The Anatomy of National Fantasy
Hawthorne, Utopia, and Everyday Life
At the core of Berlant's work is a three-part study of The Scarlet Letter, analyzing the modes and effects of national identity that characterize the narrator's representation of Puritan culture and his construction of the novel's political present tense. This analysis emerges from an introductory chapter on American citizenship in the 1850s and a following chapter on national fantasy, ranging from Hawthorne's early work "Alice Doane's Appeal" to the Statue of Liberty. In her conclusion, Berlant suggests that Hawthorne views everyday life and local political identities as alternate routes to the revitalization of the political and utopian promises of modern national life.
Introduction: "I am a citizen of somewhere else."
1. America, Post-Utopia: Body, Landscape, and National Fantasy in Hawthorne's Native Land
2. The Paradise of Law in The Scarlet Letter
3. The State of Madness: Conscience, Popular Memory, and Narrative in The Scarlet Letter
4. The Nationalist Preface
5. America in Everyday Life