The
Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Plot
Overview
The Scarlet Letter opens with a long preamble about how the book came to be written.
The nameless narrator was the surveyor of the customhouse in Salem,
Massachusetts. In the customhouse’s attic, he discovered a number of documents,
among them a manuscript that was bundled with a scarlet, gold-embroidered patch
of cloth in the shape of an “A.” The manuscript, the work of a past surveyor,
detailed events that occurred some two hundred years before the narrator’s
time. When the narrator lost his customs post, he decided to write a fictional
account of the events recorded in the manuscript.The Scarlet Letter is the
final product.
The story
begins in seventeenth-century Boston, then a Puritan settlement. A young woman,
Hester Prynne, is led from the town prison with her infant daughter, Pearl, in
her arms and the scarlet letter “A” on her breast. A man in the crowd tells an
elderly onlooker that Hester is being punished for adultery. Hester’s husband,
a scholar much older than she is, sent her ahead to America, but he never arrived
in Boston. The consensus is that he has been lost at sea. While waiting for her
husband, Hester has apparently had an affair, as she has given birth to a
child. She will not reveal her lover’s identity, however, and the scarlet
letter, along with her public shaming, is her punishment for her sin and her
secrecy. On this day Hester is led to the town scaffold and harangued by the
town fathers, but she again refuses to identify her child’s father.
The
elderly onlooker is Hester’s missing husband, who is now practicing medicine
and calling himself Roger Chillingworth. He settles in Boston, intent on
revenge. He reveals his true identity to no one but Hester, whom he has sworn
to secrecy. Several years pass. Hester supports herself by working as a
seamstress, and Pearl grows into a willful, impish child. Shunned by the
community, they live in a small cottage on the outskirts of Boston. Community
officials attempt to take Pearl away from Hester, but, with the help of Arthur
Dimmesdale, a young and eloquent minister, the mother and daughter manage to
stay together. Dimmesdale, however, appears to be wasting away and suffers from
mysterious heart trouble, seemingly caused by psychological distress.
Chillingworth attaches himself to the ailing minister and eventually moves in
with him so that he can provide his patient with round-the-clock care.
Chillingworth also suspects that there may be a connection between the
minister’s torments and Hester’s secret, and he begins to test Dimmesdale to
see what he can learn. One afternoon, while the minister sleeps, Chillingworth
discovers a mark on the man’s breast (the details of which are kept from the
reader), which convinces him that his suspicions are correct.
Dimmesdale’s
psychological anguish deepens, and he invents new tortures for himself. In the
meantime, Hester’s charitable deeds and quiet humility have earned her a
reprieve from the scorn of the community. One night, when Pearl is about seven
years old, she and her mother are returning home from a visit to a deathbed
when they encounter Dimmesdale atop the town scaffold, trying to punish himself
for his sins. Hester and Pearl join him, and the three link hands. Dimmesdale
refuses Pearl’s request that he acknowledge her publicly the next day, and a
meteor marks a dull red “A” in the night sky. Hester can see that the
minister’s condition is worsening, and she resolves to intervene. She goes to
Chillingworth and asks him to stop adding to Dimmesdale’s self-torment.
Chillingworth refuses.
Hester
arranges an encounter with Dimmesdale in the forest because she is aware that
Chillingworth has probably guessed that she plans to reveal his identity to
Dimmesdale. The former lovers decide to flee to Europe, where they can live
with Pearl as a family. They will take a ship sailing from Boston in four days.
Both feel a sense of release, and Hester removes her scarlet letter and lets
down her hair. Pearl, playing nearby, does not recognize her mother without the
letter. The day before the ship is to sail, the townspeople gather for a
holiday and Dimmesdale preaches his most eloquent sermon ever. Meanwhile,
Hester has learned that Chillingworth knows of their plan and has booked
passage on the same ship. Dimmesdale, leaving the church after his sermon, sees
Hester and Pearl standing before the town scaffold. He impulsively mounts the
scaffold with his lover and his daughter, and confesses publicly, exposing a
scarlet letter seared into the flesh of his chest. He falls dead, as Pearl
kisses him.
Frustrated
in his revenge, Chillingworth dies a year later. Hester and Pearl leave Boston,
and no one knows what has happened to them. Many years later, Hester returns
alone, still wearing the scarlet letter, to live in her old cottage and resume
her charitable work. She receives occasional letters from Pearl, who has
married a European aristocrat and established a family of her own. When Hester
dies, she is buried next to Dimmesdale. The two share a single tombstone, which
bears a scarlet “A.”
Character
List
Hester Prynne -
Hester is the book’s protagonist and the wearer of the scarlet letter that
gives the book its title. The letter, a patch of fabric in the shape of an “A,”
signifies that Hester is an “adulterer.” As a young woman, Hester married an
elderly scholar, Chillingworth, who sent her ahead to America to live but never
followed her. While waiting for him, she had an affair with a Puritan minister
named Dimmesdale, after which she gave birth to Pearl. Hester is passionate but
also strong—she endures years of shame and scorn. She equals both her husband
and her lover in her intelligence and thoughtfulness. Her alienation puts her
in the position to make acute observations about her community, particularly
about its treatment of women.
Pearl - Hester’s
illegitimate daughter Pearl is a young girl with a moody, mischievous spirit
and an ability to perceive things that others do not. For example, she quickly
discerns the truth about her mother and Dimmesdale. The townspeople say that
she barely seems human and spread rumors that her unknown father is actually
the Devil. She is wise far beyond her years, frequently engaging in ironic play
having to do with her mother’s scarlet letter.
Roger Chillingworth -
“Roger Chillingworth” is actually Hester’s husband in disguise. He is much
older than she is and had sent her to America while he settled his affairs in
Europe. Because he is captured by Native Americans, he arrives in Boston
belatedly and finds Hester and her illegitimate child being displayed on the
scaffold. He lusts for revenge, and thus decides to stay in Boston despite his
wife’s betrayal and disgrace. He is a scholar and uses his knowledge to
disguise himself as a doctor, intent on discovering and tormenting Hester’s
anonymous lover. Chillingworth is self-absorbed and both physically and
psychologically monstrous. His single-minded pursuit of retribution reveals him
to be the most malevolent character in the novel.
Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale -
Dimmesdale is a young man who achieved fame in England as a theologian and then
emigrated to America. In a moment of weakness, he and Hester became lovers.
Although he will not confess it publicly, he is the father of her child. He
deals with his guilt by tormenting himself physically and psychologically,
developing a heart condition as a result. Dimmesdale is an intelligent and
emotional man, and his sermons are thus masterpieces of eloquence and persuasiveness.
His commitments to his congregation are in constant conflict with his feelings
of sinfulness and need to confess.
Governor Bellingham -
Governor Bellingham is a wealthy, elderly gentleman who spends much of his time
consulting with the other town fathers. Despite his role as governor of a
fledgling American society, he very much resembles a traditional English
aristocrat. Bellingham tends to strictly adhere to the rules, but he is easily
swayed by Dimmesdale’s eloquence. He remains blind to the misbehaviors taking
place in his own house: his sister, Mistress Hibbins, is a witch.
Mistress Hibbins -
Mistress Hibbins is a widow who lives with her brother, Governor Bellingham, in
a luxurious mansion. She is commonly known to be a witch who ventures into the
forest at night to ride with the “Black Man.” Her appearances at public
occasions remind the reader of the hypocrisy and hidden evil in Puritan
society.
Reverend Mr. John Wilson -
Boston’s elder clergyman, Reverend Wilson is scholarly yet grandfatherly. He is
a stereotypical Puritan father, a literary version of the stiff, starkly
painted portraits of American patriarchs. Like Governor Bellingham, Wilson
follows the community’s rules strictly but can be swayed by Dimmesdale’s
eloquence. Unlike Dimmesdale, his junior colleague, Wilson preaches hellfire
and damnation and advocates harsh punishment of sinners.
Narrator -
The unnamed narrator works as the surveyor of the Salem Custom-House some two
hundred years after the novel’s events take place. He discovers an old
manuscript in the building’s attic that tells the story of Hester Prynne; when
he loses his job, he decides to write a fictional treatment of the narrative.
The narrator is a rather high-strung man, whose Puritan ancestry makes him feel
guilty about his writing career. He writes because he is interested in American
history and because he believes that America needs to better understand its
religious and moral heritage.
Analysis
of Major Characters
Hester Prynne
Although The Scarlet Letter is about Hester Prynne, the book is
not so much a consideration of her innate character as it is an examination of
the forces that shape her and the transformations those forces effect. We know
very little about Hester prior to her affair with Dimmesdale and her resultant
public shaming. We read that she married Chillingworth although she did not
love him, but we never fully understand why. The early chapters of the book
suggest that, prior to her marriage, Hester was a strong-willed and impetuous
young woman—she remembers her parents as loving guides who frequently had to
restrain her incautious behavior. The fact that she has an affair also suggests
that she once had a passionate nature.
But it is what happens after Hester’s affair that makes her into
the woman with whom the reader is familiar. Shamed and alienated from the rest
of the community, Hester becomes contemplative. She speculates on human nature,
social organization, and larger moral questions. Hester’s tribulations also
lead her to be stoic and a freethinker. Although the narrator pretends to
disapprove of Hester’s independent philosophizing, his tone indicates that he
secretly admires her independence and her ideas.
Hester also becomes a kind of
compassionate maternal figure as a result of her experiences. Hester moderates
her tendency to be rash, for she knows that such behavior could cause her to
lose her daughter, Pearl. Hester is also maternal with respect to society: she
cares for the poor and brings them food and clothing. By the novel’s end,
Hester has become a protofeminist mother figure to the women of the community.
The shame attached to her scarlet letter is long gone. Women recognize that her
punishment stemmed in part from the town fathers’ sexism, and they come to
Hester seeking shelter from the sexist forces under which they themselves
suffer. Throughout The Scarlet Letter Hester
is portrayed as an intelligent, capable, but not necessarily extraordinary
woman. It is the extraordinary circumstances shaping her that make her such an
important figure.
Roger Chillingworth
As his name suggests, Roger Chillingworth is a man deficient in
human warmth. His twisted, stooped, deformed shoulders mirror his distorted
soul. From what the reader is told of his early years with Hester, he was a
difficult husband. He ignored his wife for much of the time, yet expected her
to nourish his soul with affection when he did condescend to spend time with
her. Chillingworth’s decision to assume the identity of a “leech,” or doctor,
is fitting. Unable to engage in equitable relationships with those around him,
he feeds on the vitality of others as a way of energizing his own projects.
Chillingworth’s death is a result of the nature of his character. After
Dimmesdale dies, Chillingworth no longer has a victim. Similarly, Dimmesdale’s
revelation that he is Pearl’s father removes Hester from the old man’s
clutches. Having lost the objects of his revenge, the leech has no choice but
to die.
Ultimately, Chillingworth represents true evil. He is associated
with secular and sometimes illicit forms of knowledge, as his chemical
experiments and medical practices occasionally verge on witchcraft and murder.
He is interested in revenge, not justice, and he seeks the deliberate
destruction of others rather than a redress of wrongs. His desire to hurt
others stands in contrast to Hester and Dimmesdale’s sin, which had love, not
hate, as its intent. Any harm that may have come from the young lovers’ deed
was unanticipated and inadvertent, whereas Chillingworth reaps deliberate harm.
Arthur Dimmesdale
Arthur Dimmesdale, like Hester Prynne, is an individual whose
identity owes more to external circumstances than to his innate nature. The
reader is told that Dimmesdale was a scholar of some renown at Oxford
University. His past suggests that he is probably somewhat aloof, the kind of
man who would not have much natural sympathy for ordinary men and women.
However, Dimmesdale has an unusually active conscience. The fact that Hester
takes all of the blame for their shared sin goads his conscience, and his
resultant mental anguish and physical weakness open up his mind and allow him
to empathize with others. Consequently, he becomes an eloquent and emotionally
powerful speaker and a compassionate leader, and his congregation is able to receive
meaningful spiritual guidance from him.
Ironically, the townspeople do not believe Dimmesdale’s
protestations of sinfulness. Given his background and his penchant for
rhetorical speech, Dimmesdale’s congregation generally interprets his sermons
allegorically rather than as expressions of any personal guilt. This drives
Dimmesdale to further internalize his guilt and self-punishment and leads to
still more deterioration in his physical and spiritual condition. The town’s
idolization of him reaches new heights after his Election Day sermon, which is
his last. In his death, Dimmesdale becomes even more of an icon than he was in
life. Many believe his confession was a symbolic act, while others believe
Dimmesdale’s fate was an example of divine judgment.
Pearl
Hester’s daughter, Pearl, functions
primarily as a symbol. She is quite young during most of the events of this
novel—when Dimmesdale dies she is only seven years old—and her real importance
lies in her ability to provoke the adult characters in the book. She asks them
pointed questions and draws their attention, and the reader’s, to the denied or
overlooked truths of the adult world. In general, children in The Scarlet Letter are portrayed as more perceptive and
more honest than adults, and Pearl is the most perceptive of them all.
Pearl makes us constantly aware of her mother’s scarlet letter and
of the society that produced it. From an early age, she fixates on the emblem.
Pearl’s innocent, or perhaps intuitive, comments about the letter raise crucial
questions about its meaning. Similarly, she inquires about the relationships
between those around her—most important, the relationship between Hester and
Dimmesdale—and offers perceptive critiques of them. Pearl provides the text’s
harshest, and most penetrating, judgment of Dimmesdale’s failure to admit to
his adultery. Once her father’s identity is revealed, Pearl is no longer needed
in this symbolic capacity; at Dimmesdale’s death she becomes fully “human,”
leaving behind her otherworldliness and her preternatural vision.
Themes,
Motifs & Symbols
Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a
literary work.
Sin,
Knowledge, and the Human Condition
Sin and
knowledge are linked in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Bible begins with
the story of Adam and Eve, who were expelled from the Garden of Eden for eating
from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. As a result of their knowledge,
Adam and Eve are made aware of their humanness, that which separates them from
the divine and from other creatures. Once expelled from the Garden of Eden,
they are forced to toil and to procreate—two “labors” that seem to define the
human condition. The experience of Hester and Dimmesdale recalls the story of
Adam and Eve because, in both cases, sin results in expulsion and suffering.
But it also results in knowledge—specifically, in knowledge of what it means to
be human. For Hester, the scarlet letter functions as “her passport into
regions where other women dared not tread,” leading her to “speculate” about
her society and herself more “boldly” than anyone else in New England. As for
Dimmesdale, the “burden” of his sin gives him “sympathies so intimate with the
sinful brotherhood of mankind, so that his heart vibrate[s] in unison with
theirs.” His eloquent and powerful sermons derive from this sense of empathy.
Hester and Dimmesdale contemplate their own sinfulness on a daily basis and try
to reconcile it with their lived experiences. The Puritan elders, on the other
hand, insist on seeing earthly experience as merely an obstacle on the path to
heaven. Thus, they view sin as a threat to the community that should be
punished and suppressed. Their answer to Hester’s sin is to ostracize her. Yet,
Puritan society is stagnant, while Hester and Dimmesdale’s experience shows
that a state of sinfulness can lead to personal growth, sympathy, and
understanding of others. Paradoxically, these qualities are shown to be
incompatible with a state of purity.
The Nature
of Evil
The
characters in the novel frequently debate the identity of the “Black Man,” the
embodiment of evil. Over the course of the novel, the “Black Man” is associated
with Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, and Mistress Hibbins, and little Pearl is
thought by some to be the Devil’s child. The characters also try to root out
the causes of evil: did Chillingworth’s selfishness in marrying Hester force
her to the “evil” she committed in Dimmesdale’s arms? Is Hester and
Dimmesdale’s deed responsible for Chillingworth’s transformation into a
malevolent being? This confusion over the nature and causes of evil reveals the
problems with the Puritan conception of sin. The book argues that true evil
arises from the close relationship between hate and love. As the narrator
points out in the novel’s concluding chapter, both emotions depend upon “a high
degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent .
. . upon another.” Evil is not found in Hester and Dimmesdale’s lovemaking, nor
even in the cruel ignorance of the Puritan fathers. Evil, in its most poisonous
form, is found in the carefully plotted and precisely aimed revenge of
Chillingworth, whose love has been perverted. Perhaps Pearl is not entirely
wrong when she thinks Dimmesdale is the “Black Man,” because her father, too,
has perverted his love. Dimmesdale, who should love Pearl, will not even
publicly acknowledge her. His cruel denial of love to his own child may be seen
as further perpetrating evil.
Identity
and Society
After
Hester is publicly shamed and forced by the people of Boston to wear a badge of
humiliation, her unwillingness to leave the town may seem puzzling. She is not
physically imprisoned, and leaving the Massachusetts Bay Colony would allow her
to remove the scarlet letter and resume a normal life. Surprisingly, Hester
reacts with dismay when Chillingworth tells her that the town fathers are
considering letting her remove the letter. Hester’s behavior is premised on her
desire to determine her own identity rather than to allow others to determine
it for her. To her, running away or removing the letter would be an
acknowledgment of society’s power over her: she would be admitting that the
letter is a mark of shame and something from which she desires to escape.
Instead, Hester stays, refiguring the scarlet letter as a symbol of her own
experiences and character. Her past sin is a part of who she is; to pretend
that it never happened would mean denying a part of herself. Thus, Hester very
determinedly integrates her sin into her life.
Dimmesdale
also struggles against a socially determined identity. As the community’s
minister, he is more symbol than human being. Except for Chillingworth, those
around the minister willfully ignore his obvious anguish, misinterpreting it as
holiness. Unfortunately, Dimmesdale never fully recognizes the truth of what
Hester has learned: that individuality and strength are gained by quiet
self-assertion and by a reconfiguration, not a rejection, of one’s assigned
identity.
Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices
that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
Civilization
Versus the Wilderness
In The Scarlet Letter, the town
and the surrounding forest represent opposing behavioral systems. The town
represents civilization, a rule-bound space where everything one does is on
display and where transgressions are quickly punished. The forest, on the other
hand, is a space of natural rather than human authority. In the forest,
society’s rules do not apply, and alternate identities can be assumed. While
this allows for misbehavior— Mistress Hibbins’s midnight rides, for example—it
also permits greater honesty and an escape from the repression of Boston. When
Hester and Dimmesdale meet in the woods, for a few moments, they become happy
young lovers once again. Hester’s cottage, which, significantly, is located on
the outskirts of town and at the edge of the forest, embodies both orders. It
is her place of exile, which ties it to the authoritarian town, but because it
lies apart from the settlement, it is a place where she can create for herself
a life of relative peace.
Night
Versus Day
By
emphasizing the alternation between sunlight and darkness, the novel organizes
the plot’s events into two categories: those which are socially acceptable, and
those which must take place covertly. Daylight exposes an individual’s
activities and makes him or her vulnerable to punishment. Night, on the other
hand, conceals and enables activities that would not be possible or tolerated
during the day—for instance, Dimmesdale’s encounter with Hester and Pearl on
the scaffold. These notions of visibility versus concealment are linked to two
of the book’s larger themes—the themes of inner versus socially assigned
identity and of outer appearances versus internal states. Night is the time
when inner natures can manifest themselves. During the day, interiority is once
again hidden from public view, and secrets remain secrets.
Evocative
Names
The names in this novel often seem to beg to be interpreted
allegorically. Chillingworth is cold and inhuman and thus brings a “chill” to
Hester’s and Dimmesdale’s lives. “Prynne” rhymes with “sin,” while “Dimmesdale”
suggests “dimness”—weakness, indeterminacy, lack of insight, and lack of will,
all of which characterize the young minister. The name “Pearl” evokes a
biblical allegorical device—the “pearl of great price” that is salvation. This
system of naming lends a profundity to the story, linking it to other
allegorical works of literature such as The Pilgrim’s Progress and to
portions of the Bible. It also aligns the novel with popular forms of narrative
such as fairy tales.
Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to
represent abstract ideas or concepts.
The
Scarlet Letter
The
scarlet letter is meant to be a symbol of shame, but instead it becomes a
powerful symbol of identity to Hester. The letter’s meaning shifts as time
passes. Originally intended to mark Hester as an adulterer, the “A” eventually
comes to stand for “Able.” Finally, it becomes indeterminate: the Native
Americans who come to watch the Election Day pageant think it marks her as a
person of importance and status. Like Pearl, the letter functions as a physical
reminder of Hester’s affair with Dimmesdale. But, compared with a human child,
the letter seems insignificant, and thus helps to point out the ultimate
meaninglessness of the community’s system of judgment and punishment. The child
has been sent from God, or at least from nature, but the letter is merely a
human contrivance. Additionally, the instability of the letter’s apparent
meaning calls into question society’s ability to use symbols for ideological
reinforcement. More often than not, a symbol becomes a focal point for critical
analysis and debate.
The Meteor
As
Dimmesdale stands on the scaffold with Hester and Pearl in Chapter 12, a meteor
traces out an “A” in the night sky. To Dimmesdale, the meteor implies that he
should wear a mark of shame just as Hester does. The meteor is interpreted
differently by the rest of the community, which thinks that it stands for
“Angel” and marks Governor Winthrop’s entry into heaven. But “Angel” is an
awkward reading of the symbol. The Puritans commonly looked to symbols to
confirm divine sentiments. In this narrative, however, symbols are taken to
mean what the beholder wants them to mean. The incident with the meteor
obviously highlights and exemplifies two different uses of symbols: Puritan and
literary.
Pearl
Although
Pearl is a complex character, her primary function within the novel is as a
symbol. Pearl is a sort of living version of her mother’s scarlet letter. She
is the physical consequence of sexual sin and the indicator of a transgression.
Yet, even as a reminder of Hester’s “sin,” Pearl is more than a mere punishment
to her mother: she is also a blessing. She represents not only “sin” but also
the vital spirit and passion that engendered that sin. Thus, Pearl’s existence
gives her mother reason to live, bolstering her spirits when she is tempted to
give up. It is only after Dimmesdale is revealed to be Pearl’s father that
Pearl can become fully “human.” Until then, she functions in a symbolic
capacity as the reminder of an unsolved mystery.
Important
Quotations Explained
1. “A writer of story-books! What kind of a business in life,—what
mode of glorifying God, or being serviceable to mankind in his day and
generation,—may that be? Why, the degenerate fellow might as well have been a
fiddler!” Such are the compliments bandied between my great-grandsires and myself,
across the gulf of time! And yet, let them scorn me as they will, strong traits
of their nature have intertwined themselves with mine.
This passage comes from the
introductory section of The
Scarlet Letter, in which the narrator
details how he decided to write his version of Hester Prynne’s story. Part of
his interest in the story is personal—he is descended from the original Puritan
settlers of Massachusetts. Like Hester, the narrator both affirms and resists
Puritan values. He is driven to write, yet the Puritan in him sees the
frivolity in such an endeavor: what good, after all, can come of writing this
story? Yet in that very question lies the significance of this tale, which
interrogates the conflict between individual impulses and systematized social
codes. The narrator finds Hester Prynne compelling because she represents
America’s past, but also because her experiences reflect his own dilemmas.
Thus, for the narrator, the act of writing about Hester becomes not a trivial
activity but a means of understanding himself and his social context.
2. “Mother,” said little Pearl, “the sunshine does not love you. It
runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom. .
. . It will not flee from me, for I wear nothing on my bosom yet!”
“Nor ever will, my child, I hope,” said Hester.
“And why not, mother?” asked Pearl, stopping short. . . . “Will it not come of its own accord, when I am a woman grown?”
“Nor ever will, my child, I hope,” said Hester.
“And why not, mother?” asked Pearl, stopping short. . . . “Will it not come of its own accord, when I am a woman grown?”
This quote, taken from Chapter 16, “A Forest Walk,” is
illustrative of the role Pearl plays in the text. It is also a meditation on
the significance of the scarlet letter as a symbol and an exposition of the
connection between sin and humanness—one of the novel’s most important themes.
Pearl is frequently aware of things that others do not see, and
here she presciently identifies the scarlet letter on her mother’s bosom with
the metaphorical (and in this case also literal) lack of sunshine in her
mother’s life. Because she is just a child, Pearl often does not understand the
ramifications of the things she sees. She frequently reveals truths only
indirectly by asking pointed questions. These queries make her mother
uncomfortable and contribute to the text’s suspense. Here Pearl is assuming, as
children often do, that her mother is representative of all adults. Her
question suggests that she thinks that all grown women wear a scarlet letter or
its equivalent. Surely, Pearl has noticed that the other women in town don’t
wear scarlet letters. But, on a more figurative level, her question suggests
that sin—that which the scarlet letter is intended to represent—is an
inevitable part of being a mature human being.
3. But Hester Prynne, with a mind of native courage and activity,
and for so long a period not merely estranged, but outlawed, from society, had
habituated herself to such latitude of speculation as was altogether foreign to
the clergyman. She had wandered, without rule or guidance, in a moral
wilderness. . . . The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other
women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her
teachers,—stern and wild ones,—and they had made her strong, but taught her
much amiss.
These are the narrator’s reflections at
the beginning of Chapter 18, “A Flood of Sunshine.” The quotation concerns the
theme of sin and knowledge that is so central to The Scarlet Letter. Over the course of
their first significant conversation in many years, Hester and Dimmesdale
decide to run away to Europe together. The minister is still in a state of
shock, but Hester accepts their decision with relative equanimity. One result
of her “sin” has been her profound alienation from society—she has been forced
into the role of philosopher. Although the narrator tries to claim that her
speculations have led her “amiss,” it is clear from his tone that he admires
her intellectual bravery. It is deeply ironic, too, that it is her punishment,
which was intended to help her atone and to make her an example for the
community, that has led her into a “moral wilderness” devoid of “rule or
guidance.” Finally, this passage is a good example of the eloquent, high-flown
yet measured style that the narrator frequently adopts when considering the moral
or philosophical ramifications of a situation.
4. “Mother,” said [Pearl], “was that the same minister that kissed
me by the brook?”
“Hold thy peace, dear little Pearl!” whispered her mother. “We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.”
“Hold thy peace, dear little Pearl!” whispered her mother. “We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.”
This conversation, which is described in Chapter 22, takes place a
few days after Hester and Pearl’s encounter with Dimmesdale in the forest. It
emphasizes the importance of physical settings in the novel and evokes the
motif of civilization versus the wilderness. Dimmesdale has just walked by
Hester and Pearl as part of the Election Day pageantry, and Pearl notices his
changed appearance. Hester’s realization that different rules apply in the
marketplace than in the forest has more significant consequences than she
realizes, making this yet another ironic moment in the text. Hester primarily
wishes Pearl to maintain a sense of decorum and not reveal her mother’s secret
and the family’s plans to flee. On another level, though, Hester’s statement
suggests that plans made in the forest will not withstand the public scrutiny
of the marketplace. What is possible in the woods—a place of fantasy,
possibility, and freedom—is not an option in the heart of the Puritan town,
where order, prescription, and harsh punishment reign.
5. But there was a more real life for Hester Prynne here, in New
England, than in that unknown region where Pearl had found a home. Here had
been her sin; here, her sorrow; and here was yet to be her penitence. She had
returned, therefore, and resumed,—of her own free will, for not the sternest
magistrate of that iron period would have imposed it,—resumed the symbol of
which we have related so dark a tale. Never afterwards did it quit her bosom.
But . . . the scarlet letter ceased to be a stigma which attracted the world’s
scorn and bitterness, and became a type of something to be sorrowed over, and
looked upon with awe, and yet with reverence, too.
This passage, which appears in the novel’s final chapter,
concludes the book’s examination of the theme of individual identity in the
face of social judgments. After many years’ absence, Hester has just returned
to her former home. She resumes wearing the scarlet letter because her past is
an important part of her identity; it is not something that should be erased or
denied because someone else has decided it is shameful. What Hester undergoes
is more akin to reconciliation than penitence. She creates a life in which the
scarlet letter is a symbol of adversity overcome and of knowledge gained rather
than a sign of failure or condemnation. She assumes control of her own
identity, and in so doing she becomes an example for others. She is not,
however, the example of sin that she was once intended to be. Rather, she is an
example of redemption and self-empowerment.
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