"On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth,
surrounded with an elaborate embroidery
and fantastic flourishes of gold thread,
appeared the letter A."
— Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
Hester Prynne, an independent-minded woman in Puritan New England, has just given birth to a child conceived out of wedlock. The community demands retribution. Some call for her execution. And one man in particular seems hell-bent on exposing the father to suffer the same fate.
The town's Minister, Arthur Dimmesdale, along with the Governor, are unable to extract her lover's identity, but throw a mercy upon her by instead sentencing her to wear a scarlet letter "A" (for Adulteress) on her shirt indefinitely. Hester, half-ashamed, half-indignant, perhaps even proud, sufferers through a three hour public humiliation stand on the town square's scaffold, but for the rest of the story, will struggle to reclaim her identity and life.
This is my second reading of The Scarlet Letter. I love the work's exploration of the individual's place in society, the topics of personal freedom, passion, religion, hypocrisy, and forgiveness. Hawthorne's directness and moral perspective hits me hard. He doesn't beat around the bush, and ratchets up the stakes for the main characters with the construction of a dramatic plot.
The town's Minister, Arthur Dimmesdale, along with the Governor, are unable to extract her lover's identity, but throw a mercy upon her by instead sentencing her to wear a scarlet letter "A" (for Adulteress) on her shirt indefinitely. Hester, half-ashamed, half-indignant, perhaps even proud, sufferers through a three hour public humiliation stand on the town square's scaffold, but for the rest of the story, will struggle to reclaim her identity and life.
This is my second reading of The Scarlet Letter. I love the work's exploration of the individual's place in society, the topics of personal freedom, passion, religion, hypocrisy, and forgiveness. Hawthorne's directness and moral perspective hits me hard. He doesn't beat around the bush, and ratchets up the stakes for the main characters with the construction of a dramatic plot.
A MORAL LANDSCAPE
At first read, The Scarlet Letter had an autumnal feeling to it. It's set in Puritan New England, features buttoned-up characters in "sad-colored garments," iron prison doors, dark, dusty, churches, and rough scaffolds. And yet on this second read, I saw everywhere how Hawthorne stresses symbols of spring and summer. The blooming rose bush beside the prison, the green, sunlit forest surrounding the town that Hester and Pearl live in, a summer-night comet whose light embraces Hester, Pearl, and Dimmesdale.
This characterization of a cold, ugly, lifeless community with a warm, open, and alive natural world is used by Hawthorne to great effect to orient us to his moral perspective. This is in my opinion Hawthorne's most effective means of communicating his views — not an omniscient, self-referential narrator telling his views to the reader, nor exposition loaded with praise or criticism. Hawthorne's exploration of morality (sin, guilt, sex, judgment, forgiveness) is most interesting I think by how he imbues it into the fabric of the physical environments. He shows, in the background and foreground of the world itself. {JG}
This characterization of a cold, ugly, lifeless community with a warm, open, and alive natural world is used by Hawthorne to great effect to orient us to his moral perspective. This is in my opinion Hawthorne's most effective means of communicating his views — not an omniscient, self-referential narrator telling his views to the reader, nor exposition loaded with praise or criticism. Hawthorne's exploration of morality (sin, guilt, sex, judgment, forgiveness) is most interesting I think by how he imbues it into the fabric of the physical environments. He shows, in the background and foreground of the world itself. {JG}
FAVORITE QUOTES
{ 10 } "[Hester] assured them, too of her own firm belief, that, at some brighter period, when the world should have grown ripe for it, in Heaven's own time, a new truth would be revealed, in order to establish the whole relation between man and woman on a surer ground of mutual happiness." (245)
{ 9 } "Before this ugly edifice, [the door], and between it and the wheel-track of the street, was a grass-plot, much overgrown with burdock, pig-meal, apple-peru, and such unsightly vegetation, which evidently something congenial in the soil that had so early borne the black flower of civilized society, a prison. But, on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered in this month of June, with its delicate gains, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him." (46)
{ 8 } "This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die. Is there no law for it? Truly there is, both in Scripture and the statute-book. Then let the magistrates, who have made it of no effect, thank themselves of their own wives and daughters go astray!" (49, spoken by the ugliest Puritan female of the group)
{ 7 } "The discipline of the family, in these days, was of a far more rigid kind than now. The frown, the harsh rebuke, the frequent application of the rod, enjoined by Scriptural authority, were used, not merely in the way of punishment for actual offenses, but as a wholesome regiment for the growth, and promotion of all childish virtues."
{ 6 } "Dames of elevated rank, likewise, whose doors [Hester] entered in the way of her occupation, were accustomed to distill drops of bitterness into her heart; sometimes through the alchemy of quiet malice, by which women can concoct subtle poison from ordinary trifles; and sometimes, also, by a courser expression, that dell upon the sufferer's defenseless breast like a rough blow upon an ulcerated wound." (79)
{ 5 } "In no state of society would [Minister Arthur Dimmesdale] have been what is called a man of liberal views; it would always be essential to his peace to feel the pressure of a faith about him, supporting, while it confined him within its iron framework. Not the less, however, though with a tremulous enjoyment, did he feel the occasional relief of looking at the universe through the medium of another kind of intellect than those with which he habitually held converse. It was as if a window had been thrown open, admitting a freer atmosphere into the close stifled study, where his life was wasting itself away, amid lamp-light, or obstructed day beams, and the misty fragrance, be it sensual or moral, that exhales from books."
{ 4 } "The world's law was no law for her mind. It was an age on which the human intellect, newly emancipated, had taken a more active and a wider range than for many centuries before. Men of the sword had overthrown nobles and kings. Men bolder than these had overthrown and rearranged — not actually, but within the Sphere of Theory, which was their most real abode — the whole system of ancient prejudice." (152)
{ 3 } "Thou shalt forgive me!" cried Hester, flinging herself on the fallen leaves beside him. "Let God punish! Thou shalt forgive!" (181)
{ 2 } "A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steppl-crowned hat, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes." (45, the novel's opening)
{ 1 } "Pearl kissed his lips. A spell was broken." (239)
{ 9 } "Before this ugly edifice, [the door], and between it and the wheel-track of the street, was a grass-plot, much overgrown with burdock, pig-meal, apple-peru, and such unsightly vegetation, which evidently something congenial in the soil that had so early borne the black flower of civilized society, a prison. But, on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered in this month of June, with its delicate gains, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him." (46)
{ 8 } "This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die. Is there no law for it? Truly there is, both in Scripture and the statute-book. Then let the magistrates, who have made it of no effect, thank themselves of their own wives and daughters go astray!" (49, spoken by the ugliest Puritan female of the group)
{ 7 } "The discipline of the family, in these days, was of a far more rigid kind than now. The frown, the harsh rebuke, the frequent application of the rod, enjoined by Scriptural authority, were used, not merely in the way of punishment for actual offenses, but as a wholesome regiment for the growth, and promotion of all childish virtues."
{ 6 } "Dames of elevated rank, likewise, whose doors [Hester] entered in the way of her occupation, were accustomed to distill drops of bitterness into her heart; sometimes through the alchemy of quiet malice, by which women can concoct subtle poison from ordinary trifles; and sometimes, also, by a courser expression, that dell upon the sufferer's defenseless breast like a rough blow upon an ulcerated wound." (79)
{ 5 } "In no state of society would [Minister Arthur Dimmesdale] have been what is called a man of liberal views; it would always be essential to his peace to feel the pressure of a faith about him, supporting, while it confined him within its iron framework. Not the less, however, though with a tremulous enjoyment, did he feel the occasional relief of looking at the universe through the medium of another kind of intellect than those with which he habitually held converse. It was as if a window had been thrown open, admitting a freer atmosphere into the close stifled study, where his life was wasting itself away, amid lamp-light, or obstructed day beams, and the misty fragrance, be it sensual or moral, that exhales from books."
{ 4 } "The world's law was no law for her mind. It was an age on which the human intellect, newly emancipated, had taken a more active and a wider range than for many centuries before. Men of the sword had overthrown nobles and kings. Men bolder than these had overthrown and rearranged — not actually, but within the Sphere of Theory, which was their most real abode — the whole system of ancient prejudice." (152)
{ 3 } "Thou shalt forgive me!" cried Hester, flinging herself on the fallen leaves beside him. "Let God punish! Thou shalt forgive!" (181)
{ 2 } "A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steppl-crowned hat, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes." (45, the novel's opening)
{ 1 } "Pearl kissed his lips. A spell was broken." (239)
ABOUT NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
Nathaniel Hathorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1804. His ancestors included one of the original judges presiding over the Salem witch trials generations earlier; the only one unwilling to repent for his involvement. Nathaniel added a "w" and became Hawthorne to hide that relation.
Hawthorne published his first novel, Fanshawe, anonymously at the age of twenty-four. It received mostly positive reviews at the time, although Hawthorne was critical of it himself. This self-criticism continued throughout Hawthorne's life. For example, he burned all of his drafts and notes, uncomfortable with people seeing any unfinished work. He died at age 59 with four romantic novels published and dozens of unfinished works.
Having just come off Edith Hamilton's Mythology, I'm especially interested in reading The Wonder Book for Boys and Girls, Hawthorne's rendition of six ancient Greek myths. I've also been recommended The Marble Faun by a friend, which is set just before the American Civil War in a fantastical Italy.
Hawthorne published his first novel, Fanshawe, anonymously at the age of twenty-four. It received mostly positive reviews at the time, although Hawthorne was critical of it himself. This self-criticism continued throughout Hawthorne's life. For example, he burned all of his drafts and notes, uncomfortable with people seeing any unfinished work. He died at age 59 with four romantic novels published and dozens of unfinished works.
Having just come off Edith Hamilton's Mythology, I'm especially interested in reading The Wonder Book for Boys and Girls, Hawthorne's rendition of six ancient Greek myths. I've also been recommended The Marble Faun by a friend, which is set just before the American Civil War in a fantastical Italy.
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