By Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) A Study Guide | ||||
. Plot Summary By Michael J. Cummings...© 2004, 2008 Introductory
Chapter
The
Story
The action in The Scarlet Letter takes place in Boston, a colony of the Massachusetts Bay Company, in the years not long after the town's settlement in 1630. Boston's residents were Puritans, members of a religious movement founded in England. Puritans were so-called because of their attempt to purify Protestantism of Roman Catholic and Anglican influence. Their government was theocratic, and they emphasized divine guidance over human reason. Their moral code was strict and rigid. For additional information, see Puritanism below. Protagonists:
Hester Prynne, the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale
Type of Work and Year of Publication The Scarlet Letter
is a novel centering on the aftermath of an adulterous encounter in Puritan
Boston between a respected clergyman and a beautiful young woman who bears
his child. The novel focuses primarily on how public condemnation and scorn
affect the partners in sin—Hester Prynne, who refuses under pressure to
name her paramour, and the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale, who lacks the courage
to identify himself as the father of Hester's child until guilt destroys
his resistance. The novel also considers the vengeful reaction of Hester's
husband and the rigid moral outlook of the Puritans, who force Hester to
wear a scarlet letter identifying her as an adulteress. The author does
not excuse the sin, but he sympathizes with the sinners. The novel was
published in Boston in March 1850 by Ticknor, Reed & Fields.
Sin, Rejection, and Redemption Hester must wear a red badge of shame, identifying her an adulteress and making her an outcast in her community. On the pillory, she endures the glare of scornful eyes and thereafter lives on the outskirts of town with her child, Pearl. However, though Hester has committed a grave sin, she redeems herself by acknowledging her iniquity, accepting her punishment, and living an exemplary life. In a way, the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale is also a pariah in that he lives as a coward outside the favor of heaven and of his own conscience. However, at the end of the novel, he too redeems himself by exposing his sin. Self-Respect Hester proudly carries on as she wears the scarlet letter, deciding to live according to the high standards she sets for herself rather than the low standards others have set for her. She takes responsibility for herself and establishes her own identity, winning the admiration of the townspeople in the end. Good From Evil Hester's adultery, a heinous crime in Puritan Boston, results in the birth of her daughter, Pearl. Though unruly and wild when growing up, Pearl is a blessing—a little gem that gives off a bright light at a time of darkness. Revenge Roger Chillingworth is monomaniacal and unremitting in his quest for revenge against the man who impregnated Hester. The narrator writes of him, "Calm, gentle, passionless, as he appeared, there was yet, we fear, a quiet depth of malice, hitherto latent, but active now, in this unfortunate old man, which led him to imagine a more intimate revenge than any mortal had ever wreaked upon an enemy" (Chapter XI, "The Interior of the Heart"). Rigidity and Legalism The Puritan officials of Boston judge wrongdoers with rigid adherence to the letter of their moral code. The narrator this clear in Chapter III, "The Recognition," when he describes the pillory scene and the Puritan leaders looking on: It has already been noticed that directly over the platform on which Hester Prynne stood was a kind of balcony, or open gallery, appended to the meeting-house. It was the place whence proclamations were wont to be made, amidst an assemblage of the magistracy, with all the ceremonial that attended such public observances in those days. Here, to witness the scene which we are describing, sat Governor Bellingham himself with four sergeants about his chair, bearing halberds, as a guard of honour. He wore a dark feather in his hat, a border of embroidery on his cloak, and a black velvet tunic beneath—a gentleman advanced in years, with a hard experience written in his wrinkles. He was not ill-fitted to be the head and representative of a community which owed its origin and progress, and its present state of development, not to the impulses of youth, but to the stern and tempered energies of manhood and the sombre sagacity of age; accomplishing so much, precisely because it imagined and hoped so little. The other eminent characters by whom the chief ruler was surrounded were distinguished by a dignity of mien, belonging to a period when the forms of authority were felt to possess the sacredness of Divine institutions. They were, doubtless, good men, just and sage. But, out of the whole human family, it would not have been easy to select the same number of wise and virtuous persons, who should be less capable of sitting in judgment on an erring woman's heart, and disentangling its mesh of good and evil, than the sages of rigid aspect towards whom Hester Prynne now turned her face. She seemed conscious, indeed, that whatever sympathy she might expect lay in the larger and warmer heart of the multitude; for, as she lifted her eyes towards the balcony, the unhappy woman grew pale, and trembled.Hypocrisy and Cowardice Dimmesdale continues to act as a bulwark against sin in the Puritan community even though he has committed a great sin that he lacks the courage to admit in public. The Rational vs the Supernatural Although otherworldly forces seem to be at work in Puritan Boston, Hawthorne leaves room for rational explanations of them. For example, in regard to the scarlet letter that appears on the chest of Dimmesdale, the narrator writes in Chapter XXIV ("Conclusion'), Most of the spectators testified to having seen, on the breast of the unhappy minister, a SCARLET LETTER—the very semblance of that worn by Hester Prynne—imprinted in the flesh. As regarded its origin there were various explanations, all of which must necessarily have been conjectural. Some affirmed that the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, on the very day when Hester Prynne first wore her ignominious badge, had begun a course of penance—which he afterwards, in so many futile methods, followed out—by inflicting a hideous torture on himself. Others contended that the stigma had not been produced until a long time subsequent, when old Roger Chillingworth, being a potent necromancer, had caused it to appear, through the agency of magic and poisonous drugs. Others, again and those best able to appreciate the minister's peculiar sensibility, and the wonderful operation of his spirit upon the body—whispered their belief, that the awful symbol was the effect of the ever-active tooth of remorse, gnawing from the inmost heart outwardly, and at last manifesting Heaven's dreadful judgment by the visible presence of the letter. The climax occurs when the
Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale stands on the pillory, confesses his sin, reveals
the scarlet letter on his chest, and dies.
Symbols The Letter A: The
scarlet letter obviously symbolizes a grave sin, adultery, that jeopardizes
the soul of Hester Prynne. To Hester herself, the letter also represents
the searing heat of the disapproving Puritan eyes that look upon it. The
narrator underscores the latter interpretation in the introductory chapter,
"The Custom-House," after he discovers the ragged piece of cloth emblazoned
with the A: "I happened to place it on my breast. It seemed to me—the reader
may smile, but must not doubt my word—it seemed to me, then, that I experienced
a sensation not altogether physical, yet almost so, as of burning heat,
and as if the letter were not of red cloth, but red-hot iron. I shuddered,
and involuntarily let it fall upon the floor." In Chapter V, "Hester at
Her Needle," the narrator writes, "When strangers looked curiously at the
scarlet letter and none ever failed to do so—they branded it afresh in
Hester's soul. . . . The letter also symbolizes the physical result of
her adultery, Pearl. In fact, Hester tells Rev. Wilson, "See ye not, she
is the scarlet letter . . . ? To the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale, the letter
represents not only the sin he committed but also its aftermath
of cowardice and corrosive guilt. Each time he sees it, a part of him dies.
Unlike Dimmesdale, Hester acknowledges her sin and bravely carries on with
her life as an outcast. In other words, she admits her guilt
and suffers agony and
abandonment, but then
and adapts.
On one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him.The rosebush may also symbolize the mixture of goodness (the roses) and evil (the thorns) in and around each human being. Dimmesdale: The minister's name represents the state of his existence: dim, gloomy, dark. Pillory: The pillory represents the rigidity of the Puritan religious code that claps sinners, regardless of mitigating circumstances or other considerations, into a humiliating posture of penitence. Pearl: Hester's daughter Pearl symbolizes the shining goodness that can result from a sinful act. She also symbolizes the burden and shame sinfulness imposes on the sinner. Finally, because she is an unruly child, she symbolizes the wild passion that led to the adulterous encounter. The narrator calls attention to this unruliness in Pearl in the following passage: If the children gathered about her, as they sometimes did, Pearl would grow positively terrible in her puny wrath, snatching up stones to fling at them, with shrill, incoherent exclamations, that made her mother tremble, because they had so much the sound of a witch's anathemas in some unknown tongue.Clothes of Roger Chillingworth: When Roger Chillingworth appears in Boston with an Indian, he is "clad in a strange disarray of civilized and savage costume (Chapter III, "The Recognition"). His apparel seems to symbolize two sides of Chillingworth. One is the enlightened Chillingworth who can allude to Greek mythology and figures in history and who has knowledge of medicinal remedies. The narrator says of him, He was now known to be a man of skill; it was observed that he gathered herbs and the blossoms of wild-flowers, and dug up roots and plucked off twigs from the forest-trees like one acquainted with hidden virtues in what was valueless to common eyes. He was heard to speak of Sir Kenelm Digby and other famous men—whose scientific attainments were esteemed hardly less than supernatural—as having been his correspondents or associates. (Chapter IX, "The Leech")The other Chillingworth is the barbarous one who seeks revenge with diabolical persistence. Blackness, Darkness: Blackness and darkness are important images in the novel, symbolizing the sternness and rigidity of the Puritans, the somberness of life in colonial Boston, and sinfulness and secrecy. Following are a several examples of phrases and sentences using this imagery: 1. Stern and black-browed Puritans (introductory chapter, "The Custom-House")Primordial Symbolism Psychologist Carl Gustav
Jung (1875-1961) theorized that all humans share certain inborn impulses
and concepts residing in the mind at the unconscious level. For example,
all humans react to sunlight in the same way, perceiving it as a symbol
of joy, happiness, glory, optimism, truth, a new beginning, or God.
Likewise, humans associate dark forests with danger, obscurity, confusion,
secrecy, and the unknown or with evil, sin, and death. Jung termed external
stimuli (such as dark forests) primordial symbols—primordial meaning
existing
from the beginning of time. In The Scarlet Letter, sunlight,
darkness, and the forest are primordial symbols. The sunlight usually represents
truth or exposure. The darkness—including the darkness of the forest—usually
represents secrecy, somberness, or evil. Examples of other primordial symbols
you may encounter in your study of literature include the following: a
river (the passage of time), overcast sky (gloom, depression, despair),
lamb (innocence, vulnerability), violent storm (wrath, inconsolable grief),
flowers (delicacy, perishability, beauty), mountain (obstacle, challenge),
eagle (majesty, freedom) the color white (purity, innocence), the color
red (anger, passion, war, blood), the color green (new life, hope), water
(birth or rebirth), autumn (old age), winter (death).
The Scarlet Letter is one of the finest novels in American literature. Its structure is tight, with all of the events interrelated and skillfully integrated into a logical sequence. The imagery is vivid, and the writing is consistent in its evocation of the somber reality of Puritan Boston. Examples of passages with memorable imagery and effective allusions are the following: Had there been a Papist [Roman Catholic] among the crowd of Puritans, he might have seen in this beautiful woman, so picturesque in her attire and mien, and with the infant at her bosom, an object to remind him of the image of Divine Maternity, which so many illustrious painters have vied with one another to represent; something which should remind him, indeed, but only by contrast, of that sacred image of sinless motherhood, whose infant was to redeem the world. Here, there was the taint of deepest sin in the most sacred quality of human life, working such effect, that the world was only the darker for this woman's beauty, and the more lost for the infant that she had borne. (Chapter II, "The Market-Place")Author Brenda Wineapple describes Hawthorne’s writing in The Scarlet Letter this way: “Though its prose is slightly formal, its phrasings aphoristic and rhythmically exact, the story’s smoldering emotions are so volatile that Hawthorne regulates them in the book’s shapely design. The tale of Hester Prynne unfolds in twenty-four chapters, with the first, twelfth, and the last symmetrically organized around the scaffold on which Hester appears to suffer for the crime of adultery. Similarly, the plot of the story shuttles between interior and exterior locations—one chapter, for example, is called “The Interior of the Heart"—suggesting how the private and public worlds are so often at tragic variance."—Wineapple, Brenda. Hawthorne, a Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003 (Page 212). . .......Puritanism
began in England in the late Sixteenth Century when Protestant reformers
attempted to purge the Church of England (or Anglican Church) of the elaborate
ceremonies, rituals, and hierarchical structure it retained from the Roman
Catholic Church after King Henry VIII established Anglicanism by acts of
Parliament between 1529 and 1536. The Act of Supremacy, approved in 1534,
officially established the Church of England as an independent Protestant
entity separate from the Roman Catholic Church. However, the Church of
England retained Catholic rituals such as the mass and prelates such as
bishops. For the Puritans, the pure word of the Bible, presented in part
through inspired preaching, took precedence over rituals while direct revelation
from the Holy Spirit superseded reason. After Queen Elizabeth I died in
1603, the Puritans petitioned the new monarch, King James I, to adopt their
reforms. In January 1604 at a special conference at Hampton Court Palace
near London, the king rejected most of the proposed Puritan reforms but
he did grant a Puritan request for a new translation of the Bible, which
resulted in publication of the King James Version in 1611.
Study Questions and Essay Topics 1. Which character in the
novel do you most admire? Which character do you least admire? Explain
your answers.
The last words of the novel—ON
A FIELD, SABLE, THE LETTER A GULES—describe
a coat of arms on a shield. The sable field is a black background;
gules
means red. Thus on this shield, the coat of arms is a red letter (letter
gules) appearing against a black background (sable field).
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