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

The Scarlet Letter banned

nlike 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.

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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. http://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).




The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: They Even Banned Dorothy?!

Wizard of Oz banned

Frank Baum set out to write a “modernized fairy tale” for the children of his day.[1] According to the Library of Congress, he did more than simply accomplish his goal. He ended up producing “America’s greatest and best-loved homegrown fairytale.”[2]  So, it seems inconceivable that certain parents and teachers have been trying to ban The Wonderful Wizard of Oz since its publication in 1900.[3]

Well, they have. In 1928, public libraries across the country pulled the books from their shelves.[4] ­­­Why was The Wonderful Wizard of Oz banned? Reasons range from Baum’s “wonder tale” being “untrue to life” (isn’t that the point of a wonder tale), to the use of witchcraft, to its portrayal of a strong female protagonist.[5]

One of the most publicized cases against The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, however, occurred in 1986. A group of Fundamentalist Christian families from Tennessee got together and tried to have the book removed from the public school syllabus. Baum’s work was among a number of books that the families felt promoted “occultism, secular humanism, evolution, disobedience to parents, pacifism, and feminism.”[6]

The families specifically disapproved of Baum’s characterization of some witches as good, because as we all know witches are in fact bad, very, very bad. One mother worried that reading this book would cause her children to be “seduced into godless supernaturalism.”[7] The federal judge who presided over the case ruled that children of the parents who brought the suit could be excused from lessons about Baum’s book. But the families weren’t happy with such a limited outcome. They wanted to make sure that no students were reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in class. So, they appealed the judge’s decision to the United States Supreme Court. Thankfully, the justices refused to hear the case.[8]

Objections to Baum’s book are clearly based on a literal, and therefore anemic reading of Baum’s book, a level Hermann Hesse describes as reading “naïvely.”[9] If these families had considered anything about who L. Frank Baum was or when he was writing, they would have seen a slice of American history reflected in the work’s imagery. And if they’d been familiar with the notion of symbolic language, they would have realized that literal magic is not what Baum was talking about.

They would’ve discovered what makes The Wonderful Wizard of Oz so special. There’s more to Baum’s book than “girl power!” and “pointy-hatted witches are a really a thing.” There is a deeper meaning behind The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The fantastic creatures that inhabit Oz are not just the trappings of a wonder tale. The Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Cowardly Lion are more than just new friends Dorothy makes along the way. And the trials they endure serve a purpose other than simple adventure. Baum’s philosophy for writing successful children’s stories points the way to understanding why The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is more than just a fun story. __________

Wizard of Oz banned

Oz, a land Betwixt & Between.

According to Baum, “Many authors have an idea that to write a story about children is to write a children’s story. No notion could be more erroneous. Perhaps one out of a hundred alleged children’s stories possess elements of interest to the real child – but that is a liberal estimate.”[10] Maybe so. But whether his comment is statistically accurate or not, the following excerpt from Baum’s article What Children Want reveals his philosophy for writing (undeniably successful) children’s books:

It is said that a child learns more during the first five years of its life than in the succeeding fifty years. This may well be true, for all the marvels of life and the wonders of the universe are brought to its notice and registered upon the sensitive film of its mind in those years when it first begins to understand it is a component part of mighty creation. The very realization of existence is sufficient to set every childish nerve tingling with excitement, and when the mind has absorbed the astonishing circumstances of its environment there comes a time when comprehension pauses, to resume more deliberately the practical details of worldly experience. Thus the amazed child, wild-eyed, eager, nervous and filled with unalloyed vigor, steps upon the threshold of real life…  Positively the child cannot be satisfied with inanities in its story books. It craves marvels – fairy tales, adventures, surprising and unreal occurrences; gorgeousness, color and kaleidoscopic succession of inspiring incident.[11]

In short, children’s books should engage their imaginations and promote wonder, like when a little one “tak[es] its first peep at the world’s wonderland.”[12] More importantly, Baum’s article gives us insight into why The Land of Oz evokes a sense of wonder and fascination, and engages his intended audience the way it clearly has. It isn’t just because Baum was an excellent storyteller. Oz is chockful of marvels, adventure, and dreamlike happenings because it is a liminal realm, one that’s “betwixt & between.”[13] The Land of Oz is betwixt & between because the structure of Baum’s work parallels the pattern within rites of passage.

What are rites of passage?  Think Bar Mitzvahs, and weddings. Rites of passage bring about the transition from one “mode of being” to another.[14] For example, the shift from childhood to adulthood in the case of bar mitzvahs. Or the switch from the mode of being single to the state of being married that a wedding produces. Dorothy’s transition, however, is from the mode when a child lacks the understanding that they’re “a component part of mighty creation,” to the point when they deliberately embrace “the practical details of worldly experience.”[15] This transformation ultimately prepares children to “step upon the threshold of real life.”[16] (Keep in mind that the Dorothy Gage in Baum’s book is significantly younger than Judy Garland’s portrayal in the 1939 film.)
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How Do Rites of Passage Work?

Rites of Passage contain the following three sub-categories:

This Book is Banned_Rites of Passage

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The first and last stages are self-explanatory. They detach the subject from their old place in society, and return them, inwardly transformed, to their new station in life. As to the middle phase, the term “liminal” comes from limen, the Latin for “threshold,” indicating the “transition between.”[17]

Though all three stages are present in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Baum primarily focuses on the liminal phase. Unlike the movie, all we get in the book is mere snippets of Kansas, just enough to anchor the story and show how fantastic Oz is by comparison. Oz’s fanciful nature is significant because liminality is by definition an unpredictable state. It’s a “realm of pure possibility,” between the two stable points (signified here by Kansas) that bookend the progression from one mode of being to another.[18] __________

What is Liminality?

During the liminal phase, the subject develops an awareness that changes their “inmost nature.”[19] They acquire knowledge that prepares them for their new status. In the context of Baum’s article, this knowledge consists of “the marvels of life and the wonders of the universe” that are brought to a child’s notice and “registered upon the sensitive film” of their mind.[20] Consistent with both the fantastic nature of liminality as well as the Baum excerpt above, everything in Kansas is colorless like the “great gray prairie” (even Aunt Em), but The Land of Oz is:

 …a country of marvelous beauty. There were lovely patches of green sward all about, with stately trees bearing rich and luscious fruits. Banks of gorgeous flowers were on every hand, and birds with rare and brilliant plumage sang and fluttered in the trees and bushes. A little way off was a small brook, rushing and sparkling along between green banks, and murmuring in a voice very grateful to a little girl who had lived so long on the dry, gray prairies. While she stood looking eagerly at the strange and beautiful sights, she noticed coming toward her a group of the queerest people she had ever seen.[21]

The Witch of the North’s response to Dorothy’s question about the existence of witches in Oz reinforces its liminal status. The Good Witch explains that “in the civilized countries I believe there are no witches left, nor wizards, nor sorceresses, nor magicians. But, you see, the Land of Oz has never been civilized.[22] In other words, Oz does not represent one of the stable points within Dorothy’s transition. As noted, those are represented by Kansas.

Instead, The Land of Oz is topsy-turvy and chaotic, the defining characteristics of liminality. Oz is also “cut off from all the rest of the world,” which parallels the isolation of ritual subjects from the larger community during the liminal stage of their initiation. “Therefore,” the Witch of the North states, “we still have witches and wizards amongst us.”[23]  Because liminality is where the transformative magic happens. __________

Wizard of Oz banned

Oz as Liminal Space.

Ritual devices, things like masks, figurines, and body paint used by traditional societies during the liminal phase in rites of passage, are created by taking cultural elements out of their usual contexts and re-configuring them into something new, something that doesn’t exist in reality. Though these materials can be monstrous, the point is less about terrifying initiates out of their wits, than it is about making them “vividly and rapidly aware” of important aspects of their culture.[24] The purpose of these devices is to startle initiates into thinking about objects, relationships, and aspects of their environment they have taken for granted up to this point. Or, in the context of Baum’s article, “marvels of life and wonders of the universe” that hadn’t registered in their minds before.

The fanciful characters in The Land of Oz are consistent with this recombination of elements, confirming Oz’s liminality. A living scarecrow and talking lion are just for starters, not to mention the bear-tiger combo called the Kalidah, flying monkeys, and combative trees. Then there are the field mice organized as a monarchy, people who are made of porcelain, and the Quadlings who have no arms but a spring-loaded head. If these don’t say liminality, I don’t know what does!

But why does alluding to liminality make Baum such a successful writer of children’s books? Because doing so taps into what his young audience is experiencing during this stage of their development. As Baum notes, the fresh “realization of existence” sets every nerve “tingling with excitement.”[25] He may have found it surprising that other adults “so evidently fail to grasp” the mentality of those taking their “first peep” at the world, but Baum clearly understood their mindset.[26]

Since Baum’s aim was to write a wonder tale for the children of his day, it’s understandable that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz reflects the culture he, and they, experienced. Symbolism associated with the stages in Dorothy’s transition are inspired by Baum’s life experience. For example, westward expansion was significant in nineteenth-century America, with a lot of people moving into tornado-prone areas. Seeing the west as a place “where an intelligent man may profit,” Baum was among them.[27]  He published a newspaper called the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, and one article he wrote involved a tornado that launched a pig hiding in a buggy a distance of 300 feet. Happily, the pig was uninjured, but more importantly Baum had the inspiration for Dorothy and Toto’s arrival in Oz.[28]

Needless to say, the cyclone that sets the story in motion represents the separation phase within rites of passage. The twister literally detaches Dorothy from the dry, colorless Kansas prairie, and symbolically speaking, the mode when a child lacks the understanding that they’re “a component part of mighty creation.” When the cyclone hits, Dorothy is taking shelter in the family’s empty farmhouse. Being alone in an empty house is a common dream symbol for an old personality structure, which underscores the symbolic link to Dorothy’s childhood development.[29] __________

Wizard of Oz banned

Entering the Liminal Stage.

Upon landing in Oz (on top of the Wicked Witch of the East to be precise), Dorothy enters the liminal stage of her transition. And she is promptly greeted by the Witch of the North, who functions as the village elder responsible for shepherding an initiate through their rite of passage. Much has been written about Baum’s connection to Theosophy, an esoteric movement that emerged in the late nineteenth century. The Witch of the North parallels the wisdom’s “world Mother,” who in a very real sense, takes “all the women of the world” under Her charge.[30] Which is precisely what she does with Dorothy.

Naturally, the witch’s association with the North suggests a connection to the Pole Star, which according to Theosophy keeps a “watchful eye” on the “Imperishable Sacred Land” around the North Pole.[31] Consistent with this imagery, the Witch of the North gives Dorothy a protective talisman – a kiss on the forehead. The kiss is clearly a nod to what is known in Theosophy as “Dangma’s opened eye,” the inner spiritual eye of an advanced student.[32]

The Witch of the North ultimately sends Dorothy to the City of Emeralds, in the hope of an audience with the Great Wizard. But not before she puts on the silver shoes that previously belonged to the Witch of the East, which marks Dorothy’s acceptance of her role in this rite of passage. The road that will lead Dorothy to the City of Emeralds is famously paved with yellow brick, an image that recalls Baum’s years at military school in Peekskill, NY., a manufacturing center of Dutch paving bricks, which are bright yellow in color.[33] __________

Wizard of Oz banned

A Fellowship of Initiates. 

The liminal stage within rites of passage includes a series of trials. These tests serve to determine if the subject is ready to assume their new standing in the community. In collective rites (especially from childhood to adulthood), they are also intended to promote a bond among initiates. The fellowship that forms during this period surpasses distinctions of rank, age, kinship position, and in some cultures even gender.[34]

The Scarecrow is, of course, the first of Dorothy’s new-found companions. And meeting him is significant because he’s the first being Dorothy comes across who embodies the recombining of elements inherent in the liminal phase. She’s obviously getting deeper into liminality. After traveling together for a few hours, the road begins to get rough, and “the farther they went the more dismal and lonesome the country became.”[35] It’s clear she’s about to encounter the testing aspect of liminality, especially since the pair come to a great dark forest which is a traditional threshold symbol, as well as a place of testing and initiation.[36]

In keeping with the “comradeship” that forms as a result of the trials within the liminal phase, the Tin Woodman and the Lion join Dorothy’s party during her journey through the forest. The Scarecrow is reconfigured from Baum’s childhood nightmares, but he also reflects the significance of American farmers during this period.[37] The Tin Woodman looks like a display Baum put together for a hardware store during his days as a window dresser. But more importantly, being a mechanical man, he signifies the rapid industrialization of the times. In the context of liminal recombining, he is the grafting of twentieth-century technology to the fairy tale tradition.[38] The Cowardly Lion’s very nature, and ability to speak deem him a liminal character. And he’s been said to represent orator and politician William Jennings Bryan.[39] __________

Wizard of Oz banned

Dorothy’s Trials.

Consistent with the forest’s capacity as a testing ground, the group’s progress is thwarted when they come upon a great gulf that blocks their path. After some considerable thought as to what they should do, the Scarecrow devises a plan to build a makeshift bridge.

Just as Dorothy and company start to cross the bridge, a pair of Kalidahs, “monstrous beasts” with incredibly sharp claws, comes charging toward them.[40] But after some roaring and wielding of the Tin Woodman’s axe, the troop manages to send the “ugly, snarling brutes” to the bottom of the gulf.[41]

The “Deadly Poppy Field” is yet another trial the group faces.[42] The Queen of the Mice owes Dorothy and friends a favor for saving her from a wildcat. So, the queen gathers her people to help rescue the Lion, who has succumbed to the poppies’ stupefying fragrance.[43]

Next Comes the Ordeal.

Many cultures describe rites of passage as “growing” a child into an adult.[44] Which is why they typically include an ordeal of some sort, one that signifies the dissolution of the initiate’s previous state.[45] Needless to say Dorothy’s ordeal is to kill the Witch of the West. The fact that there’s no road to the Witch of the West’s castle underscores the distinction between this undertaking, and the tests Dorothy and friends encountered in the forest. But after several run-ins with the witch’s minions, including the famous encounter with flying monkeys, Dorothy accomplishes her task.  And given that the purpose of such liminal ordeals is dissolution of the initiate’s previous state, it’s only fitting that Dorothy succeeds in her ordeal by melting the Witch away to a “brown… shapeless mass,” which she promptly sweeps “out the door.”[46]

After wrapping up a few loose ends with the Winkies, Dorothy and company return to Emerald City. Because the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion are from the Land of Oz, the tokens the Wizard gives them are enough to achieve new status. Dorothy, on the other hand, needs to get back to Kansas in order to carry out the final, re-incorporation phase of her rite of passage. But the Wizard is proven to be a fraud, and unable to send Dorothy home.

So, at the suggestion of the guardian of Emerald City’s gate, the group is off to ask Glinda, Witch of the South, for help. As Oz scholar Michael Patrick Hearns suggests, the adventures that take place on their way to Glinda’s castle allow Dorothy’s companions to utilize their new skills, and embrace their hard-won status.[47] Dorothy, on the other hand, remains betwixt & between.

Wizard of Oz banned

And Finally, On to Re-incorporation.

Shortly after the troop arrives at her castle, Glinda advises Dorothy that all she has to do is “knock the heels” of her Silver Shoes together three times, and command them to carry her wherever she wishes to go.[48] And before Dorothy knows it, she’s back in Kansas, sitting in front of her family’s new farmhouse, “built after the cyclone had carried away the old one.”[49]  While the house that Dorothy was carried away in symbolizes her old personality structure, this one represents the new mode of being Dorothy has just attained. And Aunt Em “folding the little girl in her arms,” constitutes rites of incorporation.[50]

Dorothy has completed her transition. We know this for a couple of reasons. First, she has shed the silver shoes she’d been wearing throughout her journey in Oz. But more importantly, in that it’s developmentally significant, prior to the cyclone Dorothy didn’t engage with either Uncle Henry or Aunt Em. In fact, Baum explicitly states that her only interaction was with Toto, which signifies her lack of understanding that she’s “a component part of mighty creation.”[51]

So, their hug isn’t about Dorothy’s new-found appreciation for Aunt Em. Dorothy has loved Aunt Em from the beginning. Not only was Dorothy concerned that Em would be worrying about her, returning to Em was the entire motivation for Dorothy’s journey. After taking out the Witch of the West, Dorothy could have claimed the Yellow Castle for herself and lived quite comfortably with her friends in Oz forever. Instead, she returned to Emerald City to claim the Wizard’s promise to send her back to Kansas.

What Dorothy’s hug for Em does signify, is that her mind “has absorbed the astonishing circumstances of [her] environment.” Dorothy is deliberately (and quite literally) embracing “the practical details of worldly experience,” the world of the broad Kansas prairie, where the days are filled with activities like milking cows and watering the cabbages.

In Conclusion.

Dorothy may have returned to Kansas, but she isn’t right back where she started. She has been transformed. She is now, as Baum described it, “filled with unalloyed vigor” and ready to step “upon the threshold” of life.[52] And Dorothy’s transition to this new mode of being was brought about by her journey through liminality, as signified by Oz, a land betwixt & between. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is indeed a wonder tale. And the realization that it’s more than just a fun ride on an adventurous narrative makes it even more wonderous.

That’s my take on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – what’s yours?
Check out this discussion guide to get you started.

Download L. Frank Baum’s wonder tale here.

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Endnotes:

[1] Baum, L. Frank, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. (New York: Harper Collins, 1987), 1.
[2] The Wizard of Oz: An American Fairy Tale. Library of Congress Exhibitions.
[3] Field, Hana. “Years of Censoring ‘Oz.’” Chicago Tribune. (May 8, 2000).
[4] Rosenthal, Kristina. The University of Tulsa Special Collections.
[5] Baum, 1; “Dorothy the Librarian.” Life Magazine. (Feb. 16, 1959), 47; Field.
[6] Taylor, Stuart. “Justices Refuse to Hear Tennessee Case on Bible and Textbooks.” The New York Times. (Feb. 23, 1988).
[7] The Gazette (Montreal). (Oct. 25, 1986).
[8] Taylor.[9] Hesse, Hermann. “On Reading Books.” in My Beliefs: Essays on Life and Art. Edited by Theodore Ziolkowski, translated by Denver Lindley. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974), 101.
[10] Baum, Frank L. “What Children Want.” Chicago Evening Post. (November 27, 1902).
[11] Baum What Children Want.
[12] Baum What Children Want.
[13] 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.
[14] Van Gennep, Arnold. The Rites of Passage. Translated by Monika B. Vizedom and Gabrielle L. Caffee. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1960), 10; Eliade, Mircea. Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth. Translated by Willard R. Trask. (New York: Harper & Row, 1958), xiii.
[15] Baum What Children Want.
[16] Baum What Children Want.
[17] Turner, Victor. From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play. (New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1982), 41.
[18] Turner, Victor. The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967), 97; 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.
[19] Turner Betwixt and Between, 11.
[20] Baum What Children Want.
[21] Baum Oz, 22.
[22] Baum Oz, 28.
[23] Baum Oz, 28.
[24] Turner Betwixt and Between, 14.
[25] Baum What Children Want.
[26] Baum What Children Want.
[27] Koupal, Nancy Tystad. “The Wonderful Wizard of the West. L. Frank Baum in South Dakota, 1888-91.” Great Plains Quarterly. (Fall 1989), 204.
[28] Schwartz, Evan I. “Matilda Joslyn Gage-the Unlikely Inspiration for the Wizard of Oz.” Historynet.com
[29] Jones, Raya A. “A Discovery of Meaning: The case of C. G. Jung’s house dream.” Working Paper 79. School of Social Sciences. Cardiff University, 9; Peterson, Deb. “The Hero’s Journey: Refusing The Call to Adventure.” ThoughtCo.com.
[30] Leadbeater, C. W. The World Mother As Symbol and Fact. (Madras, India: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1928), 1-2.
[31] Blavatsky, H. P. The Secret Doctrine Vol. II-Anthropogeneis, (New York: The Theosophical Publishing Co, 1888), 6, 400, 6.
[32] Blavatsky Secret Doctrine, 6, 400, 6.
[33] Schwartz, Evan. Finding Oz: How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story. (New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 2009), 13.
[34] Turner Forest of Symbols, 100-101.
[35] Baum Oz, 51-52.
[36] Cooper, J. C. An Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols. (High Holborn: Thames and Hudson, 1987), 72.
[37] Gourley, Catherine. Media Wizards: A Behind-the-scenes Look at Media Manipulations. (Brookfield, Connecticut: Twenty-First Century Books, 1999), 7.
[38] Haas, Joseph. “A Little Bit of ‘Oz’ in Northern Indiana.” Indiana Times, May 3, 1965; Gardner, Martin and Russell B. Nye editors. The Wizard of Oz and Who He Was. (East Lansing: Michigan University Press, 1994), 7.
[39] Littlefield, Henry M. “The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism.” American Quarterly, Vol. 16, No.1, 53.
[40] Baum Oz, 93.
[41] Baum Oz, 94-97.
[42] Baum Oz, 102.
[43] Baum Oz, 122.
[44] Turner Forest of Symbols, 101-102.
[45] Turner, Victor. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. (New York: Cornell University Press, 1969), 103.
[46] Baum Oz, 182.
[47] Hearn, Michael Patrick. The Annotated Wizard of Oz. (New York: Norton, 2000), 313.
[48] Baum Oz, 303.
[49] Baum Oz, 305.
[50] Baum Oz, 307.
[51] Baum What Children Want.
[52] Baum What Children Want.

Images:

Title page. Baum, L. Frank. Illustrated by William Wallace Denslow. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. (New York: Geo. M. Hill Co, 1900). Public domain. Source: Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library  via Wikimedia https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Wonderful_Wizard_of_Oz,_006.png
Image has been retouched by user.

All other illustrations from Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz:
 Baum, L. Frank. Illustrated by William Wallace Denslow. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. (New York: Geo. M. Hill Co, 1900). Public domain.
Source: Library of Congress Children’s Book Selections. https://www.loc.gov/free-to-use     Item number- https://lccn.loc.gov/03032405

Rites of Passage table constructed by author.




A Caboodle of Fun & Fancy Words

Words can be fun

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ust as Mary Poppins taught us, words can be fun! Remember supercalifragilisticexpialidocious? And let’s not forget King Lear’s flibbertigibbet. Then there’s the magical incantation abracadabra.

But these are just a start, take a gander below.

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Discombobulated:

The word discombobulate sounds like you feel when discombobulation takes place. If you’re so confused and flustered you can’t think straight, you’re discombobulated. And what you need…  is to get recombobulated. Which is easier said than done. It’s a bit of a tongue-twister so it isn’t that easy to say, much less do.

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Bamboozle:

It means to be hoodwinked, flimflammed, hornswoggled — all fun & fancy words that mean to be tricked, deceived in underhanded ways. Like the way Tom Sawyer bamboozled his friends into whitewashing that fence for him, so he could play all day.

It may be a Fun & Fancy Word, but being bamboozled can be very serious.
Discover why this locution is more important than ever. 

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Hobbledehoy:

An adolescent boy whose transition to adulthood is as gawky and awkward as the word hobbledehoy itself.  Think Neville Longbottom in his first year at Hogwarts.

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Zaftig:

Zaftig means to be beautifully full-figured, voluptuous, and curvaceous – like Ashley Graham, Danielle Brooks, and Christina Hendricks. Also termed Rubenesque, after the sensuous goddesses depicted in the paintings of Flemish Baroque artist Peter Paul Rubens.

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Malapropism:

They’re always hilarious. That is, unless you’re the one guilty of the ludicrous misuse of a word in place of one that sounds similar, then it’s embarrassing. Just ask heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson, who said he was “fading into Bolivian” (instead of oblivion).

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Abibliophobia:

It means the fear of running out of things to read, and given your obvious interest in books, you may suffer from this frightful word. If so, alleviate your fear by availing yourself of the resources for free banned books on the bottom of our home page.

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Sycophant:

Also known as a “suck-up,” “bootlicker,” or “toady.” A sycophant is a fawning parasite who gets in the good graces of their target with groveling, ego-stroking praise. Some literary sycophants are: Othello’s Iago, Uriah Heep from David Copperfield, and nearly everyone who works for Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada.

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Liminality:

A state that’s betwixt & between. No, not Colorado in relation to Utah and Kansas. Liminality is the middle phase in rites of passage, the transition from one mode of being to another. From childhood to adulthood, for example. From living the single life to being married. Or from partying it up in college to paying off student loans. Liminality is full of potential, but disorienting because you’re no longer this but not yet that. In short, your average high school experience.
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Widdershins:

You could just say counter-clockwise, or that something’s moving in the wrong direction. But that wouldn’t be nearly as much fun…   now would it?
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Autodidact:

Do you suffer from autodidactism? Do you have an insatiable thirst for knowledge? Do you take pleasure in learning everything you can about things you are interested in? Are you a self-learner? If so, congratulations, you are an autodidact.
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Pulchritudinous:

Although pulchritude sounds like something you’d scrape off your shoe, pulchritudinous actually means beautiful. Not just attractive, good-looking or “hot,” but overwhelmingly beautiful, to the point of leaving onlookers awestruck.
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Gobsmacked:

No… gobsmacked is not a never-ending candy made by Willy Wonka. It means to be utterly astounded, astonished, overwhelmed by surprise. Like you’ve been slapped in the face. Gobsmacked is how Brad Pitt described himself when he won his best supporting actor Oscar for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
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#the art of reading     #liminality

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