Hypocrisy in the Scarlett Letter and the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Essay Example

? Hypocrisy in The Scarlett Letter and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn number Hypocrisy in The Scarlett Letter and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn One of the foremost themes of the novels, The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin and The Scarlet Letter is the hypocrisy that is practised in the two civilizations that form the background of these novels and provide the historical templates on which the stories of the novel are based. The hypocrisy of the American society at different points in history are what we get to understand from these two novels. One of these novels, The Scarlet Letter is a scathing critique by Nathaniel Hawthorne of the double-standards and hypocrisies that were practised by the Puritanical regimes of the seventeenth century in America which was then still in early stages of its colonization when the natives still had not been driven out or killed in most parts of the land mass that we know today as the United States of America. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, on the other hand, is a critique of the lack of consistency in the moral and spiritual standards of the people of the southern states of America before the abolition of slavery. painting a realistic picture of the antebellum south, Mark Twain manages to bring to the notice of the reader the evils of the practice of slavery and the contradictions inherent in this system. The awareness regarding this social ill among the southerners is a testimony to the remarkable hypocrisy that they demonstrated when it came to issues regarding African Americans who were discriminated against and ill-treated because of the color of their skin. This was used against them and they were required to do a lot of unpaid work for the whites who considered themselves to be the repository of a great many beliefs that they considered noble and elegant. The coexistence of these beliefs with the practice of slavery is contradictory and hypocritical; this is precisely what the author seeks to say through his novel. The theme of hypocrisy in The Scarlet Letter is explored primarily through the critique of the Puritan establishment of New England. In the very beginning of the novel, Hawthorne introduces the hypocritical attitudes of the people who live in the nineteenth centuries and profess to be owners of great virtues but are interested in the same sensual activities as the others. In the chapter titled “The Custom-house”, Hawthorne uses irony as a tool to criticize the shallowness of the Puritan establishment of nineteenth century America (Subbu, 300). He thus seeks to establish a connection between the renegacy of the protagonist of The Scarlet Letter and himself in their acts of defiance towards the hypocritical attitudes of the Puritans, who failed to employ the same standards of virtue to everybody. The gluttony and the sloth of the members of the custom-house are remarkable since they are the very people who are against this in other people, at least in theory (Basu). However, it is this very discrepancy between theory and practice that is critiqued constantly in The Scarlet Letter. This discrepancy characterizes the relationship between Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale who is a priest in the Puritan establishment. Neither Hester nor Dimmesdale chooses to expose the secret behind the birth of Pearl and the puritan emblem of virtue, Dimmesdale, is fine with letting Hester bear the brunt of the punishment that is given by the society for the ‘crime’ of adultery. This exposes the hypocrisy that even people who were apparently of great moral rectitude could fall prey to in a puritan society where the appearance of virtue was more important than the actual presence of it in a person. This theme is something that Hawthorne explores even in the short stories that he has written. One such story would be Young Goodman Brown which reveals the presence of vice in the best of hearts in a puritan society that sought to repress even the basic human desires that a person was likely to have. The puritan project of developing a world that was free of the vices that were prevalent in England was in many ways flawed, according to Hawthorne; however, the world that they envisioned and were in the process of setting up was much better than the one that they had left behind in England. This is probably the reason that Hester chooses to stay on in America despite the persecution that she has to face from the people in New England. Hypocrisy is something that is pointed out the most in The Scarlet Letter by Hester and Dimmesdale’s daughter, Pearl. Pearl’s ability to provide a commentary on the life of the protagonists and critique the puritan society is uncanny and it is for this very reason that she is often referred to as an “elfish” (Hawthorne, 94), something that is not a part of the real society of New England. This is seen to the greatest extent when Hester and Pearl visit the house of Governor Bellingham. In this scene, one sees how the coat-of-arms that the governor has at his house is unable to contain the reflection of Pearl. Pearl pointed upward, also, at a similar picture in the head-piece; smiling at her mother, with the elfish intelligence that was so familiar an expression on her physiognomy. That look of naughty merriment was likewise reflected on the mirror, with so much breadth and intensity of effect, that it made Hester Prynne feel as if it could not be an image of her own child, but of an imp who was seeking to mould itself into Pearls’ shape. (ibid) This is symbolic of how Pearl, born out of an act of defiance against the puritan establishment is able to provide a commentary on the puritan society almost as if she was not a part of that society. This result in the narrative not being an entirely realist one and the fantastical elements such as these are the ones that prompts Hawthorne himself to refer to the novel as a romance that seeks to chronicle the life of an extraordinary woman. The coat-of-arms serves another function in the narrative. It reveals the hypocrisy of a society that, on the surface of it, seemed to suggest the absence of any hierarchy but carried with it many of the social markers of class that were prevalent in the society of England. The coat-of-arms was an indicator of the birth of a person and indicated that that person was a member of the aristocracy. America was considered to be a society that was free of such markers and was considered to be a place where people could come and make their fortune despite their social position at their birth. While a great part of this ‘American Dream’ was true, calling it an absolute utopia was a mistake according to Hawthorne. This is evident in the way the society of New England is portrayed in The Scarlet Letter. Another instance where Pearl is able to point out the hypocritical attitude of the people of New England is when Pearl refuses to go to her mother’s side when she dares to take off her scarlet letter, but only when there is nobody to watch her doing so. Pearl, in a striking indictment of the morality of the people of New England, refuses to acknowledge Dimmesdale as her father except on the occasion when he finally accepts her as his daughter in front of the holiday crowd (Hawthorne, 222). It is only when the minister relinquishes his hypocrisy that he lives with, albeit in a manner that was not pleasant, that Pearl agrees to kiss him and it is then that the acceptance of the relationship ceases to be a hypocritical one. Hawthorne does not allow the possibility of an escape as the couple had planned and this makes the authorial intent clear. Hester and Dimmesdale have to live out their lives in New England as the author strips off their masks that they are forced to wear because of the repressive society that Puritan ideals had created. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain points his finger at the hypocritical ideals of the southern states of America which had a distinctive lifestyle of its own before the American Civil war that led to the complete abolition of slavery in these states. On the face of it, the people of these states led lives that were full of bravery and excitement where Christian values of love and brotherhood were given importance. This is however, debunked in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn where Twain exposes the prejudices that people of the south held against people of other races and towards women and the tough lives that poor white people had in these states through the lives of Jim and Huck and an ironic treatment of the southern social codes (Arac, 37). It is shown at the very beginning of the novel that Huck, the protagonist, is adopted by Widow Douglas and her sister Miss Watson. It is however quite evident that their efforts for educating Huck do not stem from a genuine philanthropic impulse. Their feelings for Huck are constituted by a derogatory amalgamation of sympathy and aversion, and the education they impart to him is orthodox and evangelical in nature. Thus Miss Watson and Widow Douglas epitomize Southern hypocrisy veiled under apparent altruism. Huck’s rejection of this hypocrisy can be seen in the concluding words of the novel as he strives to get away from the kind old Aunt Sally- “But I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before.” (Twain, 390) The farcical assumptions of moral goodness that white people had constructed are critiqued through the figures of the duke and the dauphin who go around to different places, tricking people out of their money through heinous means. The episode wherein the duke and the dauphin disguise Jim as “The Sick Arab” (Twain, 287) is one which portrays the racism and hypocrisy of the old South to great effect. The swindlers use the generosity of Huck and Jim for their own vested interests but owing to their singular lack of gratitude paint Jim blue to display him as “The Sick Arab” to make money. The episode also shows the fascination of the antebellum society with all things exotic. The novel however shows that this fascination was not truly a desire to know other cultures but rather to belittle and ridicule them. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain also engages in an exercise of self-reflection as he questions the very idea of adventure and travel. While for Huck and Jim their journey down the Mississippi and the adventures that follow are a larger part of their struggle for survival, adventure for Tom is a recreational exercise. Thus the novel pits Tom’s quixotic ideas against the practical intelligence of Huck and Jim. Tom, though an imaginative young boy, is essentially rooted in his White, Anglo-Saxon, middle-class belonging. Tom, in his thirst for adventure, treats Jim as a mere appendage in his larger scheme for rescuing the latter from slavery. It can be well argued that Tom’s egalitarianism in rescuing Jim from captivity is a mere facade since his true interest lay in engaging in a thrilling adventure. The conclusion of the novel further highlights Southern hypocrisy as Tom reveals that Jim has been a free man for a considerable time but he chose to withhold this information in order to have an elaborately planned out escapade. Hypocrisy as has been discussed in this paper is mostly about the appearance of virtue without it actually being present. It is a trope that the author uses for the purpose of satirizing the practices and beliefs of a certain society that seeks to appear noble when it really is not. This can be seen the most in characters who are marginalized in these texts. The Scarlet Letter and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn talk about two societies that seek to appear peaceful and good, but these texts analyse these societies’ weak spots and thus expose their underlying hypocrisies. Works Cited Arac, Jonathan. “All Right Then I’ll Go to Hell: Historical Contexts for Chapter 31”. Huckleberry Finn as Idol and Target: The Functions of Criticism in Our Time. Wisconsin: The U of Wisconsin, 1997. Print. Subbu, Lalita. “The Scarlet Letter as Archive: Hawthorne, Puritanism and Transgression” The Scarlet Letter. Ed. Basu, Tapan. New Delhi: Pearson, 2006. Print. Basu, Tapan. “Introduction”. The Scarlet Letter. Ed. Basu, Tapan. New Delhi: Pearson, 2006. Print. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. Ed. Basu, Tapan. New Delhi: Pearson, 2006.Print. Twain, Mark. Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn. London: Wordsworth, 2001. Print. Read More