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i UNIT 6 BACKGROUND

Structure

6.0 Objective
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Hawthorne's Life and Works
6.3 American Fiction
6.4 Let Us Sum Up
6.5 Glossary
6.6 Questions
6.7 Suggested Reading

6.0 OBJECTIVES ,-------

Our primary objective in this Unit is to give you an idea of the background, both
historical and literary that shaped Hawthorne as an author of The SCOT^?^ Ldler. His
life and works would also be examined carefully.

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6.1 INTRODUCTION

I
Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1862; phstograpb by Mathew B. Bsody.
I The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-64) is an American writer who lived in New England
where we find the oldest settlements in America. The Scarlet Letter (1850) is a work
in which the writer has described vividly the life of the early settlers in a period known
as colonial America. As you will remember in the introduction in Block 1 most of the
settlers in New England were Puritans and Dissenters who had been persecuted by the
Anglican Church in England. These settlers had, however, come to New England with
a belief that they were God's chosen people and it was their sacred mission to set up a
Utopia in the new continent full of wilderness and savage native Indians. In the very
first chapter of The Scarlet Letter you will find the following statement: "The founders
of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally
project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a
portion of the virgin soil as a cemetry, and another portion as the site of a prison".
(p.65)

It has also to be noted that the drama of sin and redemption that is unfolded in The
Scarlet Letter takes place in Boston which was not then a mega city. It was a small
settlement of grim-faced, sour and peevish Puritans who couldn't tolerate any dissent or
challenge to authority. Life in those days was regarded as'a grim battle between good
and evil and the people believed that the Black Man, that is Devil was waiting in the
forest to trap the souls of unwary people. In colonial New England the people also
believed in witches acting as the agents of Devil. You will find in The Scarlet Letter
an old lady Mistress Hibbins, a witch, who urges Hester Prynne to come to the forest
and become a disciple of the Black Man (p. 142). Later on Mistress Hibbins was
executed as a witch. The fact that she was a sister of Governor Bellingham couldn't
save her life. The Puritans in New England were mortally afraid of the witches and the
Black Man of the forest. Both Hester Prynne, the fallen woman and Arthur
Dimmesdale, the guilty priest had to contend with witches and the Black Man of the
forest.

Far from being a Utopia, the life of the Puritans in New England took the shape of a
grim battle between good and evil. The protagonist had to save his soul in this
struggle.

6.2 HAWTHORNE'S LIFE AND WORKS

Hawthorne's Birthplace, Union Street, Salem.

- Nathaniel Hawthorne was born at Salem, Massachussets in a prominent 3uritan family
that had migrated to New England in the early sevententh century. His father was a
seacaptain and his mother came fiop an ancient family called the Mannings. He lost
his father when he was barely four years old. Consequently, the child spent his early
life at the Manning's home. At the age of nine, he became lame for a while and
developed a love of solitude mostly spent in reading books. There were plenty of
-books and Hawthorne loved in particular the works of Spenser, Bunyan and
Shakespeare. There is no wonder that allegory and Christian symbolism are so
pronounced in The Scarlet Letter. The historical romances of Sir Walter Scott also had
an impact on Hawthorne and he started reading the annals and old records of New
England in order to come to terms with the past.

The Campus at Bowdoin College, ca. 1820.

Hawthorne attended the Bowdoin College in Maine. We made many friends during his
college days. One of his friends was Horatio Bridge who later on subsidized the
publication of his first collection of stories Twice-Told Tales (1837). IIe also
befriended Franklin Pierce who became the 14th President of the U.S.A. and it was
through him that Hawthorne managed to get the consulship at Liverpool in England.
As a college student Hawthorne had started writing stories but it was only on his return
to Salem that he published his first work of fiction Fanshawe. It was an anonymous
publication at his own expense and he never admitted publicly his authorship of the
book.

The keenness of Hawthorne to become a writer is, however, expressed trenchantly in

his letter to his mother. He wrote to her, "I do not want to be a doctor and live by
men's diseases; nor a minister to live by their sins; nor a lawyer and live by their
quarrels. So I don't see that there is anything left for me but to be an author"
(Introduction, The Scarlet Letter). Hawthorne continued to lead a secluded life at
Salem after his graduation and soaked himself in the history of colonial New England.
It was the life and thought of the early settlers that preoccupied him most of the time.
During summer he travelled to various parts of New England and familiarized himself
with contemporary life. He also began writing stories but found it difficult to publish
'the-in. Publishers were not keen on publishing stories by an unknown author. He
destroyed many of the stories that he wrote. It was, however, in 1837 that he was able
to get his first collection of stories published. As mentioned earlier, Twice-Told Tales
was published with the help of his college friend Horatio Bridge.
The Scarlet Letter

Sophia Amelia (Peabody) Hawthorne, 1847

Hawthorne had also fallen in love with Sophia Peabody, the youngest of the famous
Peabody sisters of Salem. His mamage brought him happiness--and anxiety as well. It
was difficult for him to support his wife and family on the meagre earnings fiom his
writing. He sought a job in the Custom House at Boston from 1839 to '41 and at Salem
from 1846 to '49. He also participated in an experiment in communal living at the
socialistic settlement of Brook Farm in 1841. He stayed at Brook Farm along with his
wife for a while but it didn't really solve his financial problem. The pursuit of a Utopia
appeared to him impractical and unrealistic. You can find a sceptical reference to a
Utopia in The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne returned to Salem and found himself in a
difficult situation. He had financial problems, and along with the burden of supporting
two daughters he had also to endure his mother's illness and death. He began the
writing of The Scarlet Letter at a time when he was deeply depressed and heart-broken.
There is no wonder that he described it as a hell-fired story embodying all his pent-up
emotions.

The publication of The Scarlet Letter in 1850 marked a turning point in Hawthorne's
life. He became famous but it didn't bring him a fortune. Herman Melville was so
fascinated by the masterpiece of sin and redemption in New England that he dedicated
his magnum opus Moby Dick to Nathaniel Hawthorne. Henry James made a pioneer
study of Hawthorne as a master of American fiction. During his stay at Concord
Hawthorne also came in contact with thinkers like Emerson and Thoreau. You know
Concord was a famous colony of writers in New England and is associated with the
development of Transcendentalism. This school of philosophy laid stress on the divine
in Man and in the infinite capacity of Man for bettering his self. Hawthorne was not a
Transcendentalist like Emerson and Thoreau and affirmed in the last chapter of The
Scarlet Letter, "we are sinners all alike" (p.3 lo), but some traces of its philosophy
could be found in his portrayal cf Nester Prynne and Pearl. The romantic, idyllic
1
1
scenes inside the forest showing the coming together of Hester, Pearl and Dimmesdale
remind us of the benign influence of nature in Thoreau's Walden.
Background

i From 1850 to '53 Hawthorne was at the peak of his creative power. The House of
Seven Gables was published in 1851 and showed his preoccupation with the past in
New England. It is a work that shows the decline of a family that had to bear the curse
of witch-hunting. Blithedale Romance was published in the next year and was a
sarcastic rendering of Hawthorne's experience of living at Brook Farm. The Life of
Franklin Pearce was published in the same year. It was Hawthorne's contribution to
I the Presidential Election Campaign. The President appointd Hawthorne the Consul at
Liverpool in England. The stay in England gave Hawthorne a chance to imbibe afresh
the influence of the mother-country. He also got a chance to stay in Italy and wrote his
last major work, The Marble Faun (1860) in which the experience of an expatriate
American artist in Rome is narrated. On his return to America, Hawthorne settled
down in his Concord home. His health deteriorated and he undertook a trip to
mountains and sea-shore in the company of his old friend, Franklin Pierce. He died
quietly in sleep and was buried in a grave near Concord home. The grave was named
Sleepy Hollow.

I
His unfinished romances were published after his death: Septimus Fellon in 1872, The
Dolliver Romance in 1876, Dr. Grirnshawe's ~ e & e tin 1883 and The Ancestral
Footsteps in 1883.

1 6.3 AMERICAN FICTION

Hawthorne described himself as a romancer rather than a novelist. He was, however,

an admirer of the realistic novel as developed in England and admired the realism of
Anthony Trollope. In the realistic novel, the focus was on the ordinary life of men and
women living in a largely settled society. The social and the economic background
was described by the novelist comprehensively and the protagonists acted and
interacted in such a manner that the conflict was resolved at the end. The realistic
novel largely developed in eighteenth century England as a comedy of manners and
usually had a happy ending. It embodied the confidence and robust optimism of an
Age of Reason and there was, perhaps, no problem in life that couldn't be solved
satisfactorily. From Fielding's Joseph Andrews to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice
we find the great tradition of the realistic novel flourishing.

Apart from the realistic novel as it developed in England, Hawthorne was also
influenced by the historical romances of Sir Walier Scott. He wanted to reconstruct the
colonial past of New England as authentically as Scott did for Scotland. There was,
however, a basic difference between Scott and Hawthorne. While Scott's impulse was
to glorify and celebrate the heroism of the protagonists, Hawthorne's attitude towards
New England Puritanism was both critical and sarcastic. In The Scarlet Letter
Hawthorne examined trenchantly the myopla, ~ntoleranceand cruelty of the Puritans in
mid-seventeenth century New England. The major protagonists like Hester Prynne,
Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth are utterly lonely and alienated from the
community of early settlers in Boston, the major city of New England.

There is no wonder that the historical romance as developed by Hawthorne ends on a

note of gloom and despair. There is no happy resolution of the conflict and the major
protagonists live in a dark and cheerless world. Pearl is the only protagonist in the tale
who achieves a degree of success and happiness in her pursuit. One can describe The
Scarlet Letter as a historical romance or a romance-novel in which the extraordinary,
the marvellous and the strange experiences are vividly pictured. The use of the
supernatural and the mysterious creates a kind of awe and grandeur in the sombre tale.
Consequently, the protagonists are more than realistic and lifelike. They are larger
than life and seem to embody certain states of mind. ' If Hester Prynne and Arthur
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f i e Scurllcf I-efttcr D!mmeqdale represent the repentant sinner, Roger Chillingworth stands for the
unrepentant sinner. If Pearl has the touch of a mischievous spirit, Roger Chillingworth 1
degenerates into Devil that is beyond any redemption.

To sum up. Hawthorne is able to create through his dark brooding imagination, ''a
neutral territory, somewhere between the real world and the fairyland, where the Actual
and the Imaginary may meet, and each imbue itself with the nature of the other" (p.53).
In other words, as R romancer Hawthorne is able to encompass both the Actual and the
Imaginary in his narrative. While the Actual is transformed into something strange and
dreamlike, the Imaginary is made concrete and tangible through symbols. There is no
wonder that sylnbols play such a decisive role in The Scarlet Letter. To cite an
exanlple, the red letter A fixed on the bosom of Hester Prynne becomes a sacred object
that sums up the entire life and destiny of a sinftil woman in Puritan-dominated New
England. It also seems to encompass the myopia, intolerance and cruelty of the Puritan
community in colonial America.

With his capactty to encompass both the Actual and the Imaginary, Hawthorne made a
definitive contribution to the emergence of a native tradition of American fiction. The
romance-novel or historical romance as developed in America was not preoccupied
with inanners of various groups in a largely settled society and with the achievement of
success. It was preoccupied with the struggle of good and evil in the protagonist's soul
in a strange continent where wilderness was much larger than settlements. In such an
unsettled continent, the protagonists felt utterly alienated and had to endure alone the
unfolding drama of sin and redemption. There is no wonder that Hawthorne's
imagination is preoccupied with the Black Man of the forest, that is Devil.

6.4
- L,ET US SUM
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UP

The early Puritan settlers in New England considered themselves as God's chosen
people whose mission was to set up a Utopia in the New World. Consequently, their
attitude towards dissenters and heretics like Anne Hutchinson was full of righteous
anger and intolerance.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in a family of Puritans but he was very c4ical of the ''..
persecution of heretics and dissenters. He was also very keen to become a writer and
with the publication of The Scarlet Letter (1 850) he became famous all over America.

lnspired by the tradition of iealistic novels in England and also the historical romances
developed by Sir Walter Scott, Hawthorne established the native tradition of American
fiction in which both reality and romance, the ordinary and the marvellous, and the
natural and the supernatural are artistically fused. This form of American fiction could
be described as a historical romance or a romance-novel in which the Actual and the
Imaginary are dovetailed.

6.5 GLOSSARY

Utopia: A state where all ideal conditions exist.

The scaffold of the pillory: the wooden structure of the pillory where a sinner was
made to stand and exposed to public ridicule in
colonial New England

The Black Man of the forest: Devil who was supposed to live in dark forests and to
trap the soul of sinners.
 Judgement Day: the day when God will judge all men. Background

Retribution of God: just and stem punishment inflicted by God.

The Election Sermon: An important day in colonial New England when the
new Governor took charge of his duty. It was a day of
celebration and triumph.

Necromancy: - communicating with dead through magic in order to

learn about the future.

Scorching Stigma: marks of remorse and intense suffering over the heart
of the guilty priest, Arthur Dimmesdale. For Hester
I Prynne, The Scarlet Letter (A) became the burning
stigma. Therefore, she wanted to throw it away when
she went to the forest.

6.6 QUESTIONS

1. How did the Puritans in New England regard themselves? What was their
attitude to morals?

2. Why did Nathaniel Hawthorne choose to be a writer?

3. Write a brief note on Transcendentalism.

4. How did Nathaniel Hxwthorne's historical romance differ from that of Sir
Walter Scott?

5. Do you agi-ee with the view that Hawthorne successfully created "a neutral
temtory" in his romance, The Scarlet Letter?

6.7 SUGGESTED READING

All quotations are from The Scarlet Letter. Wordsworth Classics, 1992.

- Baym, Nina. The Scarlet Letter :A Reading. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1986.
I
Chase, Richard. The American Novel And Its Tradition. Ludhiana: Kalyani Publishers,
I 1973.
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'ILJNIT 7 READING THE TEXT

Structure

Objective
Introduction
The Threshold of the Narrative
Complications
A Turning Point
Temptation in the Forest
Towards the Climax
Let Us Sum Up
Questions
Suggested Reading

7.0 OBJECTIVES

Our primary objective in this Unit is to give you an idea of the unfolding narrative in
Tlte Scurlet Letter. It has to be noted that the threshold of the narrative shows Hester
Prynne, the fallen woman, alone at the scaffold of the pillory in the market in Boston
with her infant and the climax shows Arthur Dimmesdale, the guilty priest urging
Hester to join him at the same scaffold along with her seven year old daughter Pearl.

Our purpose is to give you an idea of the various stages through which this change
cornes about.

7.1 INTRODUCTION a

After having written two-third of the romance The Scurlet Letter, Hawthorne took a
pause and wrote an Introduction or a background to the grim tale. It was titled The
Custom-House and contained satirical portraits of fellow workers at the Salem Custom-
House from which he was dismissed. Although he was shocked at his dismissal, it was
not an unmitigated gvil. It was also a sort of blessing because, freed from the routine
of monotonous work and drudgery, he could devote himself completely to writing, his
true vocation. The Custom-House also gives us an idea of the low status of a creative
writer in colonial New England. Hawthorne evokes the hostile spirit of his Puritan
ancestors towards himself in memorable words, "what is he? murmurs one grey
shadow of my forefathers to the other. A writer of story-books? 4

What kind of a business in life--what mode of glorifying God, or being serviceable to

mankind in his day and generation--maythat be? Why, the degenerate fellow might as
well have been a fiddler?" (The Scurlet Letter, p. 23).

The Custom-House is also remarkable because it is an affirmation of Hawthorne's

credo as a romancer, He uses the image of n~oonlightin a room in order to convey the
peculiar nature of a romancer's imagination. The ordinary tables, chairs and carpets in
a familiar room are transformed by moonlight into something strange, dark and
mysterious. The mundane and humdrum objects are transformed and made to convey
our deeply felt emotions and attitudes. The creativity of a writer does not lie in a
photographic reproduction of the surface aspects of humdrum reality but in his capacity
to penetrate below the surface and bring out obliquely the dark truths lying buried in Reading the Text
our consciousness. To cite an example, one could refer to Hawthorne's description of
The Scarlet Letter that he found in the Custom-House and out of curiosity he put it on
his breast--"It seemed to me--the reader may smile, but must not doubt my words--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" (pp.48-49). It has to be noted that
the phrase "red-hot iron" is a vivid reflection of the awful intensity of suffering
associated with The Scarlet Letter. There is no wonder that The Scarlet Letter ceases
to be a simple letter. It becomes adark and mysterious symbol of a fallen woman's
suffering and redemption in colonial New England.

Some critics are of the view that The Custom-House is not organically related to the
text of The Scarlet Letter. This is, however, not true. We learn fiom it that Hawthorne
was trying to develop a native tradition of American fiction in which the natural and
the marvellous are artistically fused. The focus is mostly on the strange, the
marvellous and the supernatural but they are woven in such a manner that the
authenticity of the narrative is firmly reinforced. The details that are given about the
recovery of The Scarlet Letter, the manuscript of the Ancient Surveyor Pu and the
freedom of the writer to expand imaginatively the outline of the narrative are meant to
make-usbelieve in the strange and extraordinary tale. If the romancer is not able to
make the reader shed his disbelief and make the tale credible, he fails as a creative
writer. Hawthorne's credo as a romancer committed to underlying reality--the truth of
the human heart--is very perceptively expressed in these words, "Then, at such an hour,
and with the scene before him, if a man sitting all alone, cannot dream strange things
and make them look like truth, he need never to write romances" (p.54). In other
words, the romance as developed by Hawthorne is not purely imaginary. It creates a
strange world in which both reality and romance, the natural and the marvellous, the
past and the hture are inextricably fiised.

7.2 THE THRESHOLD OF THE NARRATIVE

Chapters 1 to 4 constitute the threshold of the narrative and introduce us to three of the
main characters of the story. There is Hester Prynne, accused of adultery, who is

Hester Prynne
The Scarlet Letter
brought out of the prison and made to stand at the scaffold of the pillory along with her
infant. The Scarlet Letter A, signifying an adulteress, is fixed on her bosom and the
men and women of Boston look down upon her and ridicule her. There is also an old
man, a stranger amidst the hostile crowd, who recognizes her as his wife. When Hester
goes back to the prison her husband meets her and wants to know who her lover is.
Hester is prepared to suffer alone and does not reveal the name of her lover. Her
husband admits that he has been unfair to her because an old man like him had mamed
a beautiful young woman. He has, however, not been able to condone her lover
because he has hurt the husband and deprived him of manly honour and dignity.

There is also the young priest, Arthur Dimmesdale, who urges Hester to name her lover
befare the community so that both the sinners can be made to repent together for their
sin. When she refuses to do so, the priest cannot help commenting, "Wondrous
strength and generosity of a woman's heart!" (p.88). It is through this brief but
poignant utterance on the part of the priest that the writer is able to evoke our sympathy
for the fallen woman. Standing near the scaffold, Hester is able to recollect her early
'
fife in old England, the poverty of her parents, the face of her father and her mother,
, '
. .md lastly her mamage to an old, scholarly man who did not bring her warmth and joy
of conjugal life. The focus of the narrative is definitely on the early life and destiny of
Hester who is first trapped into a loveless mamage and later on into adultery in a city
where she has amved as an immigrant. There is no one in the alien city to offer her
' mnae,l&iion and hope.
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1
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--"F&se opening chapters locate the story in a specific time and place. The scaffold of
the pillory is situated in the market of mid-seventeenth century Boston in New
England. Men and women who throng the market are stem Puritans and they regard
Hester as the fallen woman. According to the law of the land, a sinner in those days,
especially a woman was subjected to the extreme penalty of death. A man who is
present near the scaffold tells Hester's husband that the authorities have been kind to
her and keeping in mind her youth have inflicted a light punishment on her. There is
.an unmistakable note of irony in the words that are uttered, "13ut in their great mercy
and tenderness of heart they have doomed mistress Prynne to stand only a space of
three hours on the platform of the pillory, and then and thereafter, for the remainder of
her natural life to wear a mark of shame upon her bosom" (p. 82).

- ; W$iarrative in The Scarlet Letter encompasses not only incidents and dialogues but
symbols and images as well. The action is also followed by commentary and
. e k t i ~ n In. the very first chapter Hawthorne mentions that the Puritan Utopia that
.- the early settlers wanted to establish in the New World also made provision for a prison
and a cemetry. There is also the rose-bush standing near the gate of the prison. The
rose-bush reminds the reader of Ann Hutchinson who was a heretic and for her dissent
she was put in the prison. Later on, the church authorities ex]led her from New
England. What Hawthorne is trying to suggest is that Hester is as much a non-
conformist and a radical as Anne Hutchinson was. This idea has been expressed
, briefly through the phrase "the sainted Ann Hutchinson" (p.6'6). Both of these
chaqcters have consciously rebelled against Puritanist dogma and ethics. In the
. sectkd chapter when Hester stands at the scaffold with the child in her arms she is
qompared to Madonna and her child. The use of such an intcznsely Catholic image -
on
,
-thepart of Hawthorne shows that he is largely fiee from Puritan bigotry and
intolerance.
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l i

., .
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Reading the Text

Hester and Pearl

You have also to make a note of the fact that the names of the main characters have a
strange resonance. For example, Hester's husband assumes the name of Roger
Chillingworth. There is something chilling, cold and inhuman about hls pursuit of his
wife's lover. The guilty priest is Arthur Dimmesdale who is a dedicated pastor but
there is something dim, something fading about him. He is also in the habit of keeping
his hand on his heart. It is a gesture that indicates his divided self and also the tuimoil
in his heart--to confess or not to confess. Pearl has the nng of a beautiful and esotenc
object of nature and Hester has the oriental and exotic association of the Biblical Esther
who was a dark, beautiful and mysterious queen. There is no wonder that The Scarlet
Letter A that has been fixed on Hester's bosom has been rendered in a flamboyantly
fashionable and artistic mode. While to savage Indians it appears like a badge of
distinction and excellence, the women of Boston regard it as the work of a brazer)
hussy and a rude defiance of Puritan orthodoxy and confqpnity. The sense of beauty
that Hester possesses does not at all agree with the Spartan'simplicity of men and
women in colonial New England. There is someth~ngexotlc and colourful about
Hester. There is also something oriental a b u t her. Her sense of beauty and passiorn
.make her look like a pagan goddess.

7.3 COMPLICATIONS

Chapters 5 to 11 constitute an important stage in the narrative in whicn our attention is

toeussed first on Hester and Pearl and later on the complex relationship between k t h w -
Dimmesdale, the guilty priest and Roger Chillingworth, the physician who clings to
him like a leech. After her release from the pnson, Hester goes to a lonely cottage
outside Boston and leads a secluded live. In those days, a lonely young woman could
ogly survive through her needlework. There was no other profession open to her in
colonial New England. It is through her hard work that Hester is able to earn her bread
and bring up her child. She dresses herself according to the Puritanic mode of sombre
and grave attire but her lovely child Pearl is dressed in gorgeous and flamboyant
apparel. It has also been pointed out earlier that there is something oriental and exotic
aboul Hester's natural taste for the gorgeous and the flamboyant. EIcr subrnlission to an
austere and Puritanic mode of dressi~gis half-headed. At heart, she is oriental and
loves what is flamboyant and gorgeous. She is an alien in colonial New England. It is
no wonder that both the mother and the child live a secluded life and even the children
of the town "scorned them in their hearts, and not unfrequently reviled them with their
tongues" (p. 1 17). Hester loves Pearl but she is also tormented by her awkward
questions. Sometlrnes she begins to wonder if Pearl is the child 0;'a demen. Pier
The Scarlet Letter lovely exterior and resplendent attire cannot hide the terrible inquisitiveness of her
mind.

Later on Hester goes to the Governor's house along with Pearl. It is a very significant
point in the narrative. Both the church and the state of New England are unanimous in
persecuting Hester. There is a proposal to separate the mother from the child because a
fallen woman is not supposed to be a good mother. Hester, however, opposes the
proposal vehemently and urges Arthur Dimmesdale to speak on her behalf. Her words
to the priest have a contemporary ring even for a reader of our time--"Speak for me!
Thou knowest--for thou hast sympathies which these men iack--thou knowest what is
in my heart, and what are mother's rights, and how much the stronger they are when
that mother has but her and The Scarlet Letter" (p. 138). It is clear that Hester is
asserting the mother's rights at the Governor's house where she has to confront single-
handed the hostile prejudices of male society in colonial New England. It has also to
be noted that she is affirming the rights of a fallen woman to keep and bring up her
child in a male-dominated society where both the church and the state marginalized
such women and rendered them utterly powerless. You can easily imagine how
fonvard-looking and almost prophetic the assertion of a fallen woman's mother rights
are in The Scarlet Letter!

Arthur Dimmesdale defends vigorously Hester's right to bring up her child and his
vehemence creates a suspicion in Roger Chillingworth's mind. His reaction is brief,
"You speak, my friend, with a strange earnestness" (p. 140) but it shows a strong doubt
in his mind pertaining to the exact relationship between Hester and Arthur
Dimmesdale. There is no wonder that from this point onwards Roger Chillingworth,
the physician, is preoccupied with the priest's health and the state of his mind. He
begins to stay in the priest's house and keeps a constant watch over him. The people of
Boston come to know that "the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, like many other
personages of especial sanctity, in all ages of the Chnstian 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 to plot against his soul".

There is no wonder that Roger Chillingworth is overjoyed when he sneaks to the priest
who is sleeping and sees a sign on his chest. We are not told what that sign exactly is
but it is clear that the rest of the narrative will focus on the drama of sin and
redemption going on in the priest's soul. I-Ie will either confess his sin and save his
soul or he will be tempted by Devil and remain unredeemed, unrepentant. The priest is
very much disturbed at the inquisitive vigil of the physician and goes out of his house
almost in a trance to confess his guilt and save his soul.

At the Governor's house, Hester also meets Mistress Hibbins who is a witch and who
invites her to come to the forest and meet the Black Man of the forest, that is Devil.
Hester replies that she would have done it if she had been deprived of her daughter
Pearl. It is Pearl, both her innocence as well as her inquisitiveness, that saves Hester
from the snares of Devil. Hester's confrontation with Mistress Hibbins creates the
atmosphere of mid-seventeenth century New England when Puritans literally believed
in witches that tempted men and women and acted as the agents and emissaries of
Devil. The word 'leech' refers to the physician, Roger Chillingworth, both in a literal
and a metaphorihl sense. The p!lysicians in those primitive days used to bleed the
patients and through that process cured them. In a metaphorical sense, 'leech' means a
blood-sucking creature that clings to one's skin and sucks all blood. The image of
'leech' aptly suggestsRoger Chillingworth's ferocious cruelty and hatred towards
Arthur Dimmesdale whom he suspects of having turned the husband into a cuckold.
As an injured and humiliated husband, the physician pretends to be a friend of the
priest but, at bottom, he is an implacable enemy. His only joy is to keep on tempting
and tormenting the priest till the end of the narrative. It is the painful consciousnes~of
being hounded by the physicirirl that stirs Arthur Dimmesdale into his midnight
adventure.
 Reading the Text

The Leech and his Patient

7.4 A TURNING POINT

Chapter 12 marks a turning point in the tale and it also foreshadows the climax in
chapter 23, titled The Revelation of Tlie Scarlet Letter in which the priest overcomes
his hesitation and fear of social disgrace and confesses his relationship with I-Iester and
Pearl. It has also to be noted that the most crucial action in The Scarlet Letter takes
place near the scaffold of the pillory in the market. The spot thus comes to acquire a
kind of sanctity and mystery. It is linked with I-Iester's bold confession of her sin at the
beginning of the tale and with the priest's confession and acceptance of I-Iester and
Pearl towards the end. The significance of chapter 12 lies in the fact that it shows the
priest's willingness to confess his sin of adultery. He is, however, still not fully ready
for an honest confession before the Puritan community of Boston. I-Ie is afraid of
facing public ridicule and losing his face before the community. It is due to this factor
that he lets out a loud shriek at midnight. He has yet to acquire the courage and
fortitude to confess his sin before the community and face the consequences of his
action. He has not yet reached the stage of growth that Hester had reached at the
beginning of the tale.

The priest is in such a disturbed state of mind when he stands near the scaffold of the
pillory and there is a strange, dazzling light that illumines the whole sky, that he
notices the letter A etched boldly in the sky. It seems to the priest that his guilt, long
buried in his heart, has been projected all over the sky. We also hear at this critical
moment the sceptical voice of the narrator of the tale. The commentary of the sceptical
narrator is trenchantly expressed in the following words, "In such a case, it could only
be the system of a highly disordered mental state, when a man, rendered morbidly self-
contemplative by long, intense, and secret pain, had extended his egotism over the
whole expanse of nature, until the firmament itself should appear no more than a fitting
page for his soul's history and fate" (p. 188). What the narrator is trying to say is that
the reader must be able to look at the priest in an objective and balanced manner and
realise that the suppression of dark truth, that is the sin of adultery has rendered the
priest morbid and sickly. He could neither face the Puritan community in Boston with
courage and fortitude as Hester has done earlier nor come to terms with his own self.
There is no doubt that the priest's egotism and self-love are morbid and sickly and he
has a long way to go before he attains the equanimity and courage to go through the
ordeal of a public confession of his sin. Yet, he has taken an initial step towards that
stage and as such one can safely affirm that chapter 12 constitutes a sort of dress
rehearsal for the final public confession on the part of the priest.
T/te Scarlet Letter ' f i e chapters 13 and 14 are also preoccupied with the tangled relationship between
Arthur Dimmesdale, Hester and Roger Chillingworth. Nester's life of labour and
, sacr~ficehas won the respect of the Puritan community in Boston. The narrator's
commentary on this transforn~ationIS revealing, "She was self-ordained a sister of
Mercy or, we may rather say. the world's heavy hand so ordained her, when neither the
world nor she looked forward to this result. The letter was the symbol of her calling.
Such helpfulness was found in her--so much power to do, and power to sympathize--
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" (p. 195).
'The narrator's conter~tionis that there has been a change in the Puritan community's
perception of Ilester. 7'liey have nearly forgotten her as an adulteress and now they
regard her as a Sister of' Mercy who has been helpful to the rnost poor and the most
needy women of Boston. The letter A on her bosoni has ceased to be a symbol of
punishment and persecution. It has now become the cross of Hester and has been
sanctified and hallowed by her life as a compassionate Sister of Charity.

There is no wonder that while Arthur Dimmesdale is still hesitant, Hester takes a
decisive step in chapter 14. She tells Roger Chillingworth that he has not been fair to
Arthur Dimmesdale. He has been hounding him like a Devil, "You tread behind his
every foot-step. You are beside him, sleeping and waking. You search his thoughts.
You burrow and rankle in his heart! Your clutch is on his life, and you cause him to
die daily a living death, and still he knows you not" (p.206). In a situation like this, she
has no choice but to be loyal to her lover. She would tell him that Roger Chillingworth
was her husband and he has been plotting to catch the priest's soul and trap him into
evil. She also urges her husband to be fair in his dealing with the priest, "Forgive, and
leave his further retribution to the Power that claims it" (p.210). It has to be noted,
however, that forgiveness and mercy are alien to Roger Chillingworth and he says that
it is his fate--and doom--to trap the soul of the man who has cuckolded him into sin and
damnation. He will go his way and she can go her own way.

---
7.5 TEMPTATION IN THE FOREST

Chapters 15 to 19 shift the action of the tale to the forest outside the town. There is a
kind of ambiguity about the forest. The Puritans of mid-seventeenth century colonial
New England believed that the forest was the abode of the Black Man, that is Devil.
You may recall that after Hester leaves the Governor's House with her daughter Pearl
in her custody, Mistress I-Iibbins, the witch, invites her to join the Black Man and his
co~npanionsin the forest. The scenes that occur in the forest in these chapters are,
however, mostly full of joy and happiness. While Pearl plays near the brook, Hester
and Arthur Dimmesdale get a chance to talk freely. The priest tells her what has been
disturbing l~im,"[Iappy are you, Ilester, that wear The Scarlet Letter openly upon your
bosom! Mine burns in secret" (p.232). Hester is deeply upset at the agony of her lover
and tells him, "That old man? the physician?--he whom they call Roger
Chillingworth? he was my husband?" (p.234).

The priest is extremely unhappy and tells Hester that he will never forgive her. He,
however, loves her so much that his anger subsides but his anger against the physician
is unrelenting. He says that Roger Chillingworth has betrayed the trust of a friend. He
has been mean and treacherous. He has also violated the sanctity of the human heart.
Hester puts a sharp question to the priest, "Does the universe lie within the compass of
yonder town, which only a little time ago was but a leaf-strewn desert, as lonely as this
around us? Whither leads yonder forest track?" (p.238). Hester is able to persuade the
priest to run away fiom the small city of Boston and go either to Europe, that is the Old
World, or into the wilderness that is widespread in the New World. Once he is inside
the wilderness, he will attain freedom, the freedom to live along with Hester and Pearl.
In other words, Hester urges the priest to escape from ~ o s t o nand begin life afresh. It
is clear that for Hester the forest is not only the abode of the Black Man but a sort of
 utopia where the priest will attain supreme happiness and bliss. The wilderrless of the Reading the Text
New WorId seems to be more tempting to Hester than the cities of the Old World.
6

Chapter 18 is appropriately titled "A Flood of Sunshine." I?estei is SO much thrilled at

the prospect of attaining happiness along with her lover and daughter that she throws
The Scarlet Letter away, removes her cap and lets her hair fall over her shoulders. The
narrator's comment on the transformation of Hester from being a Sister of charity to an
exquisitely beautiful young woman is telling indeed, "A crimsoil flush was glowing on
her cheek, that had long been so pale. Her sex, her youth, and the whole richness of
her beauty, came back from what men call the irrevocable past, and clustered
themselves with her maiden hope, and a happiness before unknown, within the magic
circle of this hour" (p.245). The moment of ecstasy for Hester, however, dues not last
Iong. Necessity is expressed in the form of the stand taken by her daughter Pearl. She
refuses to accept her mother without her cap and without The Scarlet Letter restored on
' her bosom. In chapter 19, Hester is forced to act as Pearl wants her to. She puts on her
cap and her rich hair is suitably confined. She also puts on The Scarlet Letter on her
bosom. The focus of the narrative in this chapter is on the fact that Hester can escape
1
from the wiles of Roger Chillingworth but she carmot escape from the reality that Pearl
embodies. That is her sin in colonial New England. The dream of freedom and hope
that is generated in the forest is sharply negated by Die Scarlet Lct~[Link] 6;ros:i that
Hester has to bear on her bosom and the terrible burden of guilt Lhat the pricst has :.o
bear within his heart. There is no wonder that the priest eventually comes !o rcgsid
Hester's offer in the forest as a kind of temptation of Devil.

-
7.6 TOWARDS THE CLIMAX .

Chapters 20 to 24 mark the last phase of the narrati've and the events move inexorably
towards the climax-public confession by the priest on the scaffold of the pillory and
acceptance of his relationship with Hester and Pearl. 'The romantic reunion of Hester
and Dimmesdale in the idyllic sanctuary of the forest energizes the priest and he returns
to the town a man reborn. There is a feverish rush of ideas in his mind and he' looks
forward to the plan made by Hester. There has been, however, a change in their plan.
Instead of escaping into the vast American wilderness, it has been decided to return to
the Old World. As the ship is expected to leave on the fourth day, the priest starts
writing the Election Sermon which he will deliver as his parting message to the Puritan
community in New England. While the priest gets busy in drafting the Elecfction
Sermon, he also becomes aware of many contrary dark impulses in his mind. While
returning to the town, he has an impulse to utter a certain blasphemy to one of his
fellow priests. He also treats casually the eldest female member of his parish and looks
down upon with disdain the youngest female in his parish. In other words, he doesn't
behave as a responsible and dedicated priest. There is no wonder that Dirnrnesdale is at
last able to realize that in some insidious way he has been tempted by Devil. There has
been so much impiety within him that he cannot help crying to himself, "What is it that
haunts and tempts me thus? Am I mad? Did I make contract with him in the forest,
and sign it with my blood" (p.265).

It is clear that Dimmesdale begins to feel that he has been tempted by Devil in a most
seductive mode. It is this realization that gives him the s~rerlgthto face the
consequences of his sin and not to run away fiom Boston. On the Election Day the
whole town wears a gala, festive look. For a change, the people are in a happy rnood.
They are going to celebrate the assumption of office by a new Governor and also to
listen to Election Day sermon by their popular priest, Arthur Dimmesdale. The
narrator also draws our attention to the rich heritage of New England Puritans, "But we
perhaps exaggerate the grey or sable tinge which undoubtedly characterized the mood
and manners of the age.
-. The persons now in the market-place of Roston hail not hem
born to an inlleritance sfPuritanic gloom. 'They were native Eng!is!;alcrt, r:hose
,.. 3 . I . ,, ~ ~ ~.
-:..L- --- -C AL-- C I ~ - , . L . ~ L O Vee"-.nhe
. %
, +:e,*.r. rv,.k =VI ;-:+-* n4.
#'!>.a
The Scarlet Letter England, viewed as one great mass, would appear to have been as stately, magnificent,
and joyous, as the world has ever witnessed" (p.277). In Chapter 21 entitled "The New
England Holidayn the narrator has tried to recapture the exuberance and jollity of the
Elizabethan England. Apart from the inhabitants of Boston, some sailors and a few
Indians are also present among the crowd. There is a procession that moves towards
the scaffold of the pillory. While Dimmesdale, the priest, is in the procession along
with magistrates and fellow-priests, Hester and Pearl are among the crowd gathering
around the scaffold.

The Market Place

Dimmesdale's Election Day sermon is straight from the heart and the audience is
thrilled. The people are, however, shocked to find that the priest begins to look pale
and haggard after the sermon. He has been drained of all strength. He also looks like a
dying man. As he does not have much time left at his disposal, he urges Hester and
Pearl to join him at the scaffold. He also makes a frank confession, "At last! at last! I
stand upon the spot where, seven years since, I should have stood, here, with this
woman, whose arm, more than the little strength wherewith I have crept hitherward,
sustain me at this dreadful moment from grovelling down upon my face" (p.305).
After Dimmesdale makes his confession and owns Hester and ]?earl, Hester comes
forward to help the collapsing priest. In the words of the [Link], "Hester partly raised
him, and supported his head against her bosom" (p.307). This is a moment that stuns
Roger Chillingworth because his plot of revenge against the priest fails miserably and
he is seen "with a blank, dull countenance, out of which life sel :med to have departed"
(p.307). The Scarlef Letter is such a rich, romantic tale that it i s simultaneously a
drama of sin and redemption and a moving love story. The cli max at the scaffold of
the pillory marks a fitting end both of the spiritual drama of sir I and redemption and a
heart-warming love story. The lovers are united briefly but un forgettably near the
scaffold. There is no wonder that the scaffold coines to acquir e a strange kind of awe
and mystery. It is the most hallowed spot in New England.
 The last chapter entitled "Conclusion" is a kind of post-script to the main body of the Reading the Text
historical romance. The narrator t a k a over and offers various possibilities to explain
Dimmesdale's death on the scaffold. You may recall that he bares his bosom before

The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter

he dies in Hester's arms. Some people see the letter A imprinted on his heart. While
Hester has The Scarlet Letter A on her dress, Dimmesdale has it over his heart. Some
people regard it as the result of medicines given by Roger Chillingworth. Some are of
the view that it is the result of self-torture inflicted by the priest. Some people are of
the view that they did not see anything imprinted on the priest's heart. What the
narrator is using here is, according to F.O. Matthiessen, "the device of multiple
choice." There is a certain mystery and awe associated with the priest's death on the
scaffold and it is not possible to explain it in clear-cut, rational terms. This seems to be
the idea behind the narrator's use of the device of multiple choice. What is clear,
however, is the fact that Dimmesdale dies in glory but Roger Chillingworth shrivels
like an uprooted weed and dies a year a h . He tries, however, to atone for his sin by
giving all his wealth to Pearl who has been the daughter of the man he hated the most.

Hester and Pearl disappear from Boston and go back to some country in Europe. While
Pearl is happily married to a noble in the old world, Hester returns to her cottage in
- New England. For her, the cottage outside Boston has become sacred. She resumes
her life as a Sister of Charity and puts on The Scarlet Letter A on her bosom. The
narrator says, "Never afterwards did it quit her bosom" (p.3 14). Women of the town
come to Hester for help and advice. They also want to know, "why they were so
+ wretched, and what was the remedy" (p. 3 15). Hester looks upon 13"re Scarlet Letter on
her bosom and replies, "She assured them too, of her 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" (p.3 15). You may recall that at the
beginning of The Scarlet Letter there is a sceptical reference to the Utopia that the
Puritans wanted to establish in the New World. But at the end of the romance th6
-tor makes a passionate a f f m t i o n that men-women relationship would be
, completely recast in the fiture. That is a kind of Utopia that would be established in
! which men-women relationship would be based on natural impulses and women would
The Scarlet Letter be neither wretched nor miserable. They would also not be forced into a loveless
marriage with an old man. The ambiguity of the narrative in The Scarlet Letter is
brought out by the fact that is both a critique and an affirmation of utopia. While a
Utopia based on Puritan ideals is negated, a Utopia based on the ideal of equity-based
men-women relationship is affirmed. It is undeniable that the Elizabethan and New
England past and the glorious future are artistically fused in the tale that is narrated in
The Scarlet Letter. One could also describe Hawthorne's historical romance as a
dialogug between the past and the future.

7.7 LET US SUM UP

The most dramatic scenes in The Scarlet Letter revolve round the scaffold of the pillory
in Boston. It is the scaffold that bears witness to Hester's confession of the sin of
adultery. It is near the scaffold that Dimmesdale has his midnight adventure in chapter
12. It is near the same scaffold that Dimrnesdale makes his final public confession and
saves his soul.

Hester's suffering and redemption largely take place in the cottage outside Boston. Her
hard work to earn her bread, her bringing up Pearl as a single parent, her service to the
poor and the needy, especially the women earn her the respect and love of the Puritan
community in New England. The Scarlet Letter A on her bosom ceases to be a badge
of shame, It is transformed into something holy and pious and the people look upon it
with awe and wonder. There is no wonder that the letter A also shines on the grave
where Hester and Dimmesdale are buried side by side. It seems to embody both sin
and redemption and also the agony and ecstasy of Hester and Dimmesdale.

The Scarlet Letter is a historical romance that encompasses the glory of the Elizabetha~
England, the bigotry and intolerance of the new settlers in New England, and a brief
vision of the future in which men-women relationship would be based on natural
impulses and passion. It is a complex narrative in which the various dimensio~sof the
past and a brief but poignant vision of the future are artistically fused. It is a strange
work of art in whish there is a recumng dialogue between the past and the future. It is
both a critique and an affirmation of Utopia in mid-nineteenth century American
fiction. You may recall that Hawthorne creates a strange world in The Scarlet Letter in
which both the Actual and the Imaginary are inextricably dovetailed.

7.8 QUESTIONS
-

1. Bring out the significance of the three scaffold scenes in the narrative of The
Scarlet Letter.

2. How does Hester defend a mother's rights in the scene at the Governor's
House? Do you really agree with her?

3. Why does Roger Chillingworth come to stay with Arthur Dimmesdale? Do

you think the image of the 'leech' aptly sums up his behaviour?

4. Describe critically the action and interaction between Hester and Pearl in the
forest.

5. The Scarlet Letter is both a critique and an affirmation of Utopia, Illustrate

your answer with suitable examples from the text.
 6. Examine The Scarlet Letter critically 2s a love story in which love triumphs Reading the Text
over various obstacles.

7. What is the relevance of the 'Introduction, The Custom-House' to the unfolding

of the narrative? Does it really help you in locating the romii-ce-novel against
the backdrop of colonial New England?

/ 7.9 SUGGESTEDREADING '

1. Read 'Tradition and Disinheritance in The Scarlet Letter' by Frederick

Newsberry and The Scarlet Letter by F.O. Matthiessen included in Norton
Critical Edition of The Scarlet Letter, 1988.

Also read 'Forin and Content in The Scarlet Letter from the same book. John
C. Gerber has made a perceptive analysis of the narrative in Hawthorne's
masterpiece.

2. Hawthorne's Narrative Strategies by Michael Dunne, University Press of

Mississippi., 1995.

3. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Tradition and Revolution by Charles Swann, Cambridge

University Press, New York, 199 1.

4. The American Historical Romance by George Dekker, Cambridge University

Press, 1987.
Structure

8.0 Objectives
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Hester
8.3 Dimmesdale
8.4 Chillingworth
8.5 Pearl
8.6 Minor Characters
8.7 Let Us Sum Up
8.8 Questions
8.9 Suggested Reading

8.0 OBJECTIVES

Our objective in this unit is to give you an idea of the major characters Hester,
Dimmesdale, Chillingworth and Pearl. We would also give you some idea of the minor
characters like Reverend Wilson, Governor Bellingham and Mistress Hibbins. You
would also be able to appreciate the complex relationship between the major and the
minor characters.

8.1 INTRODUCTION

Since The Scarlet Letter is more of a historical romance rather than a realistic novel,
the characters tend to be allegorical and symbolical. There are various ways in which
scholars have looked upon the characters in the book. While Hester seems to stand for
art reflected in her exquisite needle work, Dimmesdale stands for religion due to his
dedicated work as a pastor in his parish. While Chillingworth stands for science in his
relentless search for herbs and medicines, Pearl stands for nature that is radiant, lovable
but beyond human control. Taken together, the major characters seem to represent art,
religion, science and nature. From another angle, these characters seem to foreshadow
the Freudian categories of mind, the Id, the Ego and the Super-ego.

It is Pearl who seems to stand for the Id, and with her wild, impulsive nature is
governed by the "pleasure principle." She always acts according to impulses rather
than conscious thought. You know Freud said that the Id is the biological part of
personality, the seat of instincts and is not subject to any social regulation. While Pearl
stands for the Id, Hester stands for the Ego that is operated largely by the "reality
principle." Hester is aware of her own self, her Eros and physical needs, but she is also
aware of the pressures of external reality, that is the norms of the Puritan community in
mid-seventeenth century New England. She also serves as a bridge and link between
Pearl, the Id and Dimmesdale, the Super-ego. It is the priest who represents the social
and moral dimension of personality and is always governed by the high ideals of
society. Dimmesdale has a pronounced conscience and suffers from a terrible sense of
guilt and anxiety due to the sin of adultery. It is the dominance of the Super-ego in the
priest, and his awareness of the id within him, his craving for Hester, that gives an edge
to the drama of sin and redemption that is unfolded so graphically.
From another angle, Hester, Dimmesdale and Chillingworth seem to represent heart, Characterization
soul and mind. As a Sister of Charity, Hester is full of compassion and always tries to
help the poor and the needy. 'The narrator makes it clear that IIester stands for heart
and as a result she is able to atone for her sin and is transformed into an able nun
serving humanity. Dimmesdale is a priest and seems to stand for the soul. He does
care for the soul of others and he is also tormented by his conscience. His antagonist,
Chillingworth is, however, primarily governed by his mind. His cold, caiculating
mind, utterly divorced from his heart, stifles his noble impulses as a physician
dedicated to the profession of healing. He is too cerebral to be a credible and
acceptable human being. While Hester seems to stand for life instinct, that is Eros,
Chillingworth seems to stand for death wish, that is 'Thanatos. You know Eros and
Thanatos are two other basic concepts postulated by Freud in the twentieth century.
That Hawthorne could foreshadow some of the key Freudian concepts is an indicator of
his keen probing into the psyche of his major characters. The Scarlet Letter is not only
a historical romance; it is a psychological romance as well. The narrative that is
unfolded so graphically encompasses action as well as incisive probing into mental
processes of the major characters like Hester, Dimmesdale, Chillingworth and Pearl.

While the major characters are multi-dimensional and complex, the minor characters
are more simple and allegorical. Reverend Wilson and Governor Bellingham represent
the head of the church and the head of the state in New England. Their close
collaboration makes it clear that the government at that time was a kind of theocracy.
They also represent the hegemony of the church and the state in the Utopia established
by the Puritans and the individual who in any way challenged the authority of the
church and the state had to bear persecution. It has also to be kept in the mind that
while the major characters are portrayed as dynamic, that is they undergo a subtle
transformation, the minor characters are more or less, static. While the major
characters are portrayed as complex characters, the minor characters are rather flat and
one-domensionai. To sum up, while the major characters act and interact to create a
moving drama of sin and redemption, the minor characters locate the tale in mid-
seventeenth century New England. While the major characters soar into a world of
romance and make-believe, the minor characters remind us of the historical context of
the romance. As we have already told you, the Imaginary and the Actual are closely
interwoven in the text creating a sort of "neutral territory."

You may also bear in mind Mistress Hibbins who acts as the agent and emissary of
Devil. She is definitely an allegorical character who tries to tempt both Hester and
Dimmesdale but does not succeed. The narrator, who belongs to mid-nineteenth
century ~ m e r i c ahas
, rightly suggested that the dialogue between Mistress Hibbins and
Hester could be taken as a parable, that is a confrontation between good and evil.
Mistress Hibbins is a product of the Puritan Utopia created by the earliest settlers in
colonial Boston.

8.2 HESTER

No feature in Hawthorne's romances of the 1850s is of greater psychological and

cultural interest than his remarkable heroines. There is no other female protagonist that
dominates the narrative as much as Hester does. According to Luther S. Luedtke, "The
problem of The Scarlet Letter is really the problem of how to interpret Hester"
(Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Romarzce of the Orient, p. 165). It is Hester who is
present in the romance at the beginning and it is also Hester who is in focus at the end
of the tale. 'The narrator makes it clear at the beginning that she is not an ordinary
woman in colonial Boston. She is dark, handsome and "a rich, voluptuous Oriental"
(The Scarlet Letter, p.105). When she comes out of the prison and moves towards the
scaffold of the pillory, her Oriental beauty, dark eyes and dark hair, has a strange,
esoteric appeal. Even the letter A that has been embroidered on her sombre dress is
designed in a flashy and flamboyant mode. Its flourish and singularity is a sort of curt
The Scarlet Letter defiance and challenge to the all-pervasive grey and sombre that marked the fashion of
the grim Puritan men and women in mid-seventeenth century New England. There is
something of Anne Hutchinson's non-conformity and radicalism (as described in Block
I) in Hester's psychological make-up. As a lonely woman in a hostile city in the New
World, Hester submits to the punishment inflicted on her but in a subtle way she also
subverts Puritan orthodoxy through her wild, colourful scarlet letter.

Her retreat from the market to the lonely cottage outside Boston marks a new phase in
her life. She is able to support herself and her daughter Pearl through her needlework.
It is her aesthetic sense and her exquisite needlework that enables her to perform the
duty of a single parent in a traditional, male-domi,lated society. The narrator has
drawn our attention to "all the combative energy of her character" (p.99) which enables
her to serve the poor and the needy. There is a subtle transformation in Hester and the
community that has persecuted her as the fallen woman begins to look upon her as a
Sister of Mercy. The Scarlet Letter A that in the beginning appears to the community
as a badge of sin and shame later on appears as a symbol of her calling as a Sister of
Mercy. It is also viewed by the Puritan cammunlty as "Able, so strong was Hester
Prynne with a woman's strength" (p. 195). The letter A, The Scarlet Letter to be
precise, also becomes "the cross on a nun's bosom" (p.196). In keeping with her status
as a Sister of Mercy, Hester's dark, Oriental beauty also undergoes a change. The
narrator's comment on this change is revealing indeed, "It was a sad transformation,
too, that her rich and luxuriant hair had been cut off, or was so completely hidden by a
cap, that not a shining lock of it ever once gushed into the sunshine" (p.197).

While Hester is transformed from a sinful woman into an angelic Sister of Mercy, and
from a dark, voluptuous Oriental woman into a nun who deliberately suppresses her
youth and beauty by capping her hair, there is another subtle transformation at work.
The narrator of the tale makes it clear that "much of the marble coldness of Hester's
impression was to be attributed to the circumstances that her life had turned, in a great
measure, from passion and feeling to thought" (p.198). If in her routine conduct,
Hester remains a conformist to the tenets of Puritanism in colonial New England, it is
at the level of speculation and critical thinking that she tends to become subversive and
challenges the patriarchal basis of man-woman relationship in mid-seventeenth century
Boston - "As a first step, the whole system of society is to be tom down and built up
anew. Then the very nature of the opposite sex, or its long hereditary habit, which has
become like nature, is to be essentially modified before woman can be allowed to
assume what seems a fair and suitable position" (p.200). What the narrator is
suggesting, commenting on Hester's radicalism, is that before women can really be
empowered there has to be a drastic and radical change in their consciousness and
mental make-up. Without such a radical transformation in female psyche, the complete
recasting of man-woman relationship will not take place and there will be no end to
their suffering and persecution in the existing society.

One can sum up, Hester's complex, radical character through the words of David Levin,
"No English or American novelist before him had been able to represent convincingly
the feelings and thoughts of a passionate woman and scarcely any American novelist
had posed such forceful and critical questions for prevailing nineteenth-century beliefs"
(The American Novel ed. by Wallace Stegner, p.24). Hawthorne is supposed to be
Janus-faced, that is he looks both towards the past and the future. It is through Hester
that the past and the future are dexterously woven in the text. There is no wonder that
a recent critic like Charles Swann has described the text as future-oriented history
(p.72). There i s n o other character in The Scarlet Letter who is a better embodiment of
future-oriented history, that is one who can be a bridge between the past and the future.
It is through an appreciation of the vast range of Hester's conduct and radical thought
that one can adequately evaluate The Scarlet Letter as a work of fiction illuminating
both the past and the future.
8.3 DIMMESDALE

Dimmesdale is a respected priest in colonial Boston. He has conhe to the New World
with the learning and sophistication of the Old World. It is, however, his nlisfortune
that he is trapped into adultery with a married woman of his parish. Since he is a man
of high status, he is very much aware of his moral responsibility. As a pastor he is
responsible for the moral uplift of the men and women in his charge. There is no other
character in The Scarlet Letter who has such a dominant Super-ego. When Hester
stands on the scaffold and makes a public confession of her sin, Dimmesdale also has
an acute awareness of his guilt. He is a product of the Puritan ethos that dominates
New England and as such he cannot think either in terms of returning to the old world
or escaping into American wilderness. It is also difficult for him to confess his guilt in
public because he is afraid of losing his status and good name. He admires the courage
and strength of Hester but his intense preoccupation with his social role prevents him
trom doir,g what she does on the scaffold. He has a divided self. He is aware of
Hester's sexual attractiveness but he doesn't have the courage to own her publicly.
There is no wonder that he has a habit of putting his hand over his heart. This gesture
is an index of the protracted conflict in Dimmesdale's mind. Pearl repeatedly asks her
mother why the priest always puts his hand over his heart.

It is Dimmesdale's divided self and agonizing mental conflict that leads to the
weakening of his body and mind. The fact of Chillingworth's staying with him and
keeping constant vigil on his psyche adds manifold to his woes. He is driven to such a
desperation that he begins to fast, inflict harsh punishment on his body and confesses
his sin in such a manner in the parish that the listeners look upon his theatrical
confession as a sign of his virtue and probity. The more the priest tortures himself, the
more he realizes that he is a hypocrite in the eye of God. The narrator's comment is
significant, "He thus typified the constant introspection, but could not purify himself'
(p.176). It has also to be noted that the fasting, penance and self-torture are not in
conformity with the tenets of Puritanism.

The narrator's comment on Dimmesdale's behaviour is revealing indeed, "His inward

trouble drove him to practices more in accordance with the old corrupted faith of Rome
than with the better light of the church in which he had been born and bred" (p. 175).
Whether we evaluate the priest from a secular point of vie N or from the point of view
of a mid-seventeenth century Puritan, he appears before us as a moral hypocrite and a
betrayer of love and family responsibility. There is no wonder that the priest has a
terrible consciousness of being a non-entity both in a human and also within a
theological framework. The narrator has expressed poignantly the dilemma of '

Dimmesdale, "Tothe untrue man, the whole universe is false--it is impalpable--it

shrinks to nothing within his grasp. And he himself, in so far as he shows himself in a
false light becomes a shadow, or indeed ceases to exist" (p.177).

It is in this state of mind that Dimmesdale sees the letter A in the sky as there is a flash
of meteors during his midnight journey to the scaffold. The narrator makes it clear that
the letter A is simply a creation of Dimmesdale's morbid imagination and is also a
projection of his guilt. When he lets out a wild shriek, he has a fear that the entire town
of Boston would come to the scaffold and see him with Hester and Pearl. It is clear
that the priest's fear of social disgrace is far more powerful than his conscience which
prompts him to mount the scaffold and publicly own Hester and Pearl. Since he
occupies a distinguished position in the community, it becomes difficult for him to
confess his guilt. It is Chillingworth, the antagonist who holds his hand and takes him
away from the scaffold. The narrator's comment on this scene is significant indeed,
"with a chill despondency, like an awakening, all nerveless, from an ugly dream, he
yields himself to the physician, and was led away" (p.190). It is significant that
Chillingworth is the man who takes Dimmesdale away from the scaffold where he is
united with Hester and Pearl for a brief moment. The priest does not have the strength
to extricate himself from the grip of his antagonist.
The Scarlet Letter
Dimmesdale has later on a meeting with Hester and Pearl in the forest. It is in its
idyllic atmosphere that he agrees to elope with her to the old world. There is a
momentary burst of energy within him and he writes the Election Sermon to be
delivered on the day the new Governor is to take over. The Election Sermon is a huge
success but the priest's triumph is momentary. He is eventually united with Hester and
Pearl and dies on the scaffold. Before his death, the priest, however, makes a
prophecy. In the words of the narrator "it was his mission to foretell a high and
glorious destiny for the newly gathered people of the Lord" (p.299). While at the
personal level Dimmesdale is full of a premonition of death, he does not fail to forecast
a glorious destiny for the Puritan republic in New England. The past and the future are,
in the ultimate analysis, as closely entwined in Dimmesdale as they are in Hester.
They kriow that they will not live to see the future materialize in their lifetime but it
would materialize one day. There is a Transcendentalist's hope of a Utopia being
eventually realized on the earth both for Hester and Dimmesdale. It is their sin that
unites them and their hope as well.

--
8.4 CHILLINGWORTH

We have told you that The Scarlet Letter is not only a historical romance but a
psychological romance as well. Chillingworth, the cuckolded husband, is a fine study
of a man degenerating due to an obsession. His obsession is to find out the man who
has committed adultery with his wife. When Hester refuses to name her lover in the
first scaffold scene, Chillingworth says with vehemence, "But he will be known?--he
will be known?--he will be known!" (p.82). As a physician, he is given to the
collection of herbs and medicines. He does admit that as an old man he was unwise to
marry a young, beautiful woman. There is a touch of regret in his words to Hester--"It
was my folly, and thy weakness. I--a man of thought--the bookworm of great libraries-
-a man already in decay, having given my best years to feed the hungry dream of
knowledge--what had I to do with youth and beauty like thine own?" (p.94). It has to
be noted that Hester is equally forthright in her reply to her husband, "Thou knowest
that I was frank with thee. I felt no love, nor feigned any" (p.95).

Later on Hester urges Chillingworth to cast her off at once as an adulterous wife.
Chillingworth is, however, too deeply hurt and humiliated by her lover's deed to
forgive him. He acts as a typical husband in a male-dominated patriarchal society and
he does not want to be publicly reviled as a cuckolded husband. What becomes the
goal of his life is to hunt the man who has sullied his honour as a husband and when
Hester refuses to reveal the name of her paramour, Chillingworth is obsessed with the
idea of hunting the man and punishing him. It is in the fourth chapter of the tale that
there is a crucial exchange between Hester and her husband,

'why dost thou smile so at me?' inquired Hester, troubled at the expression of
his eyes.

'Art thou like the Black Man that haunts the forest round about us? hast thou
enticed me into a bond that will prove the ruin of my soul?'

'Not thy soul,' he answered, with another smile. 'No, not thine?'
(p.98)

It is from this point onwards that Chillingworth ceases to be human and becomes an
allegorical character. Hester wonders if her husband is the Black Man of the forest
who traps man's soul into evil and leads him to damnation. The word "leech" that is
used by the narrator to describe the physician is most appropriate. He clings to the
priest like a leech, sucks his blood and gets a devilish pleasure when he sees the
mystenous mark on his chest. When Hester urges him to forget and forgive and leave
punishment to God, Chillingworth tells her sternly, "I have no such power as thou Characterization
tellest me. My old faith, long forgotten, comes back to me, and explains all that we do,
and all we suffer . . . It is our fate. Let the black flower blossom as it may!" (p.210).
The old faith mentioned by Chillingworth, perhaps, refers to the Old Testament
according to which the evil-doer must be punished. Retribution is the spirit that guides
the physician and the New Testament spirit of forgiveness is alien to his make-up.

Chillingworth is present in all the three scenes near the scaffold. In the first scaffold
scene, he is a stranger standing near an Indian. In the second scaffold scene, he
appears suddenly and leads Dimmesdale away. In the third and the last scaffold scene,
he is utterly, humiliated and lost when the priest mounts the scaffold and publicly
confesses his sin. His last spoken words are an index of his utter failure, "Thou hast
escaped me!" (p. 307). His life has been an utter failure. As he himseliforeshadows it,
the black flower has blossomed and ruined him as a husband and also as a physician.
Instead of healing others, he injures them and also injures his own soul irreparably.
The phrase "black flower" stands for evil and sums up Chillingworth's life and destiny.
Of all the major characters in The Scarlet Letter, he is the only character who has a past
but has no future. Before he dies, unknown, unnoticed, he does bestow his property on
Pearl but it is too small a deed to redeem his soul.

8.5 PEARL

Pearl is a lovely, mischievous and naughty young child. She is a creature of impulse
and is not amenable to rules. The narrator describes her as "a lovely and immortal
flower, out of the rank luxuriance of a guilty passion" (p. 111). When Hester retires to
the solitary cottage, Pearl is her only companion. She finds her daughter so wild and
impulsive that she wonders whether Pearl is a human child. There is no peer group to
socialise Pearl and she grows into a wilful, obdurate young girl. Most of the time she
plays alone and she is not much bothered by the hostility of the little Puritans in and
around Boston. The narrator describes Hester's solitary daughter in these words, "Pearl
was a born outcast of the infantile world" (p. 116). As Pearl grows up, wild and wilful,
Hester is disturbed by her mischievousness. There are also rumours floating in the
community that Pearl is "a demon offspring" (p. 122). Pearl's obsession with The
Scarlet Letter on her mother's bosom also disturbs Hester and creates a sort of
ambiguity in her response to her daughter. She loves Pearl and also dreads her
inquisitiveness reflected in her bold, penetrating eyes. The narrator has described
Hester's anxiety in these words, "It was as if an evil spirit possessed the child, and had
just then peeped forth in mockery" (p. 120).

It is in the scene in the Governor's house that Pearl's worth as a human being is fully
reflected. When Reverend Wilson, the most venerable clergyman asks Pearl if she is a
Christian child, Pearl replies frankly, "I am mother's child and my name is Pearl" (p.
134). The Governor also asks Hester if she will be able to bring up Pearl properly.
Hester's goal of life as a single parent is vividly expressed by the narrator, "I can teach
my little Pearl what I have learned from this!" answered Hester Prynne, laying her
finger on the red token (p.135). The narrator makes it clear that even a fallen woman'
like Hester has rights, mother's rights to be precise. There is no wonder that Hester's
right as a mother is fully vindicated by Arthur Dimmesdale and both the civil and the
religious authority abandon their plan of separating Pearl fiom Hester. The narrator
makes a pertinent point at the end of the scene in The Governor's House, "Even thus
early had the child saved her from Satan's snares" (p. 143).

It is clear that the responsibility of bringing up Pearl as a single parent gives a goal, a
sense of purpose to Hester. It is in this sense that Pearl saves her fiom the temptation
of Devil. In the forest scene also when Hester throws The Scarlet Letter away, it is
Pearl who urges her to put The Scarlet Letter back on her bosom. Hester's daughter
reminds her mother that The Scarlet Letter cannot be discarded. It is inseparable from
The Scarlet Letter her destiny. Pearl plays a very crucial role in the forest scene and but for her insistence
Hester would have forgotten her badge of shame and her cross. In the last scaffold
scene also Pearl kisses Dimmesdale and plays a key role in the reunion of her father
and mother in the market. She sheds tears as she kisses her father. The narrator's
comment on Pearl's tears is revealing indeed, "They were the pledge that she would
grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor forever do battle with the world, but be a
woman in it" (p. 307).

As an infant and as a young girl, Pearl plays an important role in the unfolding of the
narrative. She is both a symbol of beauty and a stem reminder of her mother's sin. It is
not only Hester but Dimmesdale as well who feels uncomfortable in her presence. As a
young woman, however, Pearl becomes the archetypal American young woman who is
blessed by a forkme and also mames a noble of the Old World. While Hester returns
to New Englaiid, Pearl goes back to the Old World. Her childhood is an integral part
of the moral and spiritual drama unfolded in The Scarlet Letter but her youth and
marriage remind us of the happy ending associated with fairy tales. It is also a glimpse
of poetic justice that operates marginally in a dark, brooding world of mid-seventeenth
century New England; Pearl is the only ray of hope in a world governed by Roger
Chillingworth and Mistress Hibbins.

-
8.6 MINOR CHARACTERS

We have already told you that the minor characters are products of history and locate
the drama of sin and redemption in a specific time and place. Reverend Wilson,
Governor Bellingham and Mistress Hibbins are among the significant minor characters.
Both Reverend Wilson and Governor Bellingham are present in the first scaffold scene.
It is Reverend Wilson, the eldest clergyman in Boston, who urges Hester to name her
lover. Later on, he requests Arthur Dimmesdale to put pressure on Hester to confess
her sin and declare the name of her partner in the sin of adultery. When Dimmesdale's
efforts did not bear fruit, Reverend Wilson delivers a sermon admonishing unrepentant
sinners. He warns both Hester and the community present near the scaffold of the
danger of being trapped by Devil. It has, however, no effect on Hester who, after her
ordeal before the scaffold, goes back to the prison. The narrator draws our attention to
the folk belief in mid-seventeenth century New England, "It was whispered by those
who peered after her that The Scarlet Letter threw a lurid gleam along the dark
passage-ways of the interior" (p.89).

In the scene at the Governor's house we find that Governor Bellingham and Reverend
Wilson are together and it is Reverend Wilson who is given the chance to interrogate
ZIester and Pearl. It is clear that the Head of the church and the Head of the state
worked together and as far as Hester's conscience is concerned it is Reverend Wilson
who is entrusted with the sole responsibility of chastising Hester and her unruly child.
One can conclude that the state in New England was a kind of theocracy and there was
no separation of civil authority and religious authority. Following the lead by
Reverend Wilson, Governor Bellingham also wants to know if Hester would be able to
'
bring up her child as a sober, disciplined Puritan. He also urges Reverend Wilson to
find out if Pearl is being brought up in a proper religious atmosphere. It is clear that
Reverend Wilson and Governor Bellingham work with perfect understanding. It has
also to be noted that when Dimmesdale defends Hester's right as a mother, both
Reverend Wilson and Governor Bellingham show an open mind, and In spite of their
reservations about Hester, agree to give a trial to Dimmesdale's suggestion to let Hester
bring up Pearl.

Mistress Hibbins is a witch-lady who is supposed to be an agent and emissary of Devil.

There is a conversation between Hester and Mistress Hibbins at the end of the scene in
Governor's house and she urges her to come to the forest and sign a pact with Devil.
Hester, however, does not fall in the trap set by Mistress Hibbins. The witch-lady is
also present in the Governor's house during the second scaffold scene. When Characterization
Dimmesdale shrieks at midnight, he feels that the whole town will awake and find him
with Hester and Pearl. The narrator has made it clear, "The town did not awake; or, if
it did, the drowsy slumberers mistook the cry either for something frightful in a dream,
or for the noise of witches, whose voices, at that period, were often heard to pass over
the settlements or lonely cottages, as they rode with Satan through the air" (p. 180). It
is clear that Mistress Hibbins is not only an allegorical character but is also a product of
the folk imagination in colonial New England. There is no doubt that Mistress Hibbins
is an authentic product of the folk belief in mid-seventeenth century New England.
There is a touch of legend about Mistress Hibbins who is definitely a throwback to the
remote past. She belongs to a past that is dark, mysterious and irrational.

8.7 LET US SUM UP

Chillingworth represents science, Hester art, Dimmesdale religion and Pearl nature.

Pearl, Hester and Dimmesdale also foreshadow "Id," "Ego," and "Super-ego."

Hester and Chillingworth stand for Eros and Thanatos.

Hester, Dimmesdale, Pearl and Chillingworth are major characters and Reverend
Wilson, Governor Bellingham and Mistress Hibbins constitute minor characters.
While the major characters are multi-dimensional and undergo subtle transformations,
the minor characters are rather flat and one-dimensional. While the major characters
[Link] and interact to create a moving drama of sin and redemption, the minor characters
locate the tale in mid-seventeenth century New England.

The characters have been developed largely through allegory and symbols. They are
far from realistic.

8.8 QUESTIONS

1. "While Hester is the unrepentant sinner, Dimmesdale is the half-repentant

sinner and Chillingworth the unrepentant sinner." Is it a fair assessment of the
three major characters in The Scarlet Letter?

2. Do you agree with the view that Pearl saves Hester from the temptation of
Devil?

3. Compare and contrast Reverend Wilson with Governor Bellingham.

4. "It is remarkable that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform
with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society" (The
Scarlet Letter, p. 199). Examine the ups and downs of Hester in the light of the
statement quoted above. ,.A$

5. Write a note on Mistress Hibbins, the witch-lady.

6. Bring out the importance of the minor characters in The Scarlet Letter. How
are they related to the major characters?

7. Why does Pearl migrate to the old World? Why does Hester return to her
cottage in New England?
 . .
The Scarlet Letter 8. "Let the black flower blossom as it may!" The Scarlet Letter, p.210. Examine
the ups and downs of Roger Chillingworth in the light of the statement cited.

9. "He hath proved His mercy, most of all, in my afflictions" (The Scarlet Letter,
p. 308). Make an assessment of Dimmesdale in the light of the statement cited.

10. How are the past and the future entwined both in Hester and Dimmesdale?

11. Why is Hester compared to a non-conformist like Ann Hutchinson? Is it

appropriate to describe her as a radical woman?

8.9 SUGGESTED READING

1. , Nathaniel Hawthome,and the Romance ofthe Orient by Luther S. Luedtke.

(Indiana University Press, 1989).

2. Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter by David Levin, included in The

American Novel ed. Wallace Stegner. (New York: Basic Books, 1965).

3. Primitive Strength in Hawthorne's Women by Knstin Herzog, included in

Women, Ethnics, and Exotics. (The University of Tennessee Press, 1983).
UNIT 9 NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE AND
STRUCTURE

Structure

9.0 Objectives
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Symmetrical Design
9.3 Form and Content
9.4 Open-endedness
9.5 Let Us Sum Up
9.5 Suggested Reading

9.0 OBJECTIVES

We have already told you that the narrative in The Scarlet Letter is quite complicated.
It encompasses both action and commentary. The commentary is through a narrator,
projected in the Introduction, who examines the past from the point of view of a
nineteenth century observer. Even the supernatural and the folk beliefs of mid-
seventeenth century New England are subjected to the narrator's incisive irony and
scepticism. In this unit we will also give you an idea of the symmetrical design, form
and content and open-endedness of the text.

9.1 INTRODUCTION

The Scarlet Letter is a carefully designed work'of fiction in which the supernatural, the
marvellous, and the strange have been artistically fused. Although Hawthorne
considered himself a romancer rather than a novelist, he aiso admired the well-made
novel in which the incidents and scenes are arranged in a symmetrical order, leading to
a profound concentration and intensification of meaning. F.O. Matthiessen has rightly
observed that Hawthorne has developed in The Scarlet Letter his most coherent plot
(Norton Critical Edition, p.279). It is the result of beginning the tale with a scaffold
scene and also rounding the tale with a scaffold scene near the end. There is also a
scaffold scene right in the middle of the tale. There is no wonder that the scaffold of
the pillory comes to acquire a hallowed status for the three major characters in the
romance-novel.

While F.O. Matthiessen looks at the structure of the romance-novel in terms of the
sequencing of the scaffold scenes, with the second scaffold scene showing Dimmesdale
in Chillingworth's grihJohn C. Gerber makes a four-fold division of The Scarlet
Letter. In chapters I-VIII,.it is the community in Boston that initiates the action and the
main characters simply suffer the action. While Chillingworth dominates the action in
chapters XI-XII, Hester dominates the action in chapters XIII-XX. It is Dimmesdale,
the priest, who dominates the action in chapters XXI-XXIV. According to Gerber's
analysis, it is the community--and the state--in Boston that sets the tune and later on
Chillingworth, Hester and Dimmesdale seize the initiative. The thrust of the narrative
is to show how the community creates a challenging situation and how the major
characters respond to the challenge. The n m t i v e in The Scarlet Letter shows both the
authority of the community and the state and also the resilience and resourcefulness of
the major characters like Chillingworth, Hester and Dimmesdale. Thus, the form and
content are dexterously dovetailed in the romance-novel.
The Scarlet Letter
There is also a kind of openendedness of the text because of the use of the device of
1
I

multiple choice by the narrator who looks upon the incidents and events of mid-
seventeenth century New England from the ironic and sceptical perspective of a mid-
nineteenth century observer. You could recall the narrator's comment on the meteors
.during the second scaffold scene at midnight and also on Dimmesdale's baring of his
chest in the last scaffold scene. While the incidents are visualised in all their awe and
mystery, the narrator's voice is ironic and sceptical. It is the narrator's voice that makes
the superstitions and folk beliefs of mid-seventeenth century colonial New England
somewhat credible to a reader of our time.

9.2 SYMMETRICAL DESIGN

If the three scaffold scenes provide a kind of narrative focus on the drama of sin and
redemption in colonial New England, the scenes around the lonely cottage and the
forest liberate Hester, Dimrnesdale and Pearl from the clutches of the stem Puritanic
ethos and enable them to slowly work their way towards reunion and happiness in the
Old World. While the scaffold scenes show that a natural life of passion and joy was
just not possible in mid-seventeenth century New England, the forest scenes show that
a natural life of passion and joy was quite possible for the major characters like Hester
and Dimmesdale. While the scaffold scenes are dramatic and sombre, the forest scenes
are lyrical and romantic. It is through a subtle inter-weaving of the scaffold scenes and
the forest scenes, the dramatic and the lyrical, that the complex narrative structure of
The Scarlet Letter is created.

It has to be noted, however, that even in the romantic scenes in the forest, the sinister
shadow of Chillingworth is not entirely absent. It is in the forest that Hester tells
Dimmesdale that the old man, Chillingworth, has been her husband. It is in the forest
that Hester throws away ?le Scarlet Letter and realises her dream to be free. It is in
the forest that Pearl refuses to accept her mother till she puts on the badge of shame
and dishonour on her bosom. It is in the forest that Hester realises that she cannot undo
her past. It is in the forest that Hester puts on her cap over her lovely, flowing hair and
becomes appropriately subdued and sedate as a nun. It is true that the scaffold scenes
and the forest scenes, by and large, convey the contrary outlooks of conformity, order
and submission to divine will on the one hand, and individualism, rebellion and
assertion of human will on the other hand. The structure of The Scarlet Letter is so
artfully designed that the forest scenes and the scaffold scenes interpenetrate and create
an absorbing drama in which the sacred and the profane are inextricably fused. There
is no wonder that a radical critic like D.H. Lawrence finds in the romance-novel "a
tight [Link] to a morality which all their passion goes to destroy" (Richard
Chase, p.9). Needless to add that the morality is embedded in the scaffold scenes and
the passion in the forest scenes. One can look at the tale from the point of view of
Dirnrnesdale and one can also look at the tale from the point of view of Hester. While
for Dimmesdale their sexual relationship was a sin, for Hester it was a celebration of
the erotic impulse. It is in this sense that the structure of TIze Scarlet Letter
encompasses both the sacred and the profane, the spiritual and the carnal, the divine
and the demonic.

9.3 FORM AND CONTENT

In his perceptive essay "Form and Content in ?le Scarlet Letter" John C. Gerber has
looked at the structure of the romance-novel in a different manner. Instead of
focussing on the binary contrast between the forest scenes and the scaffold scenes,
Gerber divides the romance-novel into four distinct clusters of scenes. Each cluster has
a distinct activating agent. The critic is of the view, "Thus the community, aside from lVarrative
Technique
the main characters, is responsible for the action in the first part (chapters I-VIII); And Structure
Chillingworth for that in the second (XI-XII); Hester for that in the third (XIII-XX);
and Dimmesdale for that in the fourth XXI-XXIV)" (Norton Critical Edition, The
Scarlet Letter, p.284). The focus of the narrative in the first part is on the people in
Boston. Apart from the church and the state, the common people also react to the basic
situation unfolded. The reactions of the women in the market are very revealing. Or~e
old woman of fifty says that the authorities have been very lenient to Hester. They
should have imposed on her a more stem punishment. Another one says that Hester's
forehead should have been branded with a hot iron. When a young woman shows
sympathy towards Hester, there is another one who says that "This woman has brought
shame upoh us all and ought to die" (The Scarlet Letter, p.70).

The nature of the community and the state is sharply brought out in the first part of the
romance-novel. While the narrative creates an antipathy towards the Puritan
community in Boston, it also creates sympathy towards Hester and Pearl. The scene in
the Governor's House marks the end of this phase of the narrative. Both Dimmesdale
and Chillingworth play a crucial role in this scene. While Dimmesdale defends
Hestet's right to bring up Pearl, Chillingworth wonders why the priest advocates her
case so vehemently. From this point one can see a smooth transition to the second pai-t
of the tale in which Chillingworth plays a crucial role. In this section, Dimmesdale is
helpless and Chillingworth plays the role of the hunter. It is Dimmesdale's
helplessness against the hunter that leads to Hester's activating role in the forest scenes,
chapters XIII-XX. In the fourth section of the tale, Dimmesdale's Election Sermon and
confession are the direct outcome of his being rejuvenated by Hester in the forest. In
keeping with the nabre of the romance-novel, both Dimmesdale and Hester are also
used as the instrument of a prophecy. Thus, The Scarlet Letter becomes a kind of
dialogue between the past and the future. It encompasses both the tenible burden of
the past and the immense possibilities of the life in the future.

9.4 OPEN-ENDEDNESS

We have told you that the text of The Scarlet Letter has t'le capacity to encompass
diametrically opposite and conflicting outlooks. While for Dimmesdale the sexual
relationship between Hester and the priest was a sin, for Hester, "What we did, had a
consecration of its own'' (The Scarlet Letter, p.236). One can look at the tale as a
drama of sin and redemption. One can also look at the tale as a love story and on
Hester as an Oriental, a pagan. While the scaffold scenes are grim and sombre, the
forest scenes are, by and large, lyrical and joyous. The juxtaposition of opposite and
conflicting outlooks, the piety and the passion, creates an open-endedness in the text.
Focussing on the ambiguity of the text, Sacvan Bercovitch says, "It entails a sustained
open-ended tension between fundamentally conflicting outlooks" (The Office of The
Scarlet Letter, p.25). It is a fact that the narrator, by and large, presents the tale of mid-
seventeenth century New England from the ironic and sceptical perspective of a
nineteenth cenhiry observer. There is no wonder that in the first scaffold scene, Hester
is described by the narrator through an intensely Catholic image of Virgin Mary. The
Scarlet Letter which is a badge of sin and shame appears to Indians as a symbol of "a
personage of high dignity among her people" (The Scarlet Letter, p.296). Later on,
even to the Puritans of Boston, The Scarlet Letter ceases to be a badge of sin and
damnation and becomes holy as the cross on a nun's bosom. One can safely affirm that
the narrator's voice through irony and diverse images creates a sort of polyphony. The
community in Boston that is initially so hostile to Hester's defiant radicalism,
eventually accepts her as a holy nun.

There are gaps and silences in the text. When Dimmesdale returns from the forest, he
is a rejuvenated man. He is full of energy and a vision. In his Election Sermon he
visualises a glorious future for the Republic in New England: After he makes his
TheScarlctLetter confession, he is completely debilitated. He collapses suddenly and dies in the arms of
Hester. It is difficult to understand that a man who returns from the forest completely
rejuvenated becomes so weak after his confession. It can only be taken as a mystery of
life. Perhaps, the burst of energy after he returns from the forest could be taken as the
last flicker of a dying candle. There is no doubt that the text is open-ended and could
be interpreted differently. Hester becomes pious as a nun towards the end of the tale
yet the narrator's voice is sceptical as ever, "Earlier in life, Hester had vainly imagined
that she herself might be the destined prophetess, but had long since recognized the
impossibility that any mission of divine and mysterious truth should be confided to a
woman stained with sin, bowed down with shame, or even burdened with a life-long
sorrow" (p.3 15).

Even Hester's radicalism is subject to the narrator's irony and scepticism.

9.5 LET USSUM UP

The narrative in The Scarlet Letter encompasses both action and commentary. The
commentary is from the perspective of a mid-nineteenth century observer of the life in
colonial New England.

The symmetry of the narrative design is due to the three scaffold scenes at the
beginning, the middle and the end. They hold the scenes together. While the scaffold
scenes are grim, sombre and dramatic the forest scenes are lively, bright and lyrical.
While the scaffold scenes are charged with piety, the forest scenes are charged with
passion.

The narrative generates a kind of dialogue between the past and the future. There is
also a kind of open-endedness embedded in the text.

9.6 SUGGESTED READINGS

1. Nathaniel Hawthorne: Tradition and Revolution by Charles Swann (New

York: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

2. The Oflce of The Scarlet Letter, by Sacvan Bercovitch (Baltimore: The John
Hopkins University Press, 1991).

3. "Hawthorne in Our Time" from Beyond Culture by Lionel Trilling (Oxford

University Press, 1980).

4. "The Romances" from Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Truth of Dreams by Rita K .

Gollin (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979).

5. Hawthorne's Narrative Strategies by Michael Dunne (Jackson: The University

Press of Mississippi, 1995).

6. The American Historical Romance by George Dekker (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1987).

7. The Scarlet Letter by F.O. Matthiessen and "Form and Content in The Scarlet
Letter" by John C. Gerber included in Norton Critical Edition of The Scarlet
Letter, 1961. (Strongly recommended.)
UNIT 10 CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE

Structure

Objectives
Introduction
Nineteenth Century Response
Modem Response
Contemporary Response
Let Us Sum Up
Glossary
A Select Bibliography

10.0 OBJECTIVES

Our primary objective in this unit is to give you an idea of the shifting critical
responses to The Scarlet Letter from the nineteenth century to the contemporary time.
A classic like The Scarlet Letter has been interpreted differently in different times.

10.1 INTRODUCTION .

In nineteenth century it was Henry James, himself a distinguished American master of

fiction, who set the tone of a qualified approval of The Scarlet Letter. On the one hand,
James admired the work as an authentic portrayal of New England Puritanism in all its
specific colour. On the other hand, he was also critical of its excessive allegory and
symbolism and an absence of realism that was so triumphant all over Europe. Even
major realist novelists like Anthony Trollope and William Dean Howells admired the
tragic intensity of The Scarlet Letter but could not really understand "why Hawthorne
could lean so heavily on the fantastic, the supernatural, the symbolic, and the
allegorical and yet create a sense of truth as strong as in any realistic novel" (The
Scarlet Letter, A Reading by Nina Baym, [Link]).

It was, however, a twentieth century critic like Richard Chase who could differentiate
Nathaniel Hawthorne from the realistic writers of the novel in the nineteenth century
and describe The Scarlet Letter as a romance or a romance-novel, that is a novel with a
strong element of romance, supernatural and the marvellous. F.O. Matthiessen was
another important twentieth century critic who could discern a formal coherence and
unity in the sequencing of the three scaffold scenes in The Scarlet Letter. D.H.
Lawrence was a radical critic and thinker who could see a kind of duplicity in the
romantic tale in which the celebration of passion nearly destroys the world of piety that
the puritanic imagination of the writer has so meticulously created.

The contemporary critics like Michael Dunne, Sacvan Bercovitch, Charles Swann and
Nina Baym look at The Scarlet Letter as an open-ended text in which there is a
recurrent dialogue between the past and the future. While the Puritan utopia that was
established in mid-seventeenth century New England with so much hope is sharply
negated by the thrust of the narrative, a kind of feminist utopia is obliquely visualised
by the narrator. It is the many-sidedness of the text that forces the reader to interpret
the tale differently. There is no wonder that the ambiguity of the narrative is forcefully
brought out by the contemporary critics.
The Scarlet Letter

10.2 NINETEENTH CENTURY RESPONSE

The Scarlet Letter, according to Nina Baym in The Scarlet Letter: A Reading was
"recognized as a classic even before publication" ([Link]). The original intention of
Hawthorne had been to publish the work as a loose collection of short tales. It was
James T. Field, one of the three partners in the firm that published Hawthorne's works,
who read the manuscript and urged the hesitant author to publish it as a single work.
Field agreed with Hawthorne that the work was "not a mixture of bright and dark,
sunshine and shadow, humor and pathos as the taste of the time preferred" ([Link]). In
reality, Hawthorne's tale was a product of his brooding imagination and was "intense
and single in its stress on the dark, the somber, the gloomy" ([Link]). Herman Melville,
the author of Moby Dick also referred to Hawthorne's brooding, melancholy
imagination, "this great power of blackness is derived from that Calvinistic sense of
Innate Depravity and Original Sin, from whose visitations, in some shape or other, no
deeply thinking mind is always and wholly free" (Richard Chase, p.89).

After its publication, various critics responded to The Scurlet Letter in different ways.
While admitting that it was a most powerful but painful story, Henry Chorley drew our
attention to the fantastic and the supernatural in the tale, "The touch of the fantastic
befitting a period of society in which ignorant and excitable human creatures conceived
each other and themselves to be under the direct rule and governance of the wicked
one, is most skillfully administered. The supernatural here never becomes grossly
palpa61e--the thrill is all the deeper for its action being indefinite, and its source vague
and distant" (Critics on Hawthorne, ed. Thomas J. Rountree, pp.18-19). What Henry
Chorley suggested was that the use of the fantastic and the supernatural was done in a
most judicious and artistic manner in order to bring out the strange life in mid-
seventeenth century New England in all its primitive and specific particularity. In
other words, it was the use of the fantastic and the supernatural that made Hawthorne's
sombre romance authentic and credible. Leslie Stephen also drew attention to the use
of the marvellous in Hawthorne's romance, "In fact Hawthorne was able to tread in that
magic circle [of the marvellous] only by an exquisite refinement of taste, and by a
delicate sense of humor, which is the best preservative against all extravagance" (ibid.,
p.26).

Anthony Trollope was a major Victorian writer who wrote novels in the realistic mode.
He was, however, perceptive enough to discern that Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter
belonged to an altogether different tradition of fiction, "The creations of American
literature generally are no doubt more given to the speculative--less given to the
realistic--than are those of English literature . . . But in no American writer is to be
found the same predominance of weird imagination as in Hawthorne" (ibid., p.28). It
is this strange and brooding imagination of Hawthorne that enabled him to look at the
institutions and individuals of mid-seventeenth century New England from the
perspective of an outsider, "In this, however, there is a streak of that satire with which
Hawthorne always speaks of the peculiar institutions of his own country. The worthy
magistrates of Massachusetts are under his lash throughout the story, and so is the
virtue of her citizens and the chastity of her matrons, which can take delight in the open
shame of a woman whose sin has been discovered. Indeed, there is never a page
written by Hawthorne not tinged by satire" (ibid., p.29).

It was Henry James who made an attempt to include Hawthorne in the canon and
described him as the foremost American master of fiction, "To talk of his being
national would be to force the note and make a mistake of proportion; but he is, in spite
of the absence of the realistic quality, intensely and vividly local" (ibid., p.38). Henry
James could notice the paradox of Hawthorne's fictional art. There was an absence of
realism, that is an elaborate and comprehensive depiction of incidents of everyday life,
and yet The Scarlet Letter could present the life of colonial New England in all its
starkness and specificity. It is Hawthorne's ability to evoke the life and folk beliefs of Critical
the city of Boston in colonial New England that made him the foremost American
writer of his time. It is true that Henry James was critical of the absence of realism in
Hawthorne and he also lamented the excess of allegory and symbolism in the uilfolding
of the narrative. He also suggested, like Anthony Trollope, that, "He is to a
considerable degree ironical--this is part of his charm--part even one may say, of his
brightness; but he is neither bitter nor cynical--he is rarely even what I should call
tragical" (ibid., p.40). It is the reader's inability to perceive the irony in Hawthorne's
narrative art that makes the tale appear so morbid and gloomy. True, there is gloom
and melancholy as the plot of The Scarlet Letter is unfolded but it is, to some extent,
countered by the narrator's irony and scepticism. Even in the most intense scene, for
example, the last scaffold scene, the note of irony is unmistakable.

10.3 MODERN RESPONSE

It was in the twentieth century that The Scarlet Letter was seen as a product of a native
tradition of American fiction. Richard Chase suggested in The American Novel and Its
Tradifion that "romance, rather than the novel, was the pre-destined form of American
narrative" (p. 18). A romance was preoccupied more with the marvellous and the
supernatural but it also was faithful to what Hawthorne himself described as "the truth
of the human heart" (p. 18). F.O. Matthiessen looked at The Scarlet Letter in terms of
the structure of a tale that had a symmetry of design. The symmetry resulted from the
sequencing of the highly dramatic scenes near the scaffold of the pillory where all the
major characters were present. These scenes were located at the beginning, the middle
and the end of the tale (Norton Critical edition of The Scarlet Letter, p.279). In other
words, there was a classical unlty of design in the structure of the romance designed by
Hawthorne.

While keeping in mind the modernist temper F.O. Matthiessen focussed attention on
the structure of The Scarlet Letter and the importance of the three scaffold scenes,
Yvor Winters laid stress on the strange nature of the fiction created by Hawthorne. He
said, "In The Scarlet Letter, then, Hawthorne created a great allegory; or , if we look
first at the allegorical view of life upon which early Puritan society was based, we
might almost say that he composed a great historical novel" (Critics On Hawthorne,
p.64). A critic like Charles Fiedelson, Jr. was of the view that allegory and symbolism
were often in conflict in The Scarlet Letter. He said, "The symbolistic and the
allegorical patterns in Hawthorne's books reach quite different conclusions; or, rather,
the symbolism leads to an inconclusive luxuriance of meaning, while allegory imposes
the pat moral and the simplified character" (p.66).

We have already told you that The Scarlet Letter A is initially visualised as the badge
of a sinful woman but later on it becomes a rich symbol of a noble nun and a
compassionate woman. In other words, while allegory has a more or less definite
meaning, a symbol has a host of associations clinging to it. It was a critic like Q.D.
Leavis who could look upon Hawthorne as a poet rather than an allegorist. "And if
much of Hawthorne's writing is allegorical, it is in the manner of Shakespeare--the
Shakespeare of the tragedies . . . each of which may be regarded 'as an expanded
metaphor'--rather than in the style of Spenser, Milton or Bunyan" (Collected Essays,
Vo1.2, Cambridge University Press, 1985, p.3). The difficulty of a final interpretation
of Tlze Scarlet Letter arises from the symbolical and metaphoric density of the text.

In her celebrated essay "Hawthorne as Poet" Q.D. Leavis looks upon Hawthorne as a
leading cultural critic of his time. She says, "Hawthorne was writing a kind of mythic
prophecy about the great cultural change involved in the shift from the Old World to
the New" (Richard Chase, p.75). It has to be noted that both Hester and Dimmesdale
had eventually planned to escape to the Old World but later on they changed their plan
and stuck to the New World. D.H. Lawrence was a radical thinker who could see in
The scarlet
, T ~
Hawthorne
~ ~ ~
"a tight
~
mental allegiance to a morality which all their passion goes to
destroy" (Richard Chase, p.9). What D.H. Lawrence was suggesting is that there was a
split in Hawthorne's mind. He was both a Puritan like Dimmesdale and a pagan like
Hester. The Scarlet Letter was both a drama of sin and redemption and a celebration of
romantic love. It could be read from a sacred perspective and it could also be read
simultaneously from a secular perspective.

10.4 CONTEMPORARY RESPONSE

Rita K. Gollin has laid stress on daydreams that Hester has in the first scaffold scene,
and Dimmesdale has during the second scaffold scene at midnight. The reverie or
daydream helps them to come to terms with the consequences of their sexual
encounter. Rita K. Gollin is able to draw a line of demarcation between the function of
the daydream in the life of the two main protagonists in The Scarlet Letter, "Hester's
daydream establishes her character, and Dimmesdale's explores his dilemma"
(Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Truth of Dreams, p.141). Since Hawthorne's romance is
not only a historical romance but a psychological romance as well, the writer has made
a judicious use of dreams in order to portray the inner reality of the protagonist's mind.
Lionel Trilling draws our attention to the similarity between Hawthorne and Kafka,
"There is a very considerable degree of similarity in their preoccupations--'man's dark
odyssey in an alien world' may serve to describe Kafka's as well as Hawthorne's
"Hawthorne in Our Time" from Beyond Culture, p. 171). Lionel Trilling also points
out, "Then too, having in mind Kafka's negation of the world of actuality, I think it can
fairly be said that there is something comparable in the way that Hawthorne deals with
the world. He encourages the comparison when he tells us that he does not write
novels but 'romances,' by which he means that his fiction does not make a very
determined reference to the concrete substantialities of life, the observation and
imitation of which is the definitive business of novels" (p. 17 1). We would like you to
remember the key phrase "negation of the world of actuality." That is, at the heart of
Hawthorne's creativity in The Scarlet Letter.

Terence Martin has drawn our attention to the ambivalent nature of reality portrayed in
Hawthorne's masterpiece, "In The Scarlet Letter, however, Hawthorne sustains a vision
of the ambivalent nature of reality beyond all he had done before and in a way he was
never to do again. Hester, Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, The Scarlet Letter itself--all
signify more than one thing; all must be considered in more than one way" (Nathaniel
Hawthorne, p.117). While Terence Martin lays stress on the many-sidedness of
Hawthorne's sombre tale, Kristin Herzog lays stress on the subaltern and the marginal
groups that fill the canvas in The Scarlet Letter, "The Scarlet Letter is a story set up at
the rough edge of civilization. The dark forest is still ominously near, and the dark
dangers from foreign servants, untamed children, stubborn heretics, idle Indians, or
hell-bound witches seem to threaten the Puritan civilization's sacred new orders"
(Women, Ethnics and Exotics, p.7). If you want to appreciate the extraordinary
richness of the text, you have to keep in mind not only the Puritan ethos but also the
voice of the subaltern and the marginal groups, that is the Indians, the witches and the
Quakers and heretics. There is indeed a polyphony of voices in The Scarlet Letter.
Kristin Herzog has rightly affirmed, "American literature gained strength whenever it
drew on the power of the powerless" (p. 189).

George Dekker lays emphasis on the fact that the American Historical romance is a
gcwe that shows a preoccupation with the past. He is of the view that there are time
and'place markers in The Scarlet Letter and when we look at a character like Governor
Bellingham he appears as an anachronistic figure to the readers of our time (Zle
American Historical Romance, p. 15). Luther S. Luedtke is of the view, "The problem
of The Scarlet Letter is really the problem of how to interpret Hester" (Nathuniel
Hawthorne and the Ronzance of the Orieni, p. 165). In other words, the real
significance of The Scarlet Letter lies in our ability to look at the pagan and oriental
nature of Hester and also in our ability to look v?on her as the most radical woman of Critical Perspective
nineteenth century American fiction. Nina Baym is also of the view that Hester is the
core of the romance, not Dimmesdale.

Charles Swann is nearly of the same view, "she is genuinely subversii-ein that she
desires and prophesies a radical subversion of the patriarchal structures of the society
and, most significantly, of the religion that legitimates that patriarchy" (Nathaniel
Hawthorne, Tradition and Revolution, pp.90-91), He is also of the view that the
narrative form resists closure. It remains deliberately open--open to the future (p.94).
Charles Swann sums up his evaluation of Hawthorne's masterpiece in these words,
"The Scarlet Letter is a historical novel--one which takes past, present and future into
consideration--and is at the same time political in that the future is presented as
something that we have to struggle to make--a making based on desire corrected by our
perspectives on the past" (p.95).

Sacva~,Rercovitch lays stress on the gaps and silences in the text and we do not really
understand why Hester P~ynnereturns to Boston after Pearl's settlement in the Old
World. He is also of the view that Hawthorne's imagination has something of Bakhtin's
dialogic imagination. Bercovitch says, "Dialogics is the process by which a singular
authorial vision unfolds as a 'polyphony' of distinct voices" (The Office of The Scarlet
Letter, p.24). Michael Dunne also draws our attention towards open-endedness of the
text of The Scarlet Letter (Hawthorne's Narrative Strategies, p. 19). There is no
wonder that the reader has to read the text with utmost care and judgement.

If one were to sum up the contemporary relevance of The Scarlet Letter one could do
no better than quote Nina Baym, "Perhaps, then, the most exciting thing about The
Scarlet Letter is not that we can translate it into a core meaning, but that it is full of
meanings; though a dead work if it is not read, it comes to life for each reader in a
slightly different way, just as human beings do for each other. The elusiveness of the
text is thus the essential reason for its continuous fascination throughout the years"
(The Scarlet Letter: A Reading, [Link]).

10.5 LET US SUM UP

In the nineteenth century The Scarlet Letter was evaluated in terms of a realistic work
of fiction. As such, critics felt that there was an excess of allegory and symbolism in
the romantic tale.

It was in the twentieth century that The Scarlet Letter was evaluated in terms of its
structure based on a sequence of the three scaffold scenes that encompassed the
romantic scenes in the forest. It was also seen as a romance--novel in which allegory
and symbolism played such a crucial role.

The contemporary critics could discern a kind of dialogic imagination informing the
text. The past and the future were embedded in the text inextricably. Each reader has
to recreate the text in the light of his or her own experience, keeping in mind both the
dominant voice and also the voices of the subaltern, marginal groups in colonial New
England.

10.6 GLOSSARY
Dialogic imagination is a key concept developed by Russian critic Mikhail Bakhtin. It
enables a writer to present more or less simultaneously concepts which were opposites
and could not be reconciled in terms of reason. Novels using this technique use
multiple voices called polyphony, The Scarlet Letter brings out the opposing views
of Dimmesdale and Hester on their sexual union.
Tlze Scarlet Letter 10.7 A SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Critics on Hawthorne, ed Thomas J . Rountree (Florida: The University of

Miami Press, 1973).

2. Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Truth of Dreams by Rita K. Gollin (Baton Rouge

and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1979).

3. "Hawthorne in Our Tinie" by Lionel Trilling included in Beyond Culture

'(Oxford University Press, 1980).

4. Nathaniel Hawthbrne by Terence Martin (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1983).

5. Women, Ethnics and Exotics by Kirstin Herzog (Knoxville: The University of

Tennessee Press, 1983).

6. "Hawthorne As a Poet" included in Collected Essays Vo1.2 by Q.D. Leavis, ed.

G. Singh (Cambridge University Press, 1985).

7. The Scarlet Letter: A Reading by Nina Baym (Boston: Twayne Publishers,

1986).

8. The America11 Novel and Its Tradition by Richard Chase (Ludhiana: Kalyani
Publishers, 1957).

9. The Scarlet Letter, Norton Critical Edition, 1988, ed. Seymour Gross and
others. '