In an earlier blog post, I wrote that with my 21st century mindset, I couldn’t understand why Hester chose to stay in the town to be disgraced and mocked. But now I do.
Her decision to stay and wear the letter A openly on the chest is not a passive acceptance of the punishment, not even an admission of guilt—for she feels no shame for her transgression. It is a quiet defiance—she chooses to stay and bear it, instead of being driven away in humiliation. When the town decide she can remove the letter, she responds:
“"It lies not in the pleasure of the magistrates to take off the badge," calmly replied Hester. "Were I worthy to be quit of it, it would fall away of its own nature, or be transformed into something that should speak a different purport."” (Ch.14)
She doesn’t need their mercy or their forgiveness, because she doesn’t accept their charges in the 1st place. As Hester lives in solitude, away from society, she changes and grows, and no longer accepts the social rules—their moral codes mean nothing to her. In a way, she is freed.
Arthur Dimmesdale, in contrast, can never be freed, except by death. He is too weak-willed and cowardly, too afraid of public exposure, with too much to lose. He may not be punished by the town, but he has his own kind of punishment, because of guilt and a keen awareness of his own hypocrisy and deceit. It is amusing that he is aware of his own hypocrisy, but doesn’t realise that his worst deed is not the fornication, but the fact that he leaves Hester (and their child) to be punished alone.
Hester and Arthur “commit the same sin”, but they view it very differently, and afterwards live with it differently.
The Scarlet Letter is a great book. I’ve finished reading it. Despite ideas floating around in popular culture, The Scarlet Letter is not an adultery novel. It’s not about sin either—less about sin than about the concept and idea of sin. Himadri would agree with the narrator that it’s a tale of human frailty and sorrow. I don’t disagree, but I think it is, above all, a book about symbolism and the (stupid) meanings that people attach to it.
The Scarlet Letter is rich in symbolism. The letter A, of course, is the most important—it is the symbol of sin and shame, the symbol of Hester’s public disgrace and banishment, the symbol of Puritans’ severity and hypocrisy and the lack of sexual freedom in the society, and so on. Linked to the letter A on Hester’s chest is her child Pearl, another token of shame.
I don’t intend to write much about symbols and imagery and Biblical allusions in The Scarlet Letter, but it’s interesting to point out how in the Salem society, almost everything is seen as a symbol, everyone is something else, beyond what they are.
Take Pearl:
“Once this freakish, elvish cast came into the child's eyes while Hester was looking at her own image in them, as mothers are fond of doing; and suddenly—for women in solitude, and with troubled hearts, are pestered with unaccountable delusions—she fancied that she beheld, not her own miniature portrait, but another face in the small black mirror of Pearl's eye. It was a face, fiend-like, full of smiling malice, yet bearing the semblance of features that she had known full well, though seldom with a smile, and never with malice in them. It was as if an evil spirit possessed the child, and had just then peeped forth in mockery. Many a time afterwards had Hester been tortured, though less vividly, by the same illusion.” (Ch.6)
Worse:
“…She remembered—betwixt a smile and a shudder—the talk of the neighbouring townspeople, who, seeking vainly elsewhere for the child's paternity, and observing some of her odd attributes, had given out that poor little Pearl was a demon offspring: such as, ever since old Catholic times, had occasionally been seen on earth, through the agency of their mother's sin, and to promote some foul and wicked purpose.” (ibid.)
And when they intend to take Pearl away from Hester:
“…On the supposition that Pearl, as already hinted, was of demon origin, these good people not unreasonably argued that a Christian interest in the mother's soul required them to remove such a stumbling-block from her path…” (Ch.7)
Such a simplistic, crazy society. People are either good or evil.
“A large number—and many of these were persons of such sober sense and practical observation that their opinions would have been valuable in other matters—affirmed that Roger Chillingworth's aspect had undergone a remarkable change while he had dwelt in town, and especially since his abode with Mr. Dimmesdale. At first, his expression had been calm, meditative, scholar-like. Now there was something ugly and evil in his face, which they had not previously noticed, and which grew still the more obvious to sight the oftener they looked upon him. According to the vulgar idea, the fire in his laboratory had been brought from the lower regions, and was fed with infernal fuel; and so, as might be expected, his visage was getting sooty with the smoke.
To sum up the matter, it grew to be a widely diffused opinion that the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale, like many other personages of special sanctity, in all ages of the Christian world, was haunted either by Satan himself or Satan's emissary, in the guise of old Roger Chillingworth. This diabolical agent had the Divine permission, for a season, to burrow into the clergyman's intimacy, and plot against his soul.” (Ch.9)
What about Arthur Dimmesdale?
“They deemed the young clergyman a miracle of holiness. They fancied him the mouth-piece of Heaven's messages of wisdom, and rebuke, and love. In their eyes, the very ground on which he trod was sanctified. The virgins of his church grew pale around him, victims of a passion so imbued with religious sentiment, that they imagined it to be all religion, and brought it openly, in their white bosoms, as their most acceptable sacrifice before the altar. The aged members of his flock, beholding Mr. Dimmesdale's frame so feeble, while they were themselves so rugged in their infirmity, believed that he would go heavenward before them, and enjoined it upon their children that their old bones should be buried close to their young pastor's holy grave.” (Ch.11)
It is so ironic that Arthur Dimmesdale is the father of Hester’s child. The clergyman everyone trusts and worships is such a weak, hypocritical, and selfish man.
Himadri writes:
“Dimmesdale, on the other hand, is torn with remorse and with guilt. But his guilt is not because he has let Hester alone bear that punishment and the public humiliation that he himself fears so much: it is for the act of adultery itself. And the Scarlet Letter that Hester wears so openly, Dimmesdale wears secretly in his heart. He has, indeed, every reason to feel guilty: but like all weak-willed men, the pain he feels is solely for his own self: at no point does he stop to consider what Hester Prynne may be going through. Nonetheless, the pain he feels is real enough, and what he thinks is sorrow for his sin of illicit sex may well be a displaced sorrow for a greater guilt – the lack of human empathy.” (Argumentativeoldgit)
I want to know more about the affair—I want to know about how Hester and Arthur Dimmesdale come to be together and how they feel about each other, simply because their relations are cut off after Hester’s public disgrace and punishment. The affair sadly is not the subject of the book, only the aftermath is.
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The point of The Scarlet Letter is not that these are symbols to be deciphered, but that they are seen as symbols and there is a multiplicity of meaning.
This is clearest in chapter 12, when Arthur Dimmesdale, immersed in guilt, looks at the sky:
“We impute it, therefore, solely to the disease in his own eye and heart that the minister, looking upward to the zenith, beheld there the appearance of an immense letter—the letter A—marked out in lines of dull red light. Not but the meteor may have shown itself at that point, burning duskily through a veil of cloud, but with no such shape as his guilty imagination gave it, or, at least, with so little definiteness, that another's guilt might have seen another symbol in it.”
In the same chapter, we are told that the letter A in the sky has a different meaning to other people in the town:
“…remarked the old sexton, grimly smiling. "But did your reverence hear of the portent that was seen last night? a great red letter in the sky—the letter A, which we interpret to stand for Angel. For, as our good Governor Winthrop was made an angel this past night, it was doubtless held fit that there should be some notice thereof!"”
Is it not human nature to interpret things to mean what we wish them to mean?
Even the letter on Hester’s bosom, the most important symbol in the book, changes its meaning over time. The token of shame becomes the symbol of acceptance, endurance, and quiet defiance, and as Hester Prynne refuses to leave the society that has banished her, she does good and becomes accepted if partly, and the letter A takes on other meaning.
“There glimmered the embroidered letter, with comfort in its unearthly ray. Elsewhere the token of sin, it was the taper of the sick chamber. […] The letter was the symbol of her calling. Such helpfulness was found in her—so much power to do, and power to sympathise—that many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. They said that it meant Able, so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman's strength.” (Ch.13)
And:
“Individuals in private life, meanwhile, had quite forgiven Hester Prynne for her frailty; nay, more, they had begun to look upon the scarlet letter as the token, not of that one sin for which she had borne so long and dreary a penance, but of her many good deeds since. "Do you see that woman with the embroidered badge?" they would say to strangers. "It is our Hester—the town's own Hester—who is so kind to the poor, so helpful to the sick, so comfortable to the afflicted!" Then, it is true, the propensity of human nature to tell the very worst of itself, when embodied in the person of another, would constrain them to whisper the black scandal of bygone years. It was none the less a fact, however, that in the eyes of the very men who spoke thus, the scarlet letter had the effect of the cross on a nun's bosom.” (ibid.)
This is such a rich book.
With a quick search on google, you can easily find that The Scarlet Letter is one of the most hated novels of all time. But why?
The prose is wonderful.
“Discerning the impracticable state of the poor culprit's mind, the elder clergyman, who had carefully prepared himself for the occasion, addressed to the multitude a discourse on sin, in all its branches, but with continual reference to the ignominious letter. So forcibly did he dwell upon this symbol, for the hour or more during which his periods were rolling over the people's heads, that it assumed new terrors in their imagination, and seemed to derive its scarlet hue from the flames of the infernal pit. Hester Prynne, meanwhile, kept her place upon the pedestal of shame, with glazed eyes, and an air of weary indifference.” (Ch.3)
Look at the imagery:
“As night approached, it proving impossible to quell her insubordination by rebuke or threats of punishment, Master Brackett, the jailer, thought fit to introduce a physician. […] To say the truth, there was much need of professional assistance, not merely for Hester herself, but still more urgently for the child—who, drawing its sustenance from the maternal bosom, seemed to have drank in with it all the turmoil, the anguish and despair, which pervaded the mother's system. It now writhed in convulsions of pain, and was a forcible type, in its little frame, of the moral agony which Hester Prynne had borne throughout the day.” (Ch.4)
That is such a good passage.
So rich and vivid. This kind of language you can’t find in, say, Henry James.
“In all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it. Every gesture, every word, and even the silence of those with whom she came in contact, implied, and often expressed, that she was banished, and as much alone as if she inhabited another sphere, or communicated with the common nature by other organs and senses than the rest of human kind. She stood apart from mortal interests, yet close beside them, like a ghost that revisits the familiar fireside, and can no longer make itself seen or felt; no more smile with the household joy, nor mourn with the kindred sorrow; or, should it succeed in manifesting its forbidden sympathy, awakening only terror and horrible repugnance. […] The poor, as we have already said, whom she sought out to be the objects of her bounty, often reviled the hand that was stretched forth to succour them. Dames of elevated rank, likewise, whose doors she entered in the way of her occupation, were accustomed to distil drops of bitterness into her heart; sometimes through that alchemy of quiet malice, by which women can concoct a subtle poison from ordinary trifles; and sometimes, also, by a coarser expression, that fell upon the sufferer's defenceless breast like a rough blow upon an ulcerated wound.” (Ch.5)
I like “drops of bitterness” and “alchemy of quiet malice”.
So why do people hate it?
I’ve looked: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/37891-the-scarlet-letter--killing-literacy-since-1850
https://www.reddit.com/r/literature/comments/22eayv/the_scarlet_letter_do_people_hate_it/
Most of the responses don’t answer anything. Usually people say they hate a book and can’t provide reasons—if anything, they say it’s boring, but what does that mean? There’s 1 person who says the 3 classic works they hate the most are The Scarlet Letter, Anna Karenina, and Moby Dick. That makes The Scarlet Letter in good company—the other 2 are in my top 3 favourites.
I myself think Hawthorne’s novel would most likely not be my favourite, because of the subject matter. I dislike religion, I dislike the concept of sin and guilt, I dislike a society in which religion and law are mixed up and people have no sexual freedom. Hawthorne, I know, is not on the side of the Puritans, and he writes about the hypocrisy of the clergy, but personally I still can’t warm to the subject matter.
Hester Prynne is punished and publicly shamed for committing adultery, but she herself accepts the punishment.
“It may seem marvellous that, with the world before her—kept by no restrictive clause of her condemnation within the limits of the Puritan settlement, so remote and so obscure—free to return to her birth-place, or to any other European land, and there hide her character and identity under a new exterior, as completely as if emerging into another state of being—and having also the passes of the dark, inscrutable forest open to her, where the wildness of her nature might assimilate itself with a people whose customs and life were alien from the law that had condemned her—it may seem marvellous that this woman should still call that place her home, where, and where only, she must needs be the type of shame. But there is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghost-like, the spot where some great and marked event has given the colour to their lifetime; and, still the more irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it. […] The chain that bound her here was of iron links, and galling to her inmost soul, but could never be broken.” (ibid.)
She chains herself to the place, despite the banishment, despite the public shame, despite people’s malice. This is something I, with my 21st century mindset, can’t comprehend.
Having finished everything for the course (though I still have lots to do regarding the film), I’m tackling a heavy book: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter.
The introductory, “The Custom-House”, is so long and slow. Its function is to explain the narrator, settings, and context of the story to come. I asked Himadri when the book would become interesting, he said once I got past the introductory, it would flow and the chapters would be faster.
This is my favourite passage (about the inspector):
“One point in which he had vastly the advantage over his four-footed brethren was his ability to recollect the good dinners which it had made no small portion of the happiness of his life to eat. His gourmandism was a highly agreeable trait; and to hear him talk of roast meat was as appetizing as a pickle or an oyster. As he possessed no higher attribute, and neither sacrificed nor vitiated any spiritual endowment by devoting all his energies and ingenuities to subserve the delight and profit of his maw, it always pleased and satisfied me to hear him expatiate on fish, poultry, and butcher's meat, and the most eligible methods of preparing them for the table. His reminiscences of good cheer, however ancient the date of the actual banquet, seemed to bring the savour of pig or turkey under one's very nostrils. There were flavours on his palate that had lingered there not less than sixty or seventy years, and were still apparently as fresh as that of the mutton chop which he had just devoured for his breakfast. I have heard him smack his lips over dinners, every guest at which, except himself, had long been food for worms. It was marvellous to observe how the ghosts of bygone meals were continually rising up before him—not in anger or retribution, but as if grateful for his former appreciation, and seeking to reduplicate an endless series of enjoyment, at once shadowy and sensual: a tenderloin of beef, a hind-quarter of veal, a spare-rib of pork, a particular chicken, or a remarkably praiseworthy turkey, which had perhaps adorned his board in the days of the elder Adams, would be remembered; while all the subsequent experience of our race, and all the events that brightened or darkened his individual career, had gone over him with as little permanent effect as the passing breeze. The chief tragic event of the old man's life, so far as I could judge, was his mishap with a certain goose, which lived and died some twenty or forty years ago: a goose of most promising figure, but which, at table, proved so inveterately tough, that the carving-knife would make no impression on its carcase, and it could only be divided with an axe and handsaw.”
That is so interesting, so vivid. No wonder Melville loves him.
Hawthorne’s book starts to have my interest when the scarlet letter appears—after 24 pages, but what an entrance. Look at this:
“My eyes fastened themselves upon the old scarlet letter, and would not be turned aside. Certainly there was some deep meaning in it most worthy of interpretation, and which, as it were, streamed forth from the mystic symbol, subtly communicating itself to my sensibilities, but evading the analysis of my mind.
When thus perplexed—and cogitating, among other hypotheses, whether the letter might not have been one of those decorations which the white men used to contrive in order to take the eyes of Indians—I happened to place it on my breast. It seemed to me—the reader may smile, but must not doubt my word—it seemed to me, then, that I experienced a sensation not altogether physical, yet almost so, as of burning heat, and as if the letter were not of red cloth, but red-hot iron. I shuddered, and involuntarily let it fall upon the floor.”
A mystic symbol. Like the white whale?
There’s something I find curious. The Scarlet Letter is the tale of Hester Prynne—told by Jonathan Pue, then found years later and embellished by the new surveyor, the narrator of the book. And yet:
“This I now opened, and had the satisfaction to find recorded by the old Surveyor's pen, a reasonably complete explanation of the whole affair. There were several foolscap sheets, containing many particulars respecting the life and conversation of one Hester Prynne, who appeared to have been rather a noteworthy personage in the view of our ancestors. She had flourished during the period between the early days of Massachusetts and the close of the seventeenth century. Aged persons, alive in the time of Mr. Surveyor Pue, and from whose oral testimony he had made up his narrative, remembered her, in their youth, as a very old, but not decrepit woman, of a stately and solemn aspect.”
(my emphasis)
This means that the people who are quoted in Jonathan Pue’s documents did not even know Hester Prynne at the time of the main events. I shall see the significance of this detail later on.
Meanwhile:
“There seemed to be here the groundwork of a tale. It impressed me as if the ancient Surveyor, in his garb of a hundred years gone by, and wearing his immortal wig—which was buried with him, but did not perish in the grave—had met me in the deserted chamber of the Custom-House. In his port was the dignity of one who had borne His Majesty's commission, and who was therefore illuminated by a ray of the splendour that shone so dazzlingly about the throne. How unlike alas the hangdog look of a republican official, who, as the servant of the people, feels himself less than the least, and below the lowest of his masters. With his own ghostly hand, the obscurely seen, but majestic, figure had imparted to me the scarlet symbol and the little roll of explanatory manuscript. With his own ghostly voice he had exhorted me, on the sacred consideration of my filial duty and reverence towards him—who might reasonably regard himself as my official ancestor—to bring his mouldy and moth-eaten lucubrations before the public.”
And:
“If the imaginative faculty refused to act at such an hour, it might well be deemed a hopeless case. Moonlight, in a familiar room, falling so white upon the carpet, and showing all its figures so distinctly—making every object so minutely visible, yet so unlike a morning or noontide visibility—is a medium the most suitable for a romance-writer to get acquainted with his illusive guests. There is the little domestic scenery of the well-known apartment; the chairs, with each its separate individuality; the centre-table, sustaining a work-basket, a volume or two, and an extinguished lamp; the sofa; the book-case; the picture on the wall—all these details, so completely seen, are so spiritualised by the unusual light, that they seem to lose their actual substance, and become things of intellect. Nothing is too small or too trifling to undergo this change, and acquire dignity thereby. A child's shoe; the doll, seated in her little wicker carriage; the hobby-horse—whatever, in a word, has been used or played with during the day is now invested with a quality of strangeness and remoteness, though still almost as vividly present as by daylight. Thus, therefore, the floor of our familiar room has become a neutral territory, somewhere between the real world and fairy-land, where the Actual and the Imaginary may meet, and each imbue itself with the nature of the other. Ghosts might enter here without affrighting us.”
These passages make me think of Melville.
