[21] “Scarlet Letter.” Massachusetts Law Updates. Nov. 30, 2013.
[22] Carrez, Stephanie. “Symbol and Interpretation in Hawthorne’s ‘Scarlet Letter’.” Hawthorne In Salem. https://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/page/12218/
[23] Bercovitch- “The A-Politics of Ambiguity in ‘The Scarlet Letter,’” 630.
[24] Bercovitch- “The A-Politics of Ambiguity in ‘The Scarlet Letter,’” 630; Bercovitch – “The Scarlet Letter: A Twice-Told Tale,” 4; Bercovitch- “Hawthorne’s A-Morality of Compromise.” Representations. No. 24, Special Issue: America Reconstructed, 1840-1940 (Autumn, 1988), 12.
[25] Noll, Mark. A History of Christianity in The United States and Canada. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1992), 148.
[26] Sarracino, Carmine. “‘The Scarlet Letter’ and a New Ethic.” College Literature. Vol. 10, No. 1 (Winter, 1983).
[27] Neumann, Erich. Depth Psychology and a New Ethic. Translated by Eugene Rolfe. (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1973), 33.
[28] Hawthorne- The Scarlet Letter, 114.
[29] Hawthorne- The Scarlet Letter, 141.
[30] Hawthorne- The Scarlet Letter, 134.
[31] Neumann, 35.
[32] Neumann, 41.
[33] Sarracino, 52.
[34] Hawthorne- The Scarlet Letter, 63.
[35] Sarracino, 52.
[36] Hawthorne- The Scarlet Letter, 239.
[37] Hall, David D. ed. The Antinomian Controversy, 1636-1638: A Documentary History. (Durham: Duke University Press, 1990).
[38] Hawathorne- The Scarlet Letter, 152.
[39] Khomina, Anna. “The Banishment of Anne Hutchinson.” The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. (Nov. 17, 2016).
[40] Hall, 3.
[41] Pokol, Agnes. “The Sociological Dimensions of The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne as a Social Critic on Democracy and the Woman question.”
[42] Hawthorne-The Scarlet Letter, 181.
[43] Pokol.
[44] Pokol; Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Nature.” Ralph Waldo Emerson: A Critical Edition of the Major Works. Edited by Richard Poirier. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 2.
[45] “Transcendentalism, An American Philosophy.” U.S. History: Pre-Columbian to the New Millennium. www.ushistory.org.
[46] Milder, “Introduction.” The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. (New York: Penguin Books, 2016), xiii.
[47] Milder- “‘The Scarlet Letter’ and Its Discontents,” 11.
[48] Milder- “Introduction,” xxiv; Milder- “‘The Scarlet Letter’ and Its Discontents,” 12.
[49] Hawthorne- The Scarlet Letter, 153.
[50] Fuller, Margaret; Channing, W. H.; Emerson, Ralph Waldo; Clarke, James Freeman. The Autobiography of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. Vol. 1&2. (Madison & Adams Press, Kindle Edition), 326.
[51] Hawthorne- The Scarlet Letter, 245.[52] Turner, Victor. “Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites of Passage.” Betwixt & Between: Patterns of Masculine and Feminine Initiation. Edited by Lois Carus Mahdi, Steven Foster, Meredith Little. (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1987), 7.
[53] Sarracino, 57.
[54] Hawthorne- The Scarlet Letter, 92.
[55] Hawthorne- The Scarlet Letter, 84.
[56] Hawthorne- The Scarlet Letter, 47.
[57] Hawthorne- The Scarlet Letter, 184.
[58] Milder- “Nathaniel Hawthorne,” 14-15.
[59] Hawthorne- The Scarlet Letter, 238.
[60] Sarracino, 58.
[61] Hawthorne- The Scarlet Letter, 243.
[62] Hawthorne- The Scarlet Letter, 246.
[63] Hawthorne- The Scarlet Letter, 246.
[64] International Heraldry & Heralds.
[65] Hawthorne- The Scarlet Letter, 11, 217.

Images:

Cover. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1895).

Nathaniel Hawthorne portrait.  Nathaniel Hawthorne. , ca. 1860. [to 1865] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017892968/.

Anne Hutchinson Statue. Curbed Boston. https://boston.curbed.com/maps/boston-statues-of-women

Margaret Fuller portrait. Josiah Johnson Hawes, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Margaret_Fuller.tif

Illustrated images are taken from: Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1878).

FYI:

This Book is Banned participates in the Amazon.com affiliate program, where we earn a small commission by linking to books (but the price remains the same to you).  This allows us to remain free, and ad free. [Our privacy policy]



Aphorisms and Idioms: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

life liberty and the pursuit of happiness

L
ife, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness doesn’t mean what you probably think it means. This oft-quoted phrase is, of course, an inventory of the unalienable rights listed in the Declaration of Independence. And, given today’s sensibilities, this expression sounds like it means we have the right to do whatever makes us feel good.

However, in the eighteenth century, the word happiness meant more than just doing your own thing. What it conveyed was the deeper, more significant concept of human flourishing.

Though happiness was indeed seen as a private right, more importantly, it was also understood as a public duty…  to live an honorable and principled life in order to ensure that all members of society could flourish and thrive.[1] So, the intended meaning of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is a far cry from permission to “just do you.”

Be Sure To Check Out More
Aphorisms And Idioms Here.

#Aphorisms Unplugged

Endnotes:

[1] Conklin, Carli N. “The Origins of the Pursuit of Happiness.” Washington University Jurisprudence Review. Volume 7, Issue 2, 2015.
Available at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_jurisprudence/vol7/iss2/6



This Week’s Fun & Fancy Word: Pyrophile!

pyrophile

This Week’s Fun & Fancy Word Is:

You got your anglophiles (people who love all things British), your bibliophiles (people who just can’t get enough books), and your audiophiles (folks who are enthusiastic about high-quality music reproduction). There’s also the pyrophiles. No, that isn’t someone with an irresistible impulse to watch something burn – that’s a pyromaniac. But pyrophiles do love a good fire. Whether it’s the household-warming version in the fireplace, or the celebratory fireworks that light up the sky on noteworthy occasions.

Etymology:
Origin of Pyrophile

The prefix pyro- has a predecessor in the Greek pyr meaning “fire.” The suffix phile originates from the Greek philos, which means lover or enthusiast of a specific thing. Put them together and you’ve got pyrophile, a lover of fire.

Find A Caboodle
Of Fun & Fancy Words Here.

pyrophile

#Fun & Fancy Words

Endnotes:

“What Kind of Lover Are You?” Merriam Webster Dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/top-10-particular-kinds-of-lovers

“-phile.” Dictionary.com   https://www.dictionary.com/browse/phile



A Boon For History Buffs: Just In Time For America’s 250th Anniversary

America's 250th anniversary

H
istory buffs, Humanities enthusiasts, and especially educators…  this series of video lectures is right up your alley! It’s called 1776, Then and Now. And it’s right in time for America’s 250th anniversary.

America's 250th Anniversary

In fact, that’s precisely why the folks at The John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St Louis put this series of lectures together. To commemorate and respond to the events of 1776 and the founding of the United States.

These talks take a look at the founding of the United States from various points of view and multiple perspectives. As well as the consequences, and continuing relevance of those events. This series of lectures examines the questions:

What happened, how did it happen, and why does it still matter? [1]

And it does so with the help of renowned scholars from around the country, as well as those who call WashU home.

America's 250th Anniversary

It Was About
More Than Just Tea

These lectures explore all the conflicts that led colonists to challenge British authority – political, economic, imperial, as well as ideological. The participating scholars also consider how competing visions of liberty, governance, and empire shaped the path toward revolution. And the ways ordinary people experienced the escalating crisis.

Lecturing scholars expand the meaning of freedom beyond the quest for national independence. They examine how the Revolution created limitations as well as opportunities in the struggle for both personal and collective liberty by highlighting tensions between the revolutionary ideals of freedom and the realities of bondage and inequality.

We’ve all heard the United States referred to as a “Christian nation.” But participating scholars investigate the complex relationship between religion, religious diversity and emerging secular ideas in revolutionary America. Questions of pluralism, religious liberty, and the role of religion in public life are explored as well.

This series also delves into how Americans sought to define and secure rights in their new nation.  The lectures analyze the way constitutional principles developed, the expansion and limits of citizenship. They also address ongoing debates about liberty, equality, and participation in public life.[2]

America's 250th Anniversary

In Conclusion

Clearly, the points of view mentioned above still matter. Perhaps now more than ever. Unfortunately, a lot of us weren’t taught certain aspects of how the founding of the United States unfolded. Or who contributed beyond the ever-ready Minute Men.

Because until quite recently, the history of our nation has predominantly been presented to students from a single perspective – that of mythologized Founding Fathers whose sole motivation was a philosophy of equality and self-governance.

And the politically motivated book banners we’ve seen so much of lately have made it clear they’re making every effort to keep it that way. No matter whose contributions to our nation’s history they have to ban from classroom libraries and scrub from curriculums to do it.

So, broaden your understanding about the founding of the United States with this fabulous series of video lectures. What happened, how it happened, and who helped make it happen. Not to mention why having a more complete understanding of our nation’s history matters – And it does, significantly.

Pair This With

America's 250th Anniversary

The Declaration of Independence:
Guidelines For Recognizing A Tyrant

#Teacher Resources                  #The American Experience

Endnotes:

[1] 1776, Then and Now. John C. Danforth Center for Religion and Politics. https://rap.wustl.edu/1776-then-and-now/[2]  1776, Then and Now. John C. Danforth Center for Religion and Politics. https://rap.wustl.edu/1776-then-and-now/

Images:

A Boon for History Buffs: Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
It Was About More Than Tea: Photo by petr sidorov on Unsplash
In Conclusion: Photo by petr sidorov on Unsplash



Power of Books Author Series: Edward Underhill

Power of Books: Edward Underhill

I
n this edition, we chat with Edward Underhill, author of Always The Almost and This Day Changes Everything. We talk about the importance of LGBTQIA representation in books and media, and joy as a form of resistance.

Our freedom to read has been under assault for what seems like an eternity. And, the books being banned are consistently those of marginalized voices. Books with diverse characters, primarily characters of color and LGBTQA+ characters were overwhelmingly targeted. And continue to be.

And, the books being banned are consistently those of marginalized voices. Books with diverse characters, primarily characters of color and LGBTQA+ characters were overwhelmingly targeted.[1] And continue to be.

Throughout this collection of conversations with authors, we talk about the power of books, and the question of why it’s important for stories containing characters that have diverse backgrounds and life experience to be told.

In considering this vital question, we also touch on the dangers of restricting or erasing these narratives – what damage is being done when books about diversity are banned and reading is restricted?

Needless to say, each of the authors in this series brings s different perspective and life experience to the conversation, adding nuance and depth to the combined answer of why it’s important for stories about diverse lives to be told… as well as the dangers that arise when they’re expunged from our national discourse.

This Book is Banned Power of Books Author Series -- Edward UnderhillEdward Underhill (he/him) is a queer trans man who grew up in Wisconsin, studied music in Ohio, and spent several years in NYC. He currently lives in California with his partner, where he writes music and stories. As a queer trans man, he is passionate about representation both on the screen and on the page.

He is the author of the young adult novels Always the Almost — which released in 2023, was an Indie Next pick, a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults pick, and earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly. His second novel, This Day Changes Everything, has earned starred reviews from Booklist, School Library Journal, and the Bulletin for the Center of Children’s Books. His adult fiction debut, The In-Between Bookstore, is forthcoming from Harper Collins in early 2025.

Power of Books: Edward Underhill - cover of Always the Almost
Power of Books: Edward Underhill - cover of This Day Changes Everything

Trans and queer folks deal with plenty of Not Joy in real life: the recent slew of anti-trans legislation, an ever-growing pile of banned books, online trolls, op-eds that question whether our identity is just a trendy fad (*insert facepalm here*).  So, I wanted to write a story with a happily-ever-after. I wanted to write a story about all the other stuff that’s part of being trans and queer. The fun stuff, like finding your first suit, or looking in the mirror and seeing yourself. And the stuff that’s just about being a human in the world…    

~Edward Underhill~

Check Out Our Conversation With Edward
About The Power Of Books

This Book is Banned: I know you have a lot going on, with the run-up to the release of your second book This Day Changes Everything and all. So, thank you for taking time to talk to me.

Given that my website is about pushing back against the book banning we’re seeing so much of these days, my questions will be primarily through that filter. I’m sure you’ve probably been asked some of them before. But, some issues are so important that they simply can’t be addressed too often, or from too many different perspectives. And, the skyrocketing number of books being banned is one of them.

Why do you think it’s so important for books like the ones you write to be out there and accessible, books that speak to the topics you address?

.

I think about this through a very personal lens –  because growing up where I did and when I did, in Wisconsin, I still remember the first time I found a queer book in an independent bookstore. I had never seen a book like this in the library. I had never come across one in a bookstore before either. There just wasn’t that much out, since the queer book boom has really only been post-2015 or so in the younger space.

It was a book about a gay boy and it took place in the Midwest. And I was not a gay boy. I did not realize I was trans at that point, but seeing something queer, I connected to it without necessarily understanding why.

It was set in Minnesota, and I grew up in Wisconsin. The fact that it took place somewhere that was immediately recognizable to me, and was basically saying, “oh yeah, these people exist here too” was huge. I literally had no language to understand why I felt wrong the way I felt wrong. I was lucky to go to a college where I met people who were able to give me more books, and help me figure out more things.

Whenever I see people trying to take books away from young people – whether they’re by BIPOC authors or queer authors — that’s always the first place my brain goes. Because, we really lose something when we’re not giving young people a frame of reference to understand themselves through fiction. Which is what a lot of us do with fiction, whether we’re from a marginalized group or not. We’re looking for some kind of lens to better understand our world through fiction.

And when a lot of the media you see isn’t representing your own experience, the only message you get is that you fundamentally don’t belong in this world. So, just remembering the difference it made to find this book that at least exhibited some kind of queer identity allowed me to say, “no, actually there is a place for you to exist. And not just in the wider world, but in the kind of place you’re growing up in.” I think that’s really important.

This Book is Banned:  Absolutely. And, thank you for writing the books you do. Not only because they’re fabulous stories, but also because it carries more weight coming from someone who has lived your experience than if I speak to such issues. I may be able to understand intellectually, but there are nuances I will never see. And as a result, I’ll never be able to do the topic justice. So, thank you for taking the time to talk with me about this very important subject.

One of the first things I remember doing after I came out as trans, was to Google for trans adults having careers and living their lives. I wanted to know that there was a quote-unquote “normal” existence out there that was available to me. I want to be able to show through fiction that, yes, you can exist as a trans or queer young person and be just fine. But it also matters to me that I’m out there doing this — to show that you can be an adult as a queer and trans person, and be fine, and figure things out.

This Book is Banned:  So, thank you for communicating a message that I am simply not equipped to convey. Which is why I ask all the authors in this series the question about why it’s important for books like the ones they write to be out there and accessible — because it’s the question.

Flipping that question on its head is equally important. So… what are the dangers of squashing that availability?

The most depressing answer to that question is that already in the world — I can’t remember the exact statistics, but already for queer youth, and especially for trans youth, there’s a very, very high risk of suicide. So, to me, that already comes from feeling like there must be something fundamentally wrong with you, and that there isn’t a space for you to exist in this society. That is one of the dangers when you take away books that convey a positive image of queer and trans youth.

This goes hand in hand with all sorts of attacks we’ve seen on queer rights. That it’s not just about book banning, it’s also about things like the “don’t say gay bill.” It’s all related because it’s all trying to take away language. And, language is how we make sense of the world and make sense of ourselves. So, when you don’t have language to understand who you are and how you can fit in with the humans around you, that’s a huge loss.

Before I was able to find that language, I was incredibly depressed. I just felt like there’s something going on with me that no one else around me seems to be dealing with. But, by and large, that’s actually not true. I think there are probably a lot more queer people around me than I realized. But, when you have that environment of trying to take away that language, you’re trying to ban these books, you’re basically trying to fundamentally make it unsafe to exist in an out way.

Because you’re communicating to kids that this is bad. This stuff is dirty, we don’t talk about this stuff at most. Maybe you can learn about it when you’re a grownup, but there’s something wrong with it that we need to keep from you. And that message is continuing to make sure we Other a specific group of people.

And, if all you are absorbing as a young person growing up is that you are one of those Other people, you are undesirable in some way, then you basically have nothing but terrible choices. You can either try to ignore this fundamental part of you in the hopes of fitting in with what society has deemed an acceptable way to be a human. Or you don’t. And then, you feel like there isn’t room for you.

You feel like you’re never going to fit-in in the way you should. I realize that’s a rambling answer, but I really do feel like it’s all related. And that, every harm that’s done by a piece of it is all the same harm. That’s the flip side. This stuff is so bad because it’s all coming from the same message of, “this isn’t the right way to be a human. And you will face consequences if you’re not doing what we’ve decided is the right way to be a human.”

This Book is Banned:  Well, it’s a complicated question. So it deserves a thoughtful, in-depth answer, which is really what I’m looking for. Because that’s where the nuance, details, and experience you bring to the subject come in.

This stuff is complicated. And it is nuanced. I’ve been doing my own learning, in seeing all this stuff start to happen more. Being a published author, and so much more aware of it from that perspective, I see all these little things happening. It took me a while to put together for myself the ways in which they’re all related and all communicating the same message.

This Book is Banned:  Right, and that’s the thing. They are related. But if they’re presented as being separate – which they have been –  it’s easy to disregard them. Once again, that’s why these questions can’t be asked too often. Because the book banning over here, and the squashing of diversity programs over there, are related. There is a disturbing thread that runs through all of it, the results of which are indeed bleak and depressing. Which brings me to a point you made at an earlier event about joy being a form of resistance… unpack that, what do you mean by that?

I’ve been writing for a long time, but I think something fundamentally changed about the way that I approached it after 2016. It was partly that I was working in a very different career at the time. I was working in music. And I was by and large around fairly liberal folks, but it was a very white male dominated industry. It was a lot of people who didn’t know I was trans, and sort of thought they didn’t have to worry about these issues because they didn’t know anybody who was affected by them. So, I started coming out a lot more at work. And, in doing that, I decided I wanted to get back to writing and try again to publish a book.

I sort of wrote “Always The Almost” out of spite – which is a funny way to say that I wrote a joy book. But, I just wanted to be like, “no, you don’t get to take this part of myself away from me.” And it’s the part that’s not just about how I exist within or in opposition to cis society, but how the way I exist is a whole identity in and of itself.

And it doesn’t need to be set up in comparison to this other thing. It matters. It is full of so much nuance and joy by itself. So a big part of writing “Always The Almost” was trying to think about these aspects of both being a trans person, and also just being human that are really joyful and fulfilling. Outlooks that are not set up as – and I don’t like putting it as – “we can be happy anyway.”

We can be happy. And it’s the cisgender society that, you know, is causing all of this trouble for us – it’s their problems. Of course we have to deal with that. Of course we have to try to find various ways to fight back. But the idea that societal expectations dictate every way I have to emotionally react to things, I just don’t go for it.

So to me, that that’s where joy as a form of resistance comes in. I think the first thing people who are banning books, the people who are trying to legislate trans existence, the first thing they want to do is make it hard to be a whole person existing in public life this way. That, to me, is basically saying, “I want to take your joy away. I want to make this hard, and uncomfortable, and difficult for you.” So to me, a very important form of resistance is saying, “no, you don’t get to do that.” I maintain my right to have this joy, even if I also have all these terrible feelings about what’s going on in the world.

Then when I wrote “This Day Changes Everything” I wanted to focus that book much more on all the little ways the world kind of comes at you for being a trans or a queer person in the places like Leo and Abby exist most of their lives, which are in small towns. And then, the two of them together in New York City, which is a place that gives them room to be as queer as they want. They are basically able to create a bubble, just the two of them being able to be their whole, nuanced, complicated, and joyful selves without worrying about what the wider world thinks of that.

I also, in a very simple way, wanted to write that because being a trans and queer person is hard enough on a day-to-day level. I don’t want to read about how hard it is. It’s a personal preference. It’s important to have the trauma books out there… it really is. But I also wanted to write a story for the young people who may be in some of those places like where I grew up. An escape that isn’t ignoring how hard reality is, but is saying you get to be a whole joyful, interesting human in spite of all of that goes with living your own life.

This Book is Banned:  The two books seem to bookend each other. You said with Always The Almost you wanted to point out that trans and queer people don’t only live in big cities. And with This Day Changes Everything, that the big city then allows this couple of kids to just be for a minute. So, they’re a nice pair.

During a panel on African American authors at a conference I attended, one gentleman noted that he frequently hears lamentable sentiments like, “I know slavery was terrible and racism continues to exist, but we’re so tired of it being dredged up.” And, that this kind of trauma exhaustion starts to work against the cause of justice and equality. So, he did the same thing. He wrote a children’s book about civil rights leaders that focuses on the inspirational. With stories and poems about who they were, and their diverse and equitable vision for the world. So yes, joy is absolutely a form of resistance.

And especially for queer narratives. Up until recently, it was basically expected they would end in tragedy. If you wanted to write about a queer person, for example, or you want to write about a queer couple, it was ultimately going to be an unhappy ending. And, I definitely didn’t want to go there. I want to give you the happy ending.

Because, even though those narratives are important and that is sometimes reality, it’s also like what this person was saying on that panel. You run the risk of that being the only narrative out there. Then you’re accidentally communicating something really damaging to young people – which is, that your whole existence is going to be a fight and it’s probably going to end up unhappy.

And, at least for me personally, I cannot keep going if that’s the only narrative I have in my head. I need the other narrative. Which is, that there are ways to expand and take up your community, and also find your joy. That these two things can exist simultaneously.

This Book is Banned:  I also really appreciated what a significant role the arts play in your books. Specifically, music of course, but also Eric’s drawing – because the arts are taking a hit these days too. And I love that it’s the music teacher who drops all the life-changing wisdom. Can you talk about your decision to do that?

I don’t like saying that anybody in my books is based on a real person, because they aren’t really. They absolutely become whole characters of their own. But, a lot of the things Stefania says did originally come from my cello teacher in high school. Not so much the stuff about identity, but some of the things she says about the ways people are always going to judge – say a small woman – differently than a tall dude playing the piano. I was a cellist, so she was talking about my cello, but she said that and I think it was completely true. And then, the thing Stefania says to Miles near the end… that this could be the best time you ever play it. As if to say, “why are you putting narratives in your own head about how things are going to go wrong? This could be the best time you ever play it.”

She literally said that to me before a concert. And, of course, in that moment she was just talking about that particular narrative – about how I’m going to mess up this piece of music. It felt really important to put that in the book because it’s about that moment before the concert Miles has to play.

And it can easily be applied elsewhere, you have this internal narrative that things are going to go wrong, I’m going to mess up. But, what if you exchange it for a different narrative – because you have more control than you think you do. You can change things, and write your own narrative. Which is what Miles is doing. So, a lot of the things Stefania says were just like the truth bombs my cello teacher dropped, and I felt very, very grateful for them.

This Book is Banned:  And I found it interesting that, as much as everyone else around Miles tried, it was the artist who opened all those life-changing, life-affirming doors. So that jumped out at me, because the importance of humanities is my proverbial soapbox most broadly, though I’m coming at it by way of pushing back against book banning.

Yeah. There’s this argument that we need to preserve music education in schools because if you study music, you’re more likely to do better on these standardized tests. And it drives me nuts. Because to me, you study music or the arts because that’s how you make sense of your world. It’s how you express yourself.

I think part of why I really wanted to make this book about artists and musicians was because, certainly for me as a young person, that’s how I expressed all this stuff  I did not have language for at the time, and I did not know what to do with.  But this was a way I could just exist, and feel like I was enough. I was exerting some control in a world that didn’t feel totally in my control at that time. So, I love being able to portray the arts just for their own sake. And, for everything you can express and learn about yourself as a human through them, and not so much about whether it’s going to make sure you get into a good college with a good SAT score.

This Book is Banned:  School is about more than just getting a job, but sadly, it’s been boiled down to that. Recently, the response to Humanities degrees has become “what are you going to do with that?” My answer to that question is “learn to be a decent human being, and better citizen of the world.”

There’s also the huge role Humanities play in learning to think critically. Because when you think critically, you’re not manipulated and fooled as easily. You’re not frightened into doing things like banning books that address diversity and social issues in order to “protect the children.”

When you learn to think critically, difference and diversity are no longer frightening. So, your life is going to be easier. It isn’t just marginalized groups who benefit from empathy and understanding. Everybody wins.

The other thing that drives me up the wall with the whole “think of the children” argument is that…  as somebody who’s now met a fair number of young people because of writing this book, they are so much smarter than people think they are. They know exactly what’s going on. They see right through this B.S. And, they know exactly what they’re losing when this stuff happens. So, my response to this argument is “the kids know way more than you think they do.”

This Book is Banned:  They do. And, they’re dealing with all of these sensitive topics. Don’t pretend they’re still playing with alphabet blocks – because they’re living these issues. One more question to wrap up our conversation on a joyous note. It’s another one I’m certain you’ve been asked before. But, again, it’s important enough to be repeated. Do you have any advice for trans kids?

Oh gosh. I don’t even know if there’s a way to give advice that isn’t going to sound pat, because I really don’t want to downplay just how hard and horrible things are. I had no language to understand who I was, because this identity wasn’t as known and in the mainstream as much as it is now. I also didn’t have the New York Times writing op-eds about my identity every single week. So, I can’t imagine how much harder it’s gotten.

But the thing I just keep thinking is “keep existing” whatever that looks like for you. If that’s “you can’t be out yet, and maybe you’ll get to be out in a few years”…  It sucks. But, do that. If it’s, “I’m sort of going stealth.” If it’s, “I can be out around some friends and not others.”  If it’s, “no, fuck it, I’m going to be out” – excuse my language – “I’m going to be out loud and proud and everyone around me just has to deal with me.” Or, if it’s, “I live in a community that makes room for this, so I’m going to take up that room,” it’s all valid.

The most important thing is to keep existing. Because the thing I’ve been working on communicating to some of my cis friends ever since the wake of the 2016 election is, “you guys have no idea how much different that moment looked for cis communities than it did for trans communities.”

In that moment, trans communities saw a lot of what was coming and were freaking out about it. We were offering each other bits of advice about how to get your documents, and how to get everything in order as much as possible, to try to be safe.

I feel like the good thing is that there are more of us than I was certainly aware of when I was in high school. And by more of us, I mean folks who are in their twenties, thirties, forties. The good part about that is there are so many more people here ready to do the hard stuff. So, if you are a trans young person, you don’t have to do the hard stuff. You just have to do the existing part until you can get to whatever you need, to be more okay. But the rest of us got you. And, we’re working to do the hard stuff, so hopefully by the time you get to where you need to be, it’ll look a lot better than it is now.

This Book is Banned:  Well, thank you for being so open with your answers. We talked about some pretty deep questions, but that’s rather the point. Because the more positive information we get out there the better.

Yeah, it’s all good stuff to talk about. One of the wonderful things about publishing these books that I never expected is just how many people haven’t cared at all that I’m trans. I was absolutely expecting to get some backlash, like “you’re a groomer, what are you doing to kids?” All that bad stuff.

But the joyful flip side was the number of people who have been huge allies, the number of kids who have just loved this book. I’ve gotten things from kids like, “my friend is trans. So I wanted to read this book for them.” It’s amazing to see that kind of empathy. And it’s been a nice reminder that I’m not by myself doing this.

This Book is Banned:  Yeah. There are lots of allies out there. Sometimes it’s hard to know that. The adversaries are so loud, and take up so much oxygen, it’s difficult to remember. It makes my head explode on all kinds of levels. Which is why I’m taking on book banning. It’s something I can do to push back.

Yeah. It was amazing to be at the YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) Symposium, and see all of the people doing this work. I have so much respect for it. I appreciate it so much. It means a lot.

This Book is Banned:  Thanks for the work you’re doing as well. And for taking the time to talk with me. And, needless to say, congratulations on YALSA listing Always The Almost among the best fiction for young adults in 2024. As well as the recent release of This Day Changes Everything.

Be Sure To See What Other Authors
In Our Power Of Books Series
Have To Say About
The Importance Of Books: 

Federico Erebia,
author of Pedro & Daniel

Dr. Michael Datcher,
author of Harlem at Four

Jamie Jo Hoang,
author of My Father the Panda Killer

Ryan Estrada,
co-author of Banned Book Club,
and Occulted

For All You Educators,
Download These Discussion Guides For:

Always The Almost, and
 This Day Changes Everything.

#Power of Books Author Series     #Pride Month        #LGBTQ+ authors
#Benefits of the Humanities    #The Art of Reading

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Endnotes:

[1] Bruinius, Harry. “Banning Books: Protecting kids or erasing humanity?” October 6, 2023. The Christian Science Monitor. https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2023/1006/Banning-books-Protecting-kids-or-erasing-humanity

Rado, Diane. “In 2024, more censorship and bans: FL, TX removing large batches of books in public schools.” December 21, 2023. News From The States. https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/2024-more-censorship-and-bans-fl-tx-removing-large-batches-books-public-schools

Unite Against Banned Books 2023 Censorship Numbers.

Images:

Power of Books: Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash    Edited: Added Power of Books Author Series text.

Edward Underhill:  https://www.edward-underhill.com/about

Cover of Always The Almost, and This Day Changes Everything

FYI:

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This Week’s Fun & Fancy Word: Cabotage!

cabotage

This Week’s Fun & Fancy Word Is:

cabotage

No, it isn’t some kind of cabbage stew. And it doesn’t refer to sabotaging cab drivers. It does, however, have to do with transportation and shipping. But only if you or your goods aren’t traveling beyond their country of origin.It’s when goods or passengers are conveyed between two points in the same country by a carrier from another country. Like flying from Detroit to New York on a private plane registered in Canada, for example. And it would have to be a private jet, because that is one of the few exemptions of the restrictions regulating cabotage in the U.S. [1]

Etymology:
Origin of Cabotage.

At one point, coastlines were so important to the French that they concocted a word to name the act of sailing along them. That term is caboter, a verb that gave rise to the noun cabotage, meaning transport or trade along a coast.

In the 16th century, the French placed limits on their lucrative coastal trade, declaring that only French ships could trade in French ports. The right to conduct such trade also became known as cabotage.

Soon, other nations embraced the concept of trade restrictions. And along with it the French name for trading rights, which expanded the notion to inland trade as well.

Find A Caboodle
Of Fun & Fancy Words Here.

#Fun & Fancy Words

Endnotes:

[1] Cabotage. Merrian Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cabotage

“What Is Cabotage, And how does it impact private jet charters?” https://privatejetcharter.com/what-is-cabotage/



Aphorisms and Idioms: When Pigs Fly

when pigs fly

W
hen pigs fly. That’s when your outdoor-averse, girly-girl friend with the sparkly pink fingernails will go survival camping with you. That’s also when your dog will stop chasing the neighbor’s cat. And when your penny-pinching boss will give you a sizable bonus.

This idiom is a perfect example of an adynaton – what’s known as an “impossibility device.” That’s a figure of speech taken to such hyperbolic lengths as to insinuate complete impossibility (the opposite of “it’s a cakewalk”).[1] And it is indeed impossible for pigs to fly… at least those not generated by AI.

The notion of flying pigs to convey the idea of impossibility was first recorded in 1616 by English lexicographer John Withal when he wrote in his Latin-English dictionary “pigs fly in the ayre with their tayles forward.”[2]

You’ll also find a variation of the phrase in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, during an exchange between Alice and the Duchess:

“Thinking again?” the Duchess asked, with another dig of her sharp little chin.
“I’ve a right to think,” said Alice sharply, for she was beginning to feel a little worried.
“Just about as much right,” said the Duchess, “as pigs have to fly …”[3]

And then…   there’s John Steinbeck’s Pigasus.

when pigs fly

John Steinbeck’s
Pigasus

Steinbeck used a form of the idiom “when pigs fly” as a symbol of himself throughout his career. According to his wife Elaine, it became a trademark of sorts:

After his signature on letters or inside his books, he would draw a fat little pig with wings, and lettered his name, Pigasus.[4]

But Steinbeck turned the idiom inside out to mean “earthbound but aspiring.” Elaine Steinbeck goes on to explain that:

the little pig said that man must try to attain the heavens even though his equipment be meager. Man must aspire though he be earth-bound.[5]

This theme of human imperfection combined with caring and striving despite our flawed nature, was more than just a personal philosophy for Steinbeck. And it did more than permeate his works. It fueled his very reason for being a writer.[6]

Steinbeck was most at home with people who worked with their hands, “workers in a fish-canning factory, ranch hands, apple pickers and paisanos.”[7] And he was known for “zealously guarding his privacy,” dodging interviews, and shunning award ceremonies. [8]

So, it’s easy to think that he would only speak in public “when pigs fly.” But his earthbound aspirations earned him a Nobel Prize. And he did appear publicly to deliver an acceptance speech to an audience chockful of prominent individuals. Bearing this in mind, there’s still hope for that bonus from your tightwad boss.

Be Sure To Check Out More
Aphorisms And Idioms Here.

when pigs fly

See Below For Related Posts

#Aphorisms and Idioms                    #John Steinbeck

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Endnotes:

[1] Stephen Cushman, Clare Cavanagh, Jahan Ramazani, Paul Rouzer. The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Fourth Edition. Princeton University Press, 2012. Pg 9.

[2] Johnson, Adam. “When Pigs Fly: Meaning, Usage, and Origin.” EnglishUp. April 21, 2023. https://keepenglishup.com/when-pigs-fly/

[3] Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.  Archive.org  Pg 55. https://dn790000.ca.archive.org/0/items/AlicesAdventuresInWonderland/alice-in-wonderland.pdf

[4] “Pigasus.” Center for Steinbeck Studies. https://www.sjsu.edu/steinbeck/resources/biography/pigasus.php

[5] “Pigasus.” Center for Steinbeck Studies. https://www.sjsu.edu/steinbeck/resources/biography/pigasus.php

[6] Richardon, Bailey. “John Steinbeck’s ‘Pigasus’” ArtDogs. February 23, 2024. https://artdogs.substack.com/p/john-steinbecks-pigasus

[7] Whitman, Alden. The New York Times. Dec. 21, 1968. https://www.nytimes.com/1968/12/21/archives/john-steinbeck-dies-here-at-66-john-steinbeck-nobelprize-winning.html

[8] Whitman, Alden. The New York Times. Dec. 21, 1968. https://www.nytimes.com/1968/12/21/archives/john-steinbeck-dies-here-at-66-john-steinbeck-nobelprize-winning.html

Images:

When Pigs Fly: Photo by Emma Shappley on Unsplash

Steinbeck’s Pigasus: Center for Steinbeck Studies. https://www.sjsu.edu/steinbeck/resources/biography/pigasus.php



This Week’s Fun & Fancy Word: Gardyloo!

This Week’s Fun & Fancy Word Is:

the word gardyloo and its pronunciation

It’s a silly, fun-to-say word to be sure! But, if you were an 18th-century Scotsman walking down the street and heard it being hollered, you’d make an abrupt move away from any window you might be passing under. Because what was about to be tossed out that window was definitely not something you’d wanna be covered in for the rest of the day.

   Etymology:
Origin of Gardyloo

It comes from the French expression, “Prenez garde a l’eau!” The literal translation means ‘beware of the water.’ But in 18th-century Edinburgh it’s a warning that the person doing the hollering is about to empty their chamber pot out the window.[1]

Find A Caboodle
Of Fun & Fancy Words Here.

gardyloo

#Fun & Fancy Words

Endnotes:

[1] Gardyloo. Wiktionary. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gardyloo



Parable Of The Sower: Octavia Butler Tried To Tell Us

Octavia Butler

O
ctavia Butler’s visionary novel Parable of the Sower has really been resonating with folks lately. A writer of speculative fiction, Butler is known as the Mother of Afrofuturism. She’s celebrated for writing novels that grapple with racial justice, women’s rights, and political extremism – not to mention the climate crisis.[1]

And that’s why her books have been banned or challenged in five states across six school districts in Florida, Iowa, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin. Challenged for violence, religious themes, and the catch-all excuse of “disturbing content.”[2]

But despite her books being challenged and banned, this pioneering writer of science fiction is experiencing a renaissance years after her death. A great number of people are turning to Butler’s work for comfort, guidance and reflection.[3]

They’re connecting with Paradise of the Sower because the apocalypse it describes isn’t caused by a singular event, like a meteor strike, alien invasion, or nuclear war. It’s an accumulation of serious problems and the second-order crises that manifest from these issues.

Published in 1993, Parable of the Sower opens in July 2024. In the near future Butler painted, we see severe effects of climate change, heightened class and racial antagonisms, the growth of private power, the destruction of local communities, as well as a presidential candidate who may set the country back a hundred years. And it’s set in a California ravaged by devastating wildfires.

This sounds eerily “on the nose.” In fact, there are so many similarities between the world Butler created and the current state of our country that this book is frequently characterized as prophetic. And Butler’s insights have been described as seemingly telepathic.[4]

Octavia Butler

No Special Ability
To Foretell the Future

Butler is not telepathic, however. As Butler herself notes, she is simply a student of history. “Writing novels about the future doesn’t give me any special ability to foretell the future,” she states:

But it does encourage me to use our past and present behaviors as guides to the kind of world we seem to be creating. The past, for example, is filled with repeating cycles of strength and weakness, wisdom and stupidity, empire and ashes. To study history is to study humanity.[5]

As mentioned above, Butler wrote her Parable series in the 1990’s (unfinished due to her untimely death). And according to her, they are cautionary tales about:

what happens because we don’t trouble to correct some of the problems that we’re brewing for ourselves right now. Global warming is one of those problems. And I was aware of it back in the ‘80’s. [6]

Butler puts this sentiment in the mouth of Taylor Bankole, a character who meets protagonist Lauren Olamina on the road and eventually becomes her lover:

I have also read that the Pox [short for apocalypse] was caused by accidentally coinciding climactic, economic and sociological crises. It would be more honest to say that the Pox was caused by our own refusal to deal with obvious problems in those areas. We caused the problems: then we sat and watched as they grew into crises.[7]

Butler ties her images to problems and political ideologies that were prevalent at the time she was writing the Parable series. She portrays a United States where governments at all levels fail to defend human rights, provide any kind of services, or protect the environment. Globally, unfettered multi-national corporations act repressively, and extreme income inequalities exist.

This dystopia depicts the fruits of the Republican right’s policies beginning with the Reagan years. Those proclaimed by Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich in his “Contract with America,” a set of policy priorities for Republicans during this period. [8]

These priorities were lower taxes, diminished levels of aid to the poor, less regulation and other “interference” in the market. Significantly, rolling back regulations included “issuing leases for oil, gas, and coal development on tens of millions of acres of national lands.”[9]

It was a “bold plan” to “change the nation.” And change the nation it did. The Contract with America reexamined “litigation, taxation, regulation, welfare, education, the very structure of government, the structure of health.”[10]

A lot of Butler’s friends were teachers. So, education was another problem that caught her attention:

the politics of education was getting scarier, it seemed to me. We were getting to that point where we were thinking more about the building of prisons than of schools and libraries.[11]

Frightening politics surrounding education should sound familiar to anyone paying attention, especially to proposed legislation that includes jail time for teachers and librarians who overstep the bounds of the politicized book banning and curriculum scrubbing that has been taking place over the last several years. Then there’s the current administration’s dismantling of the Department of Education.

According to Butler, give the problems we’ve been neglecting about thirty years – long enough to “grow into full-fledged disasters” – and we’re likely to wind up with a world like the one in Parable of the Sower.[12] One disturbingly similar to the society we live in today. As Gloria Steinem observes in her celebration of Octavia Butler’s groundbreaking novel:

If there is one thing scarier than a dystopian novel about the future, it’s one written in the past that has already begun to come true. This is what makes Parable of the Sower even more impressive than it was when first published.[13]

Octavia Butler

Robledo
And The Pyros

The first half of Parable of the Sower shows us a fragmented social environment of atomized individualism – a collection of independent individuals rather than an interconnected community.[14]

Butler’s protagonist, fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina lives with her family inside the walled community of Robledo. The compound’s security entails a locked gate and shifts of armed guards, allowing its occupants to remain somewhat sheltered from the surrounding anarchy.

Be that as it may, they are still squeezed both from within and without. Basic goods are outrageously expensive. And money is nearly impossible to come by. So, life is lived at the subsistence level, making it difficult for inhabitants to look beyond “taking care of their own.”

And the increasing number of those without are becoming more desperate. The homeless people who live outside the walls of this compound not only suffer the worst kinds of abuse, but also rampant disease.

To them, the inhabitants of Robledo are “rich” rather than “barely getting by.” In a show of contempt, they often throw “gifts of envy and hate” over the wall, “a maggoty, dead animal,” for example, or “even an occasional severed human limb.”[15]

Robledo’s compound walls are eventually breached, and the community decimated by “pyros,” addicts of a drug by the same name. One that induces a murderous, orgiastic frenzy in its users, compelling them to burn anything they can get their hands on to the ground.

In the midst of this devastation Lauren is left with the only two other survivors of the pyros’ attack, people she hardly knows, as they set out on a journey north to a place rumored to have work.

Octavia Butler

There’s No
Single Answer

Given Parable of the Sower’s foresight, we can learn a lot from the way Lauren responds to the crises our worlds have in common. As Butler points out, “there’s no single answer that will solve all of our future problems.”[16] But this book does offer a way forward.

The second half of Parable of the Sower shows us opposition to the divided, contentious society pictured in the first half of the book. A counter-narrative of quiet, persistent resistance is embodied in the community that gathers around Lauren over the course of Butler’s novel.

Lauren is one of the few literate people in this dystopian world. And the journal she keeps constitutes the novel’s text. Her entries begin with verses that ultimately become a book of scripture called Earthseed: The Books of the Living.

The following is a verse, which not only speaks to Lauren’s situation, but our own:

Embrace diversity.
Unite –
Or be divided,
robbed,
ruled,
killed.
By those who see you as prey.
Embrace diversity
Or be destroyed.[17]

In a world where DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) has become a dirty word, this passage warns us about what happens when we’re divided. It also reminds us who benefits from our division – it certainly isn’t us.

It’s no surprise that the community that gathers around Lauren consists of characters from different colors, classes, ethnicities, social backgrounds and life stories. In doing so, Butler forces them to face (and shows us) the necessity of establishing empathy, equality, and reliance on one another. None of which had been part of their past lives, and all of which are rapidly waning in our current society.[18]

Octavia Butler

So How Should
We Proceed?

What is the way forward in a world defined by uncertainty and division? As Butler notes in the passage below, we must remain focused on bringing the future we wish to live in into being. [19]

Prodigy is, in its essence, adaptability and persistent, positive obsession. Without persistence, what remains is an enthusiasm of the moment. Without adaptability, what remains may be channeled into destructive fanaticism. Without positive obsession, there is nothing at all.[20]

Persistence is clearly key. Because, as the passage above points out, without it what remains is simply “an enthusiasm of the moment.” For example, the Civil Rights Movement is often described as something that occurred in the past. When lunch counter sit-ins took place. When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr led the march in Selma. And when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and The Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed.

Characterizing the Civil Rights Movement as a glorious moment in American history that took place in the 1950s and 1960s makes it too easy for a lot of people to consider that proverbial box checked. Needless to say, that is clearly not the case. When it comes to Civil Rights, there’s still plenty of work to be done.

But as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. maintained, a sentiment that Octavia Butler put in the mouth of her protagonist Lauren Olamina, “the weak can overcome the strong if the weak persist.”[21] Because as Dr. King frequently stated, “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”[22] This quote originally came from a sermon by abolitionist minister Theodore Parker:

Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.[23]

Parker isn’t suggesting that we just sit back and wait for the tide to turn toward a less dystopian world. Comparing the laws of the “moral universe” to the “laws of matter” (which function on their own to bind the physical universe together), he points out that the “law of right” — that is, justice:

does not work free from all hindrance; it develops itself through conscious agent.[24]

And we are the conscious agent that bends the arc in the direction of justice. But only if we remain persistent in our efforts to bring about our “positive obsession.”

octavia butler

Adaptability Is
Also Necessary

While persistence is indeed critical, as Lauren’s Earthseed verse tells us, adaptability is also necessary. In fact, Lauren goes so far as to say that “all successful life is adaptable.”[25] Adaptability is necessary because without it our fervor may “be channeled into destructive fanaticism.” Those who refuse to accept renewable sources of energy like solar, wind, and geothermal, represent such a lack of adaptability.

Fossil fuels are the primary source of greenhouse gas emissions, which significantly contribute to climate change.[26] So, insisting upon continued dependence on coal and fossil fuels when viable clean alternatives exist is clearly a “destructive fanaticism.”

A viewpoint we see the catastrophic results of in situations like New Orleans’ breeched levees, and flooded subways in New York due to historically powerful hurricanes. To say nothing of the recent wildfires in LA… the very ones Butler seems to have predicted.

Over thirty years ago, Octavia Butler showed us what was likely to happen if things continued as they were. And clearly we haven’t listened. But Parable of the Sower doesn’t leave us feeling hopeless. Butler gives us a way forward, a master plan for adjusting to the uncertainty many of us are experiencing these days. Which is undoubtedly why the guidance and reflection this work offers is resonating with so many people lately.

That’s my take on
Parable of the Sower,
what’s yours?

Use this discussion guide
to inspire in-depth thinking,
and jump-start a conversation.

Pair this with

Cover of The Handmaid's Tale in chains

The Handmaid’s Tale:
Our Biggest Mistake
Was Teaching Them To Read

See Below For Related Posts

#Banned Books       #Fascist Buster       #Published 1990s 

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Endnotes:

[1] Shady Grove Oliver. “Reading Octavia Butler in a time of change.” AfroLA May 14, 2025. https://afrolanews.org/2025/05/reading-octavia-butler-in-a-time-of-change/

“Octavia Estelle Butler.” National Women’s History Museum. https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/octavia-estelle-butler

[2] ForbiddenBookShop.com  https://forbiddenbookshop.com/authors/butler-octavia-e/

[3] Shady Grove Oliver. “Reading Octavia Butler in a time of change.” AfroLA May 14, 2025. https://afrolanews.org/2025/05/reading-octavia-butler-in-a-time-of-change/

[4] Akinmowo, OlaRonke. “Octavia Taught Me/12 Things.”  Women’s Studies. (2019) Vol. 48:1, Pp 47-58.

[5] “Octavia E. Butler: A Few Rules For Predicting The Future.” Essence Magazine, May 2000.

[6] “Remembering Octavia Butler: Black Sci-Fi Writer Shares Cautionary Tales in Unearthed 2005 Interview.” Democracy Now! https://www.democracynow.org/2021/2/23/octavia_butler_2005_interview

[7] Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Talents. New York: Open Road Integrated Media, 1998 Pg 2.

[8] Rep. Newt Gingrich and Rep. Dick Armey. Contract With America. Edited by Ed Gillespie and Bob Schellhas. New York: Times Books, 1994. https://archive.org/details/contractwithamer00ging/page/n5/mode/2up

[9] Little, Amanda. “A look back at Reagan’s environmental record.” Grist.org June 11, 2004. https://grist.org/politics/griscom-reagan/

[10] Rep. Newt Gingrich and Rep. Dick Armey. Contract With America. Edited by Ed Gillespie and Bob Schellhas. New York: Times Books, 1994. https://archive.org/details/contractwithamer00ging/page/n5/mode/2up

[11] “Remembering Octavia Butler: Black Sci-Fi Writer Shares Cautionary Tales in Unearthed 2005 Interview.” Democracy Now! https://www.democracynow.org/2021/2/23/octavia_butler_2005_interview

[12] “Octavia E. Butler: A Few Rules For Predicting The Future.” Essence Magazine, May 2000.

[13] Steinem, Gloria. “A celebration of Octavia Butler’s groundbreaking science-fiction novel.” Earlybirdbooks.com. February 26, 2016. https://earlybirdbooks.com/gloria-steinem-on-octavia-butler

[14] Gabriela Bruschini Grecca. “A Racist Challenge Might Force Us Apart: Divergence, Reliance, and Empathy in Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler.”

[15] Butler, Octavia. Parable of the Sower. London: Headline Publishing Group, 2019. Pg 45.

[16] “Octavia E. Butler: A Few Rules For Predicting The Future.” Essence Magazine, May 2000.

[17] Butler, Octavia. Parable of the Sower. London: Headline Publishing Group, 2019. Pg 185.

[18] Gabriela Bruschini Grecca. “A Racist Challenge Might Force Us Apart: Divergence, Reliance, and Empathy in Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler.”

[19] “How Octavia Butler’s 1993 book ‘Parable of the Sower’ predicted our climate reality.” Grist.org https://grist.org/culture/octavia-butlers-1993-parable-of-the-sower-predicted-climate-reality/

[20] Butler, Octavia. Parable of the Sower. London: Headline Publishing Group, 2019. Pg 1.

[21] Butler, Octavia. Parable of the Sower. London: Headline Publishing Group, 2019. Pg 127.

[22] Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Speech at Grosse Pointe High School. March 14, 1968. Grosse Pointe Historical Society. https://www.gphistorical.org/mlk/mlkspeech/mlkaudio.htm

[23] Parker, Theodore.  “Of Justice and the Conscience (1852).” In Ten Sermons of Religion.  Boston: Crosby, Nichols, and Company, 1853. Pg 85.

[24] Parker, Theodore.  “Of Justice and the Conscience (1852).” In Ten Sermons of Religion.  Boston: Crosby, Nichols, and Company, 1853. Pg 69.

[25] Butler, Octavia. Parable of the Sower. London: Headline Publishing Group, 2019. Pg 117.

[26] “Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” Environmental Protection Agency. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions

Images:

Parable of the Sower chained.

No Special Ability To Foretell the Future: https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/octavia-estelle-butler

Robledo And The Pyros: Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash

There’s No Single Answer: Photo by Roberto Shumski on Unsplash

How Should We Proceed: Photo by TECHTON 6 on Unsplash

Adaptability Is Also Necessary: https://www.loc.gov/item/2002695620/



Exodusters: Carrying The Hope Of Freedom And Prosperity

exodusters

W
ho are the Exodusters?  Tragically stories like theirs, about African American pioneers and their contributions to our nation, are being purged from many school curriculums. But these stories are critical to our understanding of American history. So we’re shining a light on these courageous, formerly enslaved homesteaders here.

We’ve all undoubtedly learned about the Homestead Act of 1862. Its legacy has played a role in characterizing America as a nation full of scrappy, “pull yourself by your bootstraps” types. And we’ve all heard about Reconstruction – you know, the rebuilding period following the Civil War.

But “what do the Homestead Act and Reconstruction have to do with each other,” you may ask. Well, that’s where the Exodusters come in.

exodusters

The Post-Civil War Era

The post-Civil War era seems like it should have been a time of progress for African Americans in the South. What’s known as the Reconstruction Amendments had been passed: the Thirteenth Amendment ended slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship to those previously enslaved, and the Fifteenth Amendment outlawed suffrage discrimination based on color, race, or previous slave status.[1]

But the post-Civil War era was not “a brand-new day,” as the saying goes. Because as another saying goes, “where there’s a will there’s a way.” And many Southern whites made a concerted effort to keep Black people disenfranchised, socially marginalized, and poverty-stricken.[2]

When Rutherford B. Hays ended Reconstruction in 1877 in return for Southern support to secure his presidency in the disputed 1876 election, things got even worse.[3]

During Reconstruction, federal soldiers had been stationed in the South to maintain order, enforce new laws, and protect the rights of the formerly enslaved. Though their protection was frequently minimal, it was better than nothing.

And once the troops were removed, the South’s white ruling class had free reign to oppress and terrorize freed Blacks without interference. Lynchings, murders, and other violent crimes against African Americans increased dramatically. [4]

exodusters

The Great Exodus

Bearing this turn of events in mind, it was time to take advantage of opportunities offered by The Homestead Act, which gave 160 acres of federal land to anyone who agreed to farm it. This migration came to be known as “the Great Exodus.” And the 40,000 – 60,000 people who participated in it were called “Exodusters.”[5]

Carrying the hope for freedom and prosperity most settled in Kansas. Largely due to the state’s history as the site of fervent “free state” sentiments during the antebellum period (not to mention being the home of abolitionist John Brown).[6]

And many were part of organized efforts to establish all-Black settlements. And by 1881, Exodusters had established a dozen agricultural colonies in the state of Kansas: Nicodemus, Hodgeman, Morton City, Dunlap, Kansas City–area Colony, Parsons, Wabaunsee, Summit Township, Topeka-area Colony, Burlington, Little Coney, and the Daniel Votaw Colony.

These African American pioneers also established communities in Nebraska, including the town of Dewitty. They migrated to western New Mexico, creating settlements such as Blackdom and Dora. Not to mention the fact that over a fifty-five-year period following the Civil War, African Americans established more than fifty identifiable communities in Oklahoma. [7] Like other settlements whose foundations were laid during the pioneer age, some of them sprouted and quickly vanished, and others still survive.

Stories like theirs may be targeted for banning, but the Exodusters’ legacy deserves to be remembered.

To Learn More About The Exodusters,
Check Out These Books.

exodusters
exodusters
exodusters

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This Book is Banned_ Cakewalk

It’s a Cakewalk

And For You Educators,
Help Yourself To This Lesson Plan

See Below For Related Posts

#Teacher Resources                   #The American Experience              #Juneteenth

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Endnotes:

[1] “The Reconstruction Amendments.” The Constitution Center. https://constitutioncenter.org/education/classroom-resource-library/classroom/the-reconstruction-amendments

[2] Arrington, Todd. “Exodusters.” National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/home/learn/historyculture/exodusters.htm

[3] “Compromise of 1877.” History.com https://www.history.com/articles/compromise-of-1877

[4] Arrington, Todd. “Exodusters.” National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/home/learn/historyculture/exodusters.htm

[5] Toler, Pamela D. “The Exodusters.” June 20, 2025. History in the Margins. https://www.historyinthemargins.com/2025/06/20/the-exodusters/

[6] Davis, Damani. “Exodus to Kansas.” Prologue Magazine. Summer 2008, Vol. 40 No. 2.

[7] “All-Black Towns.” Encyclopedia of the Great Plains. University of Nebraska-Lincoln. https://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.afam.006.html

Images:

Exodusters: Kansas Historical Society.

The Post-Civil War Era: U.S. National Park Service.

The Great Exodus:  Library of Congress