The Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthorne - Book Report/Review Example

– I only had access to the online edition of the Scarlet Letter, so I don’t have page numbers. I inserted chapter numbers and approximately where to find the quote in blue text so you can look up the page numbers in the edition you have. Be sure to also change the Hawthorne reference in Works Cited to reflect your copy. Student name Instructor name Course name Date The Scarlet Letter: A Historic Review Although Nathanial Hawthorne wrote his stories in the middle of the nineteenth century, he wrote them using a style and subject matter that accurately reflected the ideals and way of life of early colonists in Puritan-influenced New England. There are numerous concepts contained within the story that are alien to a modern reader and remained somewhat unfamiliar to Hawthorne himself, but were elemental to the early Puritans. One example of this is the concept that Hester could not just run off with Reverend Dimmesdale as she might have had she lived in this century even though her husband had not been seen since she left England and the marriage was a forced marriage anyway. The Puritans held a strict social order that took into account each other’s perceived righteousness. Therefore, those who were considered closer to God had a higher social rank in society from those who were considered to be closer to sin. Thanks to the story of Adam and Eve, this meant men were closer to God than women and religious men were closer to God than those who worked the fields. The concept of sin ruled every aspect of life in this society, an aspect of Puritan life that is reflected well throughout all of Hawthorne’s stories. To understand this context, then, it is necessary to look at the religious, social and environmental factors that restricted Hester in the 1600s. Puritanism dictated just about everything involved in colonial life in 1600s New England, even including how people talked with each other, how they dressed and what kind of relationships they had. “In addition to believing in the absolute sovereignty of God, the total depravity of man, and the complete dependence of human beings on divine grace for salvation, they stressed the importance of personal religious experience” (Bowden, 2004). Because of this connection to personal religious experience, Hester knew she would not be able to run away from her marriage vows to marry another even if she did stretch them in her relationship to Reverend Dimmesdale. As a Puritan herself, she had to remain in the village as a married woman as was agreed upon in her marriage to Dr. Prynne, aka Roger Chillingsworth, until she had confirmation that he was deceased. Anything less would have violated her own road to salvation even though she had not married him voluntarily. Since religion was a personal thing, it was also something she could never run away from. “They [the Puritans] also spoke of salvation in terms of ‘covenant.’ In the notes to the Geneva Bible … emphasis was on a personal covenant of grace, whereby God both promised life to those who exercised faith in Christ and graciously provided that faith, on the basis of Christs sacrificial death, to the elect” (Noll, 2004). Any decision on her part to turn her back on her vows would have been considered equal to turning her back upon God himself, something she couldn’t quite bring herself to do, at least not alone. Once Hester’s secret was out in the obvious swelling of her body and subsequent birth of her child, it was obvious to the entire village that Hester was not provided with the same degree of faith as the rest of the villagers and was therefore a greater sinner. To win her place in heaven, then, it was necessary for her to suffer the lowest status on earth to do penance for her past deeds, but becomes also a brand of courage and strength, that this woman can take on anything and survive. When she is placed on public display in her shame and then offered a chance to rid herself of the Scarlet Letter that she has been sentenced to wear for the rest of her life through the simple expedient of naming Pearl’s father, Hester tells Dimmesdale that he will never be able to remove the letter: “It is too deeply branded. Ye cannot take it off. And would that I might endure his agony as well as mine!” (Ch. 3, near the end). Although Hester hates her scarlet letter, she wears it both because she is convinced she has committed the worst sin, but also because the society in which she lives will never allow her to forget that she is the worst sinner of them all. This is the reason Hester returns to her old home in the end, taking up her stigma and the scarlet letter until her death, but proving both false in that she is capable of supporting herself and her daughter through her sewing and of rendering public assistance to those most sorely in need of it, all while keeping her various secrets and maintaining a rigid control over the wild spirit that once blazed in her heart for her own reasons rather than any stipulations of the community at large. The strict social order of the Puritans which focused so exclusively upon each other’s perceived righteousness meant that there was a high degree of social control within the villages. “These Puritans insisted that they, as God’s elect, had the duty to direct national affairs according to God’s will as revealed in the Bible. This union of church and state to form a holy commonwealth gave Puritanism direct and exclusive control over most colonial activity until commercial and political changes forced them to relinquish it at the end of the 17th century” (Noll, 2004). Thus, Reverend Dimmesdale’s role as the village preacher was more involved than what we think of as a minister today. “Though not theocracies, most colonies in New England were dominated by Puritan mores and doctrine” (Clark, 1999). Understanding this makes it easier to see how Reverend Dimmesdale could not be seen to be associating himself with Hester after Pearl was born because she was a fallen woman and he was the highest moral authority in the village. They came from opposite ends of the social spectrum, one representing extreme sin and the other representing ultimate righteousness. It is interesting to compare Hester’s strengths as a sinner to Dimmesdale’s weaknesses as a pillar of moral character and righteousness. “Notwithstanding his high native gifts and scholar-like attainments, there was an air about this young minister – an apprehensive, a startled, a half-frightened look – as of a being who felt himself quite astray, and at a loss in the pathway of human existence, and could only be at ease in some seclusion of his own” (Ch. 3, near the end). Pearl’s crime was in simply being born. She was born without a father, in obvious and undeniable violation of her mother’s wedding vows as well as the word of God. Socially speaking, this meant that she was touched by the devil himself and was therefore unclean and unworthy to associate with the other children in the village or to be treated with any kind of humanity by the other villagers. With all this harsh treatment of not only herself, but also of her child, it is difficult for a person in modern times to understand why Hester didn’t just pack up and leave for another town. This is in large part because of the technological advances of the time and the interdependence the colonies had with one another. Colonies were not necessary separated from each other to the point that Hester could not have made the journey to the next town. If she had, there was no guarantee that there would be a home waiting for her to move into. “Building homes and establishing farms required intensive and often backbreaking toil” (Jones, 1853). However, even had she overcome that obstacle, trade that existed between the Puritan colonies would have ensured her scarlet letter would have followed her no matter where she went as long as she stayed within her religious framework. In addition, colonists found it necessary to rely upon each other for sustenance through the long, cold winters of the New England environment. “New Englanders evolved an intricate web of interdependence to meet the demand for labor, working for neighbors who sold their labor in return” (Jones, 1853). Although Hester’s crime was considered one of the worst crimes that could be committed, it would not have served the colony to have her locked away in prison, nor would it have been possible for her to have rebuilt her life elsewhere. These more general concepts of early colonial life are illustrated for the reader through the character of Roger Prynne, or Chillingworth as he calls himself in his new society. The idea that she will always be hunted down and found out is suggested in the description of Roger’s eyes as having “a strange, penetrating power, when it was their owner’s purpose to read the human soul” (Ch. 2, at the end) which seems to suggest Hester will always have eyes upon her no matter where she goes. Roger’s words to her in the prison regarding the means he will use to discover her lover, ““Believe me, Hester, there are few things whether in the outward world, or, to a certain depth, in the invisible sphere of thought – few things hidden from the man who devotes himself earnestly and unreservedly to the solution of a mystery … There is a sympathy that will make me conscious of him … Sooner or later, he must needs be mine” (Ch. 4, toward the end) also suggest that there is nowhere for Hester to go where she could possibly hide her secrets. Finally, Roger, in his stronger and more talented masculinity, still fell victim to the Indian tribes that filled the forests around Salem during Hester’s time. It was his capture by the Indians that prevented him from being able to arrive in Salem as scheduled. It is suggested, in the valuation of women by the community (as a lower second class to all men), that a woman in such a position would have died long ago still captive or otherwise made unacceptable to the Puritan society. This highlights the very need for colonists, especially female colonists, to stick close to the settlement as a measure to protect themselves and the impossibility of Hester being able to find herself a new home in another village. Although most of these basic Puritan ideas were still a part of Hawthorne’s family belief system at the time that he wrote The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne himself was questioning the validity and purity of these concepts. Realizing the degree to which the ideas were held only a few generations back as they compared with the ideals of his parents, Hawthorne was able to trace a progression in society that led toward a more forgiving, but perhaps less perfect society. While sin indeed is the ruin of all mankind, his emphasis remains on the word ‘all’ throughout this novel. In Reverend Dimmesdale, Hawthorne illustrates how hidden sin is present in every man, even the most holy, and how its realization can both forge a better, meaning more moral, man as well as expose the sins of others. Upon his public confession, the Reverend Dimmsdale tells Hester, “He [God] hath proved his mercy, most of all, in my afflictions. By giving me this burning torture to bear upon my breast! By sending yonder dark and terrible old man, to keep the torture always at red-heat! By bringing me hither, to die this death of triumphant ignominy before the people!” (Ch. 23, at the end). In this statement, Dimmesdale acknowledges that he has been made a better man through his sufferings, always kept humble and as morally upright as he could be because of the constant reminder of his own failings as a righteous man. At the same time, through this confession, it is made unforgettably clear that all of the townspeople carry some kind of hidden sin that, by remaining hidden, only serves to hurt them more because they are not able to grow from it. Had Dimmsdale been able to conceal his sin from everyone, without suffering the inner pangs of guilt that burned him or the psychological manipulations of the knowledgeable Chillingworth, he might have found it easier to forget his own sins and become as quick to condemn others as the townspeople were to condemn Hester. In this realization, it is seen that Hester and the Reverend Dimmsdale have been transformed into more soulful creatures by their sufferings. Dimmsdale recognizes this is the example he is providing for his parishioners, that to be self-righteous enough to condemn one woman because of her sins simply because she was caught having them is itself a sin. From this perspective, then, a new motivation for Hester’s return to the village appears – that of retribution. The villagers who had condemned her all those years ago are now old enough to have reflected upon their actions and the lesson Dimmsdale taught in his death upon the scaffold. Her presence among them again, wearing the red letter again, serves as a constant reminder of their own secret sins and, in keeping them secret, their greater sin of being unwilling to grow from them. Restricted by environmental concerns, the rigid social hierarchy and the even stricter tenets of Puritanism as it was practiced both by the villagers and believed by Hester herself, there was little option throughout the story for any other outcome, but the way in which Hawthorne presents his tale leaves ample room for analysis. The base portion of human nature brought Hester and Reverend Dimmesdale together, but the higher calling of their religion, society and environment kept them apart. Had just one of these elements been different, the outcome might have been much different. Hawthorne stays true to the literature of the period by presenting a story that both explores human nature as something destined for evil and that delivers a sermon of sorts regarding what it takes to live a ‘good’ life. Works Cited Bowden, Henry Warner. “American Puritanism.” 2004. Believe. December 17, 2007 Clark, Michael P. “Puritanism.” Encyclopedia of American Literature. Steven R. Serafin & Alfred Bendixen (Eds.). New York: Continuum Publishers, 1999, pp. 921-24. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New York: Alfred P. Knopf, 1992. Jones, Abner Dumont. “Cotton Mather.” The Illustrated American Biography. New York: J. Milton and Company, 1853, p. 59. Noll, Mark A. “Puritanism.” Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (2nd Ed.). Walter A. Elwell (Ed.). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House Company, 2001, p. 857. Read More