Nathaniel Hawthorne: 1804-1864
Biography:
Criticism/Analysis:
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Hawthorne's works belong to romanticism or, more specifically, dark romanticism,[79] cautionary tales that suggest that guilt, sin, and evil are the most inherent natural qualities of humanity.[80] Many of his works are inspired by Puritan New England,[81] combining historical romance loaded with symbolism and deep psychological themes, bordering on surrealism.[82] His depictions of the past are a version of historical fiction used only as a vehicle to express common themes of ancestral sin, guilt and retribution.[83] His later writings also reflect his negative view of the Transcendentalism movement.[84]
Hawthorne was predominantly a short story writer in his early career. Upon publishing Twice-Told Tales, however, he noted, "I do not think much of them", and he expected little response from the public.[85] His four major romances were written between 1850 and 1860: The Scarlet Letter (1850), The House of the Seven Gables (1851), The Blithedale Romance (1852) and The Marble Faun (1860). Another novel-length romance, Fanshawe was published anonymously in 1828. Hawthorne defined a romance as being radically different from a novel by not being concerned with the possible or probable course of ordinary experience.[86] In the preface to The House of the Seven Gables, Hawthorne describes his romance-writing as using "atmospherical medium as to bring out or mellow the lights and deepen and enrich the shadows of the picture."[87]
Hawthorne also wrote nonfiction. In 2008, The Library of America selected Hawthorne's "A Collection of Wax Figures" for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American True Crime.
The Scarlet Letter
Title page, first edition, 1850
Author
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Genre(s)
Novel
Publisher
Ticknor, Reed & Fields
Publication date
1850
Pages
232
The Scarlet Letter (1850) is a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, considered to be his masterpiece and most famous work.[1] Set in 17th-century Puritan Boston, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who gives birth after committing adultery and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. Throughout the novel, Hawthorne explores themes of legalism, sin, and guilt.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne in the 1860s |
|
Born |
July 4, 1804 |
Died |
May 19, 1864 (aged 59) |
Occupation |
Novelist, Short story writer, Custom House worker, United States Consul |
Literary movement |
Dark Romanticism |
Nathaniel Hawthorne (born Nathaniel Hathorne; July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist and short story writer.
Nathaniel Hathorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and Elizabeth Clarke Manning Hathorne. He later changed his name to "Hawthorne", adding a "w" to dissociate from relatives including John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials. Hawthorne attended Bowdoin College, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1824,[1] and graduated in 1825; his classmates included future president Franklin Pierce and future poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Hawthorne anonymously published his first work, a novel titled Fanshawe, in 1828. He published several short stories in various periodicals which he collected in 1837 as Twice-Told Tales. The next year, he became engaged to Sophia Peabody. He worked at a Custom House and joined Brook Farm, a transcendentalist community, before marrying Peabody in 1842. The couple moved to The Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts, later moving to Salem, the Berkshires, then to The Wayside in Concord. The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850, followed by a succession of other novels. A political appointment took Hawthorne and family to Europe before their return to The Wayside in 1860. Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864, leaving behind his wife and their three children.
Much of Hawthorne's writing centers around New England, many works featuring moral allegories with a Puritan inspiration. His fiction works are considered part of the Romantic movement and, more specifically, dark romanticism. His themes often center on the inherent evil and sin of humanity, and his works often have moral messages and deep psychological complexity. His published works include novels, short stories, and a biography of his friend Franklin Pierce.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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.[3]
As for Dimmesdale, the "cheating minister" of his sin gives him "sympathies so intimate with the sinful brotherhood of mankind, so that his chest vibrate[s] in unison with theirs." His eloquent and powerful sermons derive from this sense of empathy.[3] The narrative of the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale is quite in keeping with the oldest and most fully authorized principles in Christian thought. His "Fall" is a descent from apparent grace to his own damnation; he appears to begin in purity. He ends in corruption. The subtlety is that the minister is his own deceiver, convincing himself at every stage of his spiritual pilgrimage that he is saved.[4]
The rosebush, its beauty a striking contrast to all that surrounds it—as later the beautifully embroidered scarlet A will be–is held out in part as an invitation to find "some sweet moral blossom" in the ensuing, tragic tale and in part as an image that "the deep heart of nature" (perhaps God) may look more kindly on the errant Hester and her child than her Puritan neighbors do. Throughout the work, the nature images contrast with the stark darkness of the Puritans and their systems.[5]
Chillingworth's misshapen body reflects (or symbolizes) the anger in his soul, which builds as the novel progresses, similar to the way Dimmesdale's illness reveals his inner turmoil. The outward man reflects the condition of the heart.[5]
Although Pearl is a complex character, her primary function within the novel is as a symbol. Pearl herself is the embodiment of the scarlet letter, and Hester rightly clothes her in a beautiful dress of scarlet, embroidered with gold thread, just like the scarlet letter upon Hester's bosom.[3] Parallels can be drawn between Pearl and the character Beatrice in Rappaccini's Daughter. Both are studies in the same direction, though from different standpoints. Beatrice is nourished upon poisonous plants, until she herself becomes poisonous. Pearl, in the mysterious prenatal world, imbibes the poison of her parents' guilt.
The clashing of past and present is explored in various ways. For example, the character of the old General, whose heroic qualities include a distinguished name, perseverance, integrity, compassion, and moral inner strength, is said to be "the soul and spirit of New England hardihood". Now put out to pasture, he sometimes presides over the Custom House run by corrupt public servants, who skip work to sleep, allow or overlook smuggling, and are supervised by an inspector with "no power of thought, nor depth of feeling, no troublesome sensibilities", who is honest enough but without a spiritual compass.[5]
Hawthorne himself had ambivalent feelings about the role of his ancestors in his life. In his autobiographical sketch, Hawthorne described his ancestors as "dim and dusky", "grave, bearded, sable-cloaked, and steel crowned", "bitter persecutors" whose "better deeds" would be diminished by their bad ones. There can be little doubt of Hawthorne's disdain for the stern morality and rigidity of the Puritans, and he imagined his predecessors' disdainful view of him: unsuccessful in their eyes, worthless and disgraceful. "A writer of story books!" But even as he disagrees with his ancestors' viewpoint, he also feels an instinctual connection to them and, more importantly, a "sense of place" in Salem. Their blood remains in his veins, but their intolerance and lack of humanity becomes the subject of his novel.[5]
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Nathaniel Hawthorne (1809-1864)
Context
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, on July 4th, 1804, son of a sea-captain. He led there a shy and rather sombre life; of few artistic encouragements, yet not wholly uncongenial, his moody, intensely meditative temperament being considered. His family descended from the earliest settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; among his forebears was John Hathorne (Hawthorne added the "w" to his name when he began to write), one of the judges at the 1692 Salem witch trials. Throughout his life, Hawthorne was both fascinated and disturbed by his kinship with John Hathorne. Raised by a widowed mother, Hawthorne attended Bowdoin College in Maine, where he met two people who were to have great impact upon his life: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who would later become a famous poet, and Franklin Pierce, who would later become president of the United States.
After leaving college in 1825 Hawthorne retired to the confinement of an upper room in his mother’s house. He tried his hand at writing, producing historical sketches and an anonymous novel, Fanshawe (1828), that detailed his college days rather embarrassingly. His first signed book was Twice-Told Tales (1837). His growing relationship with the intellectual circle that included Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller led him to abandon his customs post for the utopian experiment at Brook Farm, a commune designed to promote economic self-sufficiency and transcendentalist principles.
Transcendentalism was a religious and philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century that was dedicated to the belief that divinity manifests itself everywhere, particularly in the natural world. It also advocated a personalized, direct relationship with the divine in place of formalized, structured religion. This second transcendental idea is privileged in The Scarlet Letter.
After marrying fellow transcendentalist Sophia Peabody in 1842, Hawthorne left Brook Farm and moved into the Old Manse, a home in Concord where Emerson had once lived. The village became the center of the philosophy of Transcendentalism.
A growing family and mounting debts compelled the Hawthorns to return to Salem in 1845, where Hawthorne again went to work as a customs surveyor, this time, like the narrator of The Scarlet Letter, at a post in Salem. In 1850, after having lost the job, he published The Scarlet Letter to enthusiastic, if not widespread, acclaim.
In 1846 he published Mosses from an Old Manse, a collection of essays and stories, many of which are about early America. Mosses from an Old Manse earned Hawthorne the attention of the literary establishment because America was trying to establish a cultural independence to complement its political independence, and Hawthorne's collection of stories displayed both a stylistic freshness and an interest in American subject matter. Herman Melville, among others, hailed Hawthorne as the "American Shakespeare."
The family moved to Lenox and Hawthorne began to work on The House of the Seven Gables (1851). At Lenox he enjoyed the friendship of young Herman Melville, who lived in nearby Pittsfield. In 1851 they moved again near Boston. Hawthorne published The Blithedale Romance (1852).
In 1853 Hawthorne's college friend Franklin Pierce, for whom he had written a campaign biography and who had since become president, appointed Hawthorne a United States consul (in Liverpool). The writer spent the next six years in Europe. From a creative point of view these years were largely anticlimactic. He produced another romance The Marble Faun (1860) but from 1860 he was unable to make any progress with his plans for a new novel. The drafts of unfinished worksheet left are mostly incoherent and show many signs of psychic regression. Some two years before his death he began to age very suddenly, he suffered frequent nosebleeds and he took to writing the figure ‘64’ compulsively on scraps of paper. Nathaniel Hawthorne died at Plymouth, New Hampshire, on May 18th, 1864, a few years after returning to America.
Works:
Fanshawe, published anonymously, 1826; Twice-Told Tales, 1st Series, 1837; 2nd Series, 1842; Grandfather's Chair, a history for youth, 1845: Famous Old People (Grandfather's Chair), 1841 Liberty Tree: with the last words of Grandfather's Chair, 1842; Biographical Stories for Children, 1842; Mosses from an Old Manse, 1846; The Scarlet Letter, 1850; The House of the Seven Gables, 1851: True Stories from History and Biography (the whole History of Grandfather's Chair), 1851 A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys, 1851; The Snow Image and other Tales, 1851: The Blithedale Romance, 1852; Life of Franklin Pierce, 1852; Tanglewood Tales (2nd Series of the Wonder Book), 1853; A Rill from the Town-Pump, with remarks, by Telba, 1857; The Marble Faun; or, The Romance of Monte Beni (4 EDITOR'S NOTE) (published in England under the title of "Transformation"), 1860, Our Old Home, 1863; Dolliver Romance (1st Part in "Atlantic Monthly"), 1864; in 3 Parts, 1876; Pansie, a fragment, Hawthorne' last literary effort, 1864; American Note-Books, 1868; English Note Books, edited by Sophia Hawthorne, 1870; French and Italian Note Books, 1871; Septimius Felton; or, the Elixir of Life (from the "Atlantic Monthly"), 1872; Doctor Grimshawe's Secret, with Preface and Notes by Julian Hawthorne, 1882.
Tales of the White Hills, Legends of New England, Legends of the Province House, 1877, contain tales which had already been printed in book form in "Twice-Told Tales" and the "Mosses" "Sketched and Studies," 1883.
Hawthorne's contributions to magazines were numerous, and most of his tales appeared first in periodicals, chiefly in "The Token," 1831-1838, "New England Magazine," 1834,1835; "Knickerbocker," 1837-1839; "Democratic Review," 1838-1846; "Atlantic Monthly," 1860-1872 (scenes from the Dolliver Romance, Septimius Felton, and passages from Hawthorne's Note-Books).
The Scarlet Letter
The Scarlet Letter is one of the outstanding works of fiction produced in America. Hawthorne felt that the transcendental ideas of the perfectibility of man were illusory and even worse, they were lies. Melville praised ‘the great power of blackness’ in the book, and other critics analyzed Hawthorne’s ‘vision of evil’. Hawthorne creates a conflict of nature and culture.
The majority of Hawthorne's work takes America's Puritan past as its subject, but The Scarlet Letter uses the material to greatest effect. The Puritans were a group of religious reformers who arrived in Massachusetts in the 1630s under the leadership of John Winthrop (whose death is recounted in the novel). The religious sect was known for its intolerance of dissenting ideas and lifestyles. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne uses the repressive, authoritarian Puritan society as an analogue for humankind in general. The Puritan setting also enables him to portray the human soul under extreme pressures. Hawthorne speaks specifically to American issues, but he circumvents the aesthetic and thematic limitations that might accompany such a focus. His universality and his dramatic flair have ensured his place in the literary canon.
The action of the novel can be described by its structure as consisting of four sections: chapter 1-8 dominated by the Puritan community of colonial Boston, and the fate of Hester who has given birth to an illegitimate daughter, Pearl (innocence), while her husband Roger Chillingworth is away. Chapter 9-12 are centered on Chillingworth who upon his return find his wife pilloried and made wear the letter ‘A’ (adulteress, later to signify ‘angel’) and refuses to reveal the name of the child’s father. Chillingworth suspects rightly the young Pastor Dimmesdale. He torments him mentally to force a confession. Chapter 13-19 deal with Hester and her concern over Dimmesdale suffering. She is revealed to be a self-reliant heroine who is never truly repentant for her act of adultery, she feels their act was consecrated by their deep love. Chapter 20-24 where Dimmesdale broken by his own sense of guilt, confesses upon the scaffold where Hester was branded with the letter ‘A’ and dies in her arms. Hester faces the future optimistically, as she plans to ensure the future of her beloved little girl by taking her to Europe.
Sin and guilt are the recurring concerns of Hawthorne’s works. In this sense, his contrast with the optimistic philosophy of the Transcendentalists is remarkable. He had a tragic vision of life, and his hero is always a man alienated from society for having committed a hidden sin. Hawthorne began his novel where a conventional work would end. His concern is not with the moment of passion but with the psychology of the participants and with moral problems. Like Melville’s, Hawthorne’s novels are interrogations of transcendentalism. The forest seems to promise an Edenic release from fallen guilt and sin.
In his essay Custom House Hawthorne explores the events that led to the writing of the book. He portrays the Salem Custom House, a locus of contemporary actuality and practicality where he worked as a surveyor, as the place which starts his imagination and Hester’s story. A story which rises from his own condition, as a man divided between a past of Puritan guilt and a present of transcendental hope and between his own subjective imagination and the daylight world of community and actuality. Art and artist are at the center of a set of dialectical contradictions –between past and present, selfhood and community, the allegorical and the symbolic, the Calvinist sense of guilt and the new transcendentalist faith in Adamic innocence, the imaginary and the actual, creation and silence.
Key Facts
Full title - The Scarlet Letter
Author - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Type of work - Novel
Genre - Symbolic; semi-allegorical; historical fiction; romance (in the sense that it rejects realism in favor of symbols and ideas)
Language - English
Time and place written - Salem and Concord, Massachusetts; late 1840s
Date of first publication - 1850
Publisher - Ticknor, Reed, and Fields. Hawthorne apparently burned the novel's manuscript; thus his original intentions have been difficult to reconstruct.
Narrator - The narrator is an unnamed customhouse surveyor who writes some two hundred years after the events he describes took place. He has much in common with Hawthorne but should not be taken as a direct mouthpiece for the author's opinions.
Point of view - The narrator is omniscient, because he analyzes the characters and tells the story in a way that shows that he knows more about the characters than they know about themselves. Yet, he is also a subjective narrator, because he voices his own interpretations and opinions of things. He is clearly sympathetic to Hester and Dimmesdale.
Tone - Varies—contemplative and somewhat bitter in the introduction; thoughtful, fairly straightforward, yet occasionally tinged with irony in the body of the narrative
Tense - The narrator employs the past tense to recount events that happened some two hundred years before his time, but he occasionally uses the present tense when he addresses his audience.
Setting (time) - Middle of the seventeenth century
Setting (place) - Boston, Massachusetts
Protagonist - Hester Prynne
Major conflict - Her husband having inexplicably failed to join her in Boston following their emigration from Europe, Hester Prynne engages in an extramarital affair with Arthur Dimmesdale. When she gives birth to a child, Hester invokes the condemnation of her community—a condemnation they manifest by forcing her to wear a letter "A" for "adulteror"—as well as the vengeful wrath of her husband, who has appeared just in time to witness her public shaming.
Rising action - Dimmesdale stands by in silence as Hester suffers for the "sin" he helped to commit, though his conscience plagues him and affects his health. Hester's husband, Chillingworth, hides his true identity and, posing as a doctor to the ailing minister, tests his suspicions that Dimmesdale is the father of his wife's child, effectively exacerbating Dimmesdale's feelings of shame and thus reaping revenge.
Climax - There are at least two points in The Scarlet Letter that could be identified as the book's "climax." The first is in Chapter XII, at the exact center of the book. As Dimmesdale watches a meteor trace a letter "A" in the sky, he confronts his role in Hester’s sin and realizes that he can no longer deny his deed and its consequences. The key characters confront one other when Hester and Pearl join Dimmesdale in an "electric chain" as he holds his vigil on the marketplace scaffold, the location of Hester's original public shaming. Chillingworth appears in this scene as well. The other climactic scene occurs in Chapter XXIII, at the end of the book. Here, the characters' secrets are publicly exposed and their fates sealed. Dimmesdale, Hester, and Chillingworth not only acknowledge their secrets to themselves and to each other; they push these revelations to such extremes that they all must leave the community in one way or another.
Falling action - Depending on one's interpretation of which scene constitutes the book's "climax," the falling action is either the course of events that follow Chapter XII or the final reports on Hester and Pearl lives after the deaths of Dimmensdale and Chillingworth
Themes - Sin, experience, and the human condition; the nature of evil; identity and society
Motifs - Civilization versus the wilderness; night versus day; evocative names
Symbols - The scarlet letter; the town scaffold; the meteor; Pearl; the rosebush next to the prison door
Foreshadowing - Foreshadowing is minimal, because the symbols tend to coincide temporally with events, enriching their meaning rather than anticipating their occurrence.
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.
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 Dimmensdale and her resultant public shaming. The reader is told 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 an extremely 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's 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.
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.
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 importantly, 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.
Roger Chillingworth - "Roger Chillingworth" is actually Hester 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.
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 his the objects of his revenge, the leech has no choice but to die.
Ultimately, Chillingworth comes to represent true evil. Throughout the novel 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 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.
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.
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.
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 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 Belingham 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 somewhat 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.
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.
As it turns out, 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 except 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 then 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 that is sailing from Boston in four days' time. Both feel a great sense of release, and Hester removes her scarlet letter and lets down her hair. Pearl, who has been 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. In the meantime, 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 then confesses publicly, exposing a scarlet letter seared into the flesh of his chest. He then 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."
Themes, Motifs, and 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, or 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 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 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, or 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 XII, 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 main 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.
The Rosebush Next to the Prison Door - The narrator chooses to begin his story with the image of the rosebush beside the prison door. The rosebush symbolizes the ability of nature to endure and outlast man's activities. Yet, paradoxically, it also symbolizes the futility of symbolic interpretation: the narrator mentions various significances that the rosebush might have, never affirming or denying them, never privileging one over the others.
The Custom-House: Introductory Summary
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?
This introduction provides a frame for the main narrative of The Scarlet Letter. The nameless narrator, who shares quite a few traits with the book's author, takes a post as the "chief executive officer," or surveyor, of the Salem Custom House. ("Customs" are the taxes paid on foreign imports into a country; a "customhouse" is the building where these taxes are paid.) He finds the establishment to be a run-down place, situated on a rotting wharf in a half-finished building. His fellow workers mostly hold lifetime appointments secured by family connections. They are elderly and given to telling the same stories repeatedly. The narrator finds them to be generally incompetent and innocuously corrupt.
The narrator spends his days at the customhouse trying to amuse himself because few ships come to Salem anymore. One rainy day he discovers some documents in the building's unoccupied second story. Looking through the pile, he notices a manuscript that is bundled with a scarlet, gold-embroidered piece of cloth in the shape of the letter "A." The narrator examines the scarlet badge and holds it briefly to his chest, but he drops it because it seems to burn him. He then reads the manuscript. It is the work of one Jonathan Pue, who was a customs surveyor a hundred years earlier. An interest in local history led Pue to write an account of events taking place in the middle of the seventeenth century—a century before Pue's time and two hundred years before the narrator's.
The narrator has already mentioned his unease about attempting to make a career out of writing. He believes that his Puritan ancestors, whom he holds in high regard, would find it frivolous and "degenerate." Nevertheless, he decides to write a fictional account of Hester Prynne's experiences. It will not be factually precise, but he believes that it will be faithful to the spirit and general outline of the original. While working at the customhouse, surrounded by uninspiring men, the narrator finds himself unable to write. When a new president is elected, he loses his politically appointed job and, settling down before a dim fire in his parlor, begins to write his "romance," which becomes the body of The Scarlet Letter.
Analysis
This section introduces us to the narrator and establishes his desire to contribute to American culture. Although this narrator seems to have much in common with Nathaniel Hawthorne himself—Hawthorne also worked as a customs officer, lost his job due to political changes, and had Puritan ancestors whose legacy he considered both a blessing and a curse—it is important not to conflate the two storytellers. The narrator is not just a stand-in for Hawthorne; he is carefully constructed to enhance the book aesthetically and philosophically. Moreover, Hawthorne sets him up to parallel Hester Prynne in significant ways. Like Hester, the narrator spends his days surrounded by people from whom he feels alienated. In his case, it is his relative youth and vitality that separates him from the career customs officers. Hester's youthful zest for life may have indirectly caused her alienation as well, spurring her to her sin. Similarly, like Hester, the narrator seeks out the "few who will understand him," and it is to this select group that he addresses both his own story and the tale of the scarlet letter. The narrator points out the connection between Hester and himself when he notes that he will someday be reduced to a name on a custom stamp, much as she has been reduced to a pile of old papers and a scrap of cloth. The narrator's identification with Hester enables the reader to universalize her story and to see its application to another society.
Despite his devotion to Hester's story, the narrator has trouble writing it. First, he feels that his Puritan ancestors would find it frivolous, and indeed he is not able to write until he has been relieved of any real career responsibilities. Second, he knows that his audience will be small, mostly because he is relating events that happened some two hundred years ago. His time spent in the company of the other customhouse men has taught the narrator that it will be difficult to write in such a way as to make his story accessible to all types of people—particularly to those no longer young at heart. But he regards it as part of his challenge to try to tell Hester's story in a way that makes it both meaningful and emotionally affecting to all readers. His last step in preparing to write is to stop battling the "real world" of work and small-mindedness and to give himself up to the "romance" atmosphere of his story.
The narrator finds writing therapeutic. Contrary to his Puritan ancestors' assertions, he also discovers it to be practical: his introduction provides a cogent discourse on American history and culture. Hawthorne wrote at a time when America sought to distinguish itself from centuries of European tradition by producing uniquely "American" writers—those who, like Hawthorne, would encourage patriotism by enlarging the world's sense of America's comparatively brief history.
Yet Hawthorne, like the narrator, had to balance the need to establish a weighty past with the equally compelling need to write an interesting and relevant story. Neither the narrator nor Hawthorne wants to see his work pigeonholed as "only" American. Americanness remains both a promise and a threat, just as the eagle over the customhouse door both offers shelter and appears ready to attack. The tale of the scarlet letter may add to the legitimacy of American history and culture, but in order to do so it must transcend its Americanness and establish a universal appeal: only then can American culture hold its own in the world.
Hester's story comes to us twice removed. It is filtered first through John Pue and then through the narrator. Awareness of the story's various stages of treatment gives the reader a greater sense of its remoteness from contemporary life, of its antique qualities—it is a history with a history. Yet the story's survival over the years speaks to the profundity of its themes: the narrator has found, in American history and in Hester's life, a tale rich in philosophical meaning.
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.
Explanation for Quotation 1
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?"
Explanation for Quotation 2
This quote, taken from Chapter XVI, "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.
Explanation for Quotation 3
These are the narrator's reflections at the beginning of Chapter XVIII, "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."
Explanation for Quotation 4
This conversation, which is described in Chapter XXII, 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.
Explanation for Quotation 5
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.
Review Quiz
1. In what century is the story of Hester Prynne set?
(A)
The sixteenth century
(B)
The seventeenth century
(C)
The eighteenth century
(D)
The nineteenth century
2. What is the occupation of the narrator of this story?
(A)
Attorney
(B)
Minister
(C)
Land surveyor
(D)
Customs officer
3. Where do Hester and Chillingworth live before coming to America?
(A)
Amsterdam
(B)
Paris
(C)
Edinburgh
(D)
Jamaica
4. With whom has Chillingworth been living before he appears in Boston?
(A)
Another band of Puritans
(B)
Native Americans
(C)
Spanish settlers in Florida
(D)
Canadian fur trappers
5. What is situated immediately outside the door of the prison in which Hester is kept?
(A)
A rosebush
(B)
A pine tree
(C)
A gallows
(D)
A graveyard
6. What item in the governor's mansion shows Hester a distorted reflection of herself?
(A)
An antique mirror
(B)
A suit of armor
(C)
A stained-glass window
(D)
The governor's eyeglasses
7. Which of the following is a method Dimmesdale uses to punish himself for his sins?
(A)
Scourging or whipping
(B)
Fasting
(C)
Vigils (extended periods of wakefulness and/or prayer)
(D)
All of the above
8. In what city do Hester and Pearl live?
(A)
Salem
(B)
Providence
(C)
Boston
(D)
Hartford
9. Who is Mistress Hibbins?
(A)
The governor's sister
(B)
Hester's mother
(C)
Dimmesdale's aunt
(D)
Chillingworth's second wife
10. How does Mistress Hibbins eventually die?
(A)
She is strangled by Chillingworth
(B)
She wastes away in a diphtheria epidemic
(C)
She is executed publicly as a witch
(D)
Pearl puts a hex on her
11. How does Hester support herself financially?
(A)
As a prostitute
(B)
As a seamstress
(C)
As a nurse
(D)
As a farmhand
12. Next to whom is Hester is buried?
(A)
Dimmesdale
(B)
Chillingworth
(C)
Pearl
(D)
No one; her body is burned
13. What natural phenomenon comes to symbolize both Dimmesdale's "sin" and Governor Winthrop's "virtue"?
(A)
A lightning bolt
(B)
A meteor
(C)
A forest fire
(D)
A flood
14. Why does Pearl not recognize her mother when she sees her with Dimmesdale in the forest?
(A)
Hester has removed the scarlet letter
(B)
Hester has removed her cap to expose her long hair
(C)
Hester is not wearing her usual plain gray dress
(D)
Mistress Hibbins has cast a spell on Hester, changing her appearance
15. How does Pearl acknowledge Dimmesdale as her father at his death?
(A)
By calling him "father"
(B)
By interrupting his sermon
(C)
By kissing him
(D)
By announcing that she has seen him with her mother
16. What mark can supposedly be seen on Dimmesdale's chest?
(A)
A scarlet letter "A"
(B)
A tattoo
(C)
The mark of the devil
(D)
A red rose
17. How do Hester and Dimmesdale plan to escape their suffering?
(A)
By going to live with the Native Americans
(B)
By boarding a ship bound for Europe
(C)
By killing Chillingworth
(D)
By committing suicide
18. How does Pearl become wealthy?
(A)
She discovers pirates' treasure
(B)
She marries the governor's son
(C)
She inherits Chillingworth's estate and marries a nobleman
(D)
She becomes a famous actress and dancer
19. Where does the narrator first encounter Hester Prynne's story?
(A)
He finds a manuscript in the attic of the Salem Custom House
(B)
He hears it from an elderly aunt
(C)
He hears it from one of the old men who work at the Salem Custom House
(D)
It comes to him in a dream
20. What item of clothing does Hester make for Governor Winthrop?
(A)
A cloak for his swearing-in
(B)
A nightcap
(C)
A pair of gloves
(D)
A funeral robe
21. What color of clothing does Hester always wear?
(A)
Scarlet
(B)
White
(C)
Black
(D)
Gray
22. Where do Hester and Pearl live?
(A)
In the poorhouse
(B)
In an abandoned cottage on the outskirts of Boston
(C)
In the forest
(D)
In the house of Roger Chillingworth
23. What does Chillingworth pretend to be?
(A)
A minister
(B)
A doctor
(C)
A madman
(D)
A scholar
24. What does Hester's letter "A" eventually come to represent to the townspeople?
(A)
"Able"
(B)
"Alone"
(C)
"Avaricious"
(D)
"Absolutely Admirable"
25. Why does the narrator lose his job in the customhouse?
(A)
He is incompetent
(B)
He spends too much time writing when he should be working
(C)
The other inspectors dislike him personally
(D)
A new president is elected, and a new chief customs officer is appointed
Suggestions for Further Reading
Hawthorne’s works were published in 24 volumes, 1879; in 12 volumes, with introductory notes by Lathrop, Riverside Edition, 1883. The standard scholarly edition of The Scarlet Letter was put out in 1962 by the Ohio State University Press as part of the Centenary Edition of the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of his death in 1964). Bantam Classic edition.
Most available editions of the novel have been prepared from its first American edition. A few editions have been prepared using the first British edition of the text. One of these is the online Project Gutenberg version (specialists tend to avoid this edition).
Barlowe, Jamie. The Scarlet Mob of Scribblers: Rereading Hester Prynne. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000.
Baym, Nina. The Scarlet Letter: A Reading. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1986.
Bercovitch, Sacvan. The Office of the Scarlet Letter. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.
Berlant, Lauren. The Anatomy of National Fantasy: Hawthorne, Utopia, and Everyday Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
Bloom, Harold, ed. Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1996.
Johnson, Claudia D. Understanding The Scarlet Letter: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1995.
Kesterson, David B., ed. Critical Essays on Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1988.
Matthiessen, F. O. American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1941.
Thickston, Margaret. Fictions of the Feminine: Puritan Doctrine and the Representation of Women. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1988.
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Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
Hawthorne was born in Salem, MA, a descendant of a prominent Puritan family. His ancestors included a judge known for his persecution of the Quakers and a judge who played an important role in the Salem witchcraft trials (and whom Arthur Miller used as a character in his play, The Crucible, Judge Hathorne). Though Hawthorne himself was not a Puritan, he was deeply aware of the actions of his ancestors and his character was shaped by a sense of inherent guilt.
Hawthorne was a close friend of American Transcendentalist authors Emerson and Thoreau, but he found it impossible to accept the optimistic worldview of the Transcendentalists. Haunted by his Puritan ancestry, he viewed evil as one of the dominant forces in the world. His works express a gloomy vision of the world. He believed ordinary humans as well as the natural world around us contained dark places that the cold light of reason alone could not penetrate – at least not without risking one's peace of mind; truths lay in shadows.
Hawthorne said that the romance writer could best "present the truth of the human heart" by using his artistic imagination to create a rich, shadowy atmosphere or mood. He can then, “manage this atmosphere so as to bring out or mellow the lights and deepen and enrich the shadows of the picture.” Finally, in a tale or romance, he can "mingle the marvelous” with the ordinary and the legendary past with the present. Haunted by the intolerance and cruelty of his Puritan ancestors, Hawthorne viewed evil as one of the dominant forces in the world. As a result, his works express a gloomy vision of the world which contrasts sharply with the positive view of the Transcendentalists.
In his writings, Hawthorne frequently used allegories (characters and events had symbolic meanings) to express anti-transcendental moral principles and universal truths. Hawthorne wrote many works, the three most prominent were the short stories, “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Minister’s Black Veil” and the novel The Scarlet Letter. In Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne shows the darker side of human nature through vengeance and malice. His entire purpose and being is focused on the demise of the characters. He tortures and torments characters throughout the novel and feels no remorse for it. One example of the common anti-transcendentalism motif of “good versus evil” is in the novel. Characters feel a great deal of guilt for his sin and are taken advantage of by other characters.
“The Custom House” is largely an autobiographical sketch describing Hawthorne's life as an administrator of the Salem Custom House and it allows Hawthorne to pretend to have discovered The Scarlet Letter in the Custom House. When discussing his ancestors, Hawthorne is both reverent and mocking; jokingly wondering how an idler such as himself could have born from such noble lineage. He describes the shop and the various characters in it. He ends up getting fired because President Taylor got elected. Taylor was a Whig, NH was a Democrat and the position was appointed by the president; new president, new person in that position. NH said it was for the best though, so that he could write The Scarlet Letter and comments that, "it may be, however...that the great-grandchildren of the present race may sometimes think kindly of the scribbler of bygone days..."
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