53 APPENDIX
The Biography of Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on july 4, 1804, in Salem, Massacutetts, a
descendant of a long line of Puritan ancestor including John Hawthorne, a
presiding magistrate in the Salem witch trials, Hawthorne added the “w” to his
last name while in his early 20s. also among his ancestors was William Harthorne,
one of the first Puritan settlers who arrived in New England in 1630.
After his father, a ship captain, died of yellow fever at sea when Nathaniel
was only four, his mother become overly protected and pushed him toward
relative isolated pursuits. Hawthorne’s childhood left him shy and bookish, which
molded his life as a writer.
Hawthorne turned in to writing after his graduation from Bowdoin
College. His first novel, Fanshawe was an successful and Hawthorne himself
letters disavoid the work as amateurist. He wrote several successful short stories,
however including “My Kinsman, Major Molineux”, “Roger Malvin’s Burial”,
and “Young Goodman Brown” – arguably Hawthorne’s most famous short story.
Despite the critical acclaim it has receive since, Hawthorne twice rejected
54
He insufficient earning has a writer forced Hawthorne to enter a career as
a Boston Custom House measurer 1839. After three years Hawthorne was
dismissed from his job with the Salem Custom House. By 1842, his writing finally
provided him income sufficient enough to marry Shopia Peabody and move to
The Manse in Concord, which was the center of the Transcendental movement.
The couple had three children. Una, the eldest, was born in 1844 and
named in reference to Sir Edmund Spencer’s epicpoem The Faerie Queene . Their
second child, a son they called Julian, was born in 1846. The third chil, Rose, was
born in 1851 and referred to by Hawthorne as his “autumnal flower”.
Hawthorne returned to Salem in 1845, where he was appointed surveyor of
the Boston Custom House by President James Polk, but he was dismissed from
this post when Zachary Taylor became President. Hawthorne then devoted himself
to his most famous novel, The Scarlet Latter. He jealously worked on the novel
with a determination he had not known before. His intense suffering infused the
novel with imaginative energy , leading him to describe it as a “hell-fired story”.
On February 3, 1850, Hawthorne read the final pages to his wife. He wrote, “It
broke her heart and sent her to bed with a grievous headache, which I look as a
triumphant success.”
The Scarlet Letter was a immediate success that allowed Hawthorne to
devote himself completely to his writing. He left Salem for a temporary residence.
In Lenox, a small town the Berkshires, where he completed the romance The
House of the Seven Gables in 1851. While in Lenox, Hawthorne met with Herman
55
later became strained. Hawthorne’s subsequent novels, The Blithedale Romance –
based on his year of communal living at Brook Farm – and the romance The
Marble Faun were both considered disappointments. Hawthorne supported
himself through another political post, the consulship in Liverpool, which he was
given for writing a campaign biography for Franklin Pierce.
In 1852, after the publication of The Blithedale Romance, Hawthorne
returned to Concord and bought a house called Hillside, owned by Louisa May
Alcott’s family. Hawthorne renamed in The Wayside. He went on to travel and
live in France and Italy for a spell, but he returned to The Wayside just before the
Civil War began. He published an article entitled “Chiefly About War Matters” for
the Atlantic Monthly just before he fell ill, detailing the account of his travels to
the Virginia battlefields of Manassas and Harpers Ferry and White House.
Hawthorne passed away on May 19, 1864, Plymouth, New Hampshire,
after a long period of illness during which he suffered severe bouts of dementia.
By this time, he had completed several chapters of what was to be a romance, and
this work was published posthumously as “The Dolliver Romance”.
Hawthorne was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord,
Massachusetts. Transcendentalist poet and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, a
neighbor of Hawthorne’s, described that life of his acquaintance as one of “painful
solitude.”
Hawthorne had maintained a strong friendship with Franklin Pierce, but
otherwise he had few intimates and little engagement with any sort of social life.
56
remain notable for their treatment of New England Puritanism, personal guil, and
the complexities of moral choices. Though his life, he remains lauded as one of
52
REFERENCES
Peck, John and Martin Coyle. 1986. Literary Terms and Criticism. Great Britain : Camelot Press Ltd .
Fananie, Zainuddin . 2001 .Telaah Sastra .Surakarta : Muhammadiyah University Press.
Eagleton, Terry. 1983. Literary Theory. Hongkong : SNP Best-set Type setter Ltd.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. 1992. The Scarlet Letter. London : Ticknor, Reed & Fields.
Whitla, William. 2010. The English Hanbook ; A Guide to Literary Studies. Willey-Blackweel.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. 2008. The Scarlet Letter. The Pennsylvania State University.
5
3.
REVIEWS OF HESTER PRYNNE LIFE
In conducting a research, theories are needed in avoiding ministerpretation
to analyze the problems in this study. The writer write a review of Hester Prynne
life at the first of the second chapter in this paper.
Hester Prynne, protagonist of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s masterwork The
Scarlet Letter, is among the first and most important female protagonists in
American literature. She’s the embodiment of deep contradictions: bad and
beautiful, holy and and sinful, conventional and radical.
At first glance, Hester may seem more victim than heroine. The adultery
she committed when her husband was thought lost at sea leads Boston’s Puritan
authorities to brand her with the bright red “A” of the title. She’s forced to stand
in shame before the mass of Puritan citizens, enduring their stares, their whispers
and their contempt. In the self-righteous eyes of the townspeople, she is the
ultimate example of sin. Hester Prynne is also the object of a cruel and shadowy
love triangle between herself, her minister lover, Arthur Dimmesdale, and her
husband, now called Roger Chillingworth.
“The drama is really the drama of patriarchial society’s need to control
female sexuality in the most basic way,” says Evan Carton, literature professor at
the University of Texas, Austin. “This classic male anxiety : How do you know
for sure whether your baby is yours? If you don’t know if your woman and your
6
social order, no control over anything – and that’s the deep radical challenge that
Hester presents to this society.”
America was in the midst of growing feminist movement when Hawthorne
wrote The Scarlet Letter. Professor Jamie Barlowe, of the University of Toledo,
says that Hawthorne – living in Salem, Boston and later Concord, Mass. – “was
very, very aware of the growing feminist insurgence. Women’s rights were a part
of cultural conversation.
The first women’s-rights convention at Seneca Falls, N.Y., was held in
1848, two years before The Scarlett Letter was published. Strong women like
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were gathering other women to
talk about science, politics and ideas. For the first time in America, women were
challenging the firmly established male patriarchy. Hester Prynne can be seen as
Hawthorne’s literary contemplation of what happens when women break cultural
bounds and personal power.
3.1 A Survivor, and Strong
In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne may seem a victim and an object, but
she also shows great personal strength. She survives.
Hester builds a small business doing embroidery-work. She raises her daughter,
Pearl, by herself, fighting to keep her when the authorities try try to take the child
away. Over the years, Hester gains the respect of other women in Boston,
7
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist John Updike says the book still makes him
cry. He describe a scene where Hester meets Dimmesdale in the forest and
implores him to run away with her. First, she throws away the scarlet letter,”
Updike recalls. “Then, quote, ‘By another impulse, she took off the formal cap
that her hair; and down it fell upon her shoulders, dark and rich, with once a
shadow ad light in its abundance and imparting the charm of softness to her
features.’
“How wonderful, the power of the hair,” Updike says.
Updike wrote three novels of his own based on the characters of The
Scarlet Letter; they’re often called Updike’s Hawthorne Trilogy. The final one,
titled simply S., is the story of a 20th century version of Hester Prynne. Updike
says Hester is “fun to write about, because she was so irrepressible.”
“She’s such an arresting and slightly ambiguous figure,” he says. “She’s a
funny mix of a truly liberated, defiantly sexual woman, but in the end a woman
who accepts the penance that society imposed on her. And I don’t know, I
suppose she’s an epitome of female predicaments.” Professor Barlowe says that
how a reader feels about Hester Prynne “will have something to do with how that
individual person sees woman functioning, or ways they should function.”
3.2 A Mirror Turned on Social Norms
So, just as Hester is a vessel for the feelings and actions of the men who
surround her in the book, she’s also a mirror, revealing the true feelings of the
8
At the end of her life, Hester Prynne chooses to live I Boston and to
continue to wear that red letter “A” on her breast, long after she has fulfilled her
punishment.
“Never afterwards did it quit her bosom,” Hawthorne writes. “But, in the
lapse of the toilsome, thoughtful, and self-devoted years that made up Hester’s
life, the scarlet letter ceased to be stigma which attracted the world’s scorn and
bitterness, and became a type of something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon
with awe, yet with reverence too.”
It becomes a symbol, in other words, that throughout her life she wore her
sin bravely, out in the open, on her chest.
All the contradictions of Hester Prynne – guilt and honesty, sin and
holiness, sex and chastity – make her an enduring heroine of American literature.
She is flawed, complex, and above all fertile.
The idea of Hester Prynne, the good woman gone bad, is cultural meme
that recurs again – perhaps because we as a culture are still trying to figure out
who Hester really is and how we feel about her. In John Updike’s words, “She is a
mythic version of every woman’s attempt to integrate her sexuality with social
9
4.
THE INTERPRETATION OF “A” IN THE SCARLET
LETTER
This study focuses its attention in “A” symbol in The Scarlet Letter. It was
conducted by using descriptive method. According to Best (1982 : 106)
descriptive method is non-experimental, since it deals with the relationship
between non-mainpilated variables in a nature.
This research is done in two ways they are Library and field study. Library
research is applied to get information in solving a problem, to fulfill an academic
assignment or for our own purpose. This method is used to find a certain data by
collecting some books that are relevant to topic discussed. In addition, for the field
study the writer will give questionnaires to the respondents and get some data by
getting involved in using book and internet.
4.1 The Custom House : Introductory to The Scarlet Letter Summary
Hawthorne begins The Scarlet Letter with a long introductory essay that
generally functions as preface but, more specially, accomplishes four significant
goals: outlines autobiographical information about the author, describes the
conflict between the artistic impulse and the commercial environment, defines the
romance novel (which Hawthorne is credited with refining and mastering), and
10
Salem Custom House the faded scarlet A and the parchment sheets contained the
historical manuscript on which the novel is based.
Analysis
The preface sets the atmosphere of the story and connects the presents
with the past. Hawthorne description of the Salem port of the 1800s is directly
related to the past history of the area. The Puritans who first settled in
Massachusetts in the 1600s founded a colony that concentrate on.
God’s teaching and their mission to live by His word. But this philosophy
was eventually swallowed up by the commercialism and financial interest of the
1700s. The clashing of the past and present is further explored in the character of
the old General. The old General’s heroic qualities include a distinguished name,
perseverance, integrity, compassion and moral inner strength. He is “the soul and
spirit of New England hardihood.” Now put out pasture, he sometimes presides
over the Custom House run by corrupt public servants, who skip work to sleep,
allow or overlook smuggling, and are supervised by an inspector with “no power
of thought, nor depth of feeling, no troublesome sensibilities,” who is honest
enough but without a spiritual compass.
A further connection to the past is his discussion of his ancestors.
Hawthorne has ambivalent feelings about their role in his klife. In his
autobiographical sketch, Hawthorne describes his ancestors as “dim and dusky,”
“grave, bearded, sable-cloacked, and steel crowned,” “bitter persecutors” whose
11
Hawthorne’s disdain for the stern morality and rigidity of the Puritans, and he
imagines his predecessors’ disdainful view of him: unsuccessful in their eyes,
worthless and disgraceful. “A writer of story books!” but even as he disagrees
with his ancestor’s viewpoint, he also feels an instinctual connection to them and,
more importantly, a “sense of place” in Salem. Their blood remains in his veins,
but their intolerance and lack of humanity becomes the subject of his novel.
This ambivalence in his thoughts about his ancestors and his hometown is
paralleled by his struggle with the need to exercise his artistic talent and the
reality of supporting a family. Hawthorne wrote to his sister Elizabeth in 1820,
“No man can be a Poet and a Bookkeeper at the same time.” Hawthorne’s
references to Emerson, Thoreau, Channing, and other romantic author’s describe
an intellectual life he longs to regain. His job at Custom House stifles his
creativity ad imagination. The Scarlet letter touches his soul (he actually feels heat
radiate from it), ad while “the reader may smile,” Hawthorne feels a tugging that
haunts him like his ancestors.
In this preface, Hawthorne also shares his definition of the romance novel
as he attempts to imagine Hester Prynne’s story beyond Pue’s manuscript account.
A careful reading of this section explains the author’s use of light (chiaroscuro)
and setting as romance techniques in developing his themes. Hawthorne explains
that, in a certain light and time and place, objects “… seem to lose their actual
substance, and become things of intellect.” He asserts that, at the right time with
the right scene before him, the romance writer ca “dream strange things and make
12
Finally, the preface serves as means of authenticating the novel by
explaining that Hawthorne had discovered in the Salem Custom House the faded
scarlet A and the parchment sheets that contained the historical manuscript on
which the novel is based. However, we know of no serious, scholarly work that
suggests Hawthorne was ever actually in possession of the letter of the
manuscript. This technique, typical of narrative conventions of his time, serves as
a way of giving his story an air of historic truth. Furthermore, Hawthorne, in his
story, “Endicott and the Red Cross,” published nine years before he took his
Custom House position, described the incident of a woman who, like Hester
Prynne, was forced to wear a letter A on her breast.
4.1.1 Hester and Her Needle Summary
Her term of improvement over, Hester is now free to go anywhere in the
world yet she does not leave Boston; instead, she chooses to move into a small,
seaside cottage on the outskirts of town. She supports herself and Pearl through
her skills as a seamstress. Her work is in great demand for clothing worn at
official ceremonies and among the fashionable women the town – for every
occasion except a wedding.
Despite the popularity of her sewing, however, Hester is social outcast. The target
of vicious abuse the community, she endures the abuse patiently. Ironically, she
begins to believe that the scarlet A allows her to sense sinful and immoral feelings
13 Analysis
Chapter 5 serves the purpose of filling in background information about
Hester and Pearl and beginning the development of Hester and the Scarlet as two
of the major symbols of the romance. By positioning Hester’s cottage between the
town and wilderness, physically isolated from the community, the author confirms
and builds the image of her that was portrayed in the first scaffold scene – that of
an outcast of society being punished for her sin/crime and as a product of nature.
Society views her “… as the figure, the body, the reality of sin.”
Despite Hester’s apparent humility and her refusal to strike back at the
community, she resents and inwardly rebels against the viciousness of her Puritan
persecutors. She becomes a living symbol of sin to the townspeople, who view her
not as an individual but as the embodiment of evil in the world. Twice in this
chapter, Hawthorne alludes to the community’s using Hester’s errant behavior as
a testament of immorality. For moralists, she is often the subject of the preacher’s
sermon.
Banished by society to live her life forever as an outcast, Hester’s skill in
needlework is nevertheless in great demand. Hawthorne derisively condemns
Boston’s Puritan citizens throughout the novel, but here in Chapter 5 his criticism
is especially sharp. The very community members most appalled by Hester’s past
conduct favor her sewing skills, but they deem their demand for her work almost
as charity, as if they are doing her the favor in having her sew garments for them.
14
refusal to allow Hester to sew garments for weddings, as if she would contaminate
the sacredness of marriage were she to do so.
The irony between the townspeople’s condemnation of Hester and her
providing garments for them in even greater when we learn that Hester is not
overly proud of her work. Although Hester has what Hawthorne terms “a taste for
the gorgeously beautiful,” she rejects ornamentation as a sin. We must remember
that Hester, no matter how much she inwardly rebels against the hypocrisy of
Puritan society, still conforms to the moral strictness associated with Puritanism.
The theme of public and private disclosure that so greatly marked
Dimmesdale’s speech in Chapter 3 is again present in this chapter, but this time
the scarlet A on Hester’s clothing is associated with the theme. Whereas publicly
the letter inflicts scorn on Hester, it also endows her with a new, private sense of
others own sinful thoughts and behavior; she gains a “sympathetic knowledge of
the hidden sin in other hearts.” The Scarlet letter – what it represents – separates
Hester from society, but it enables her to recognize sin in the very same society
that banishes her. Hawthorne uses this dichotomy to point out hypocritical nature
of Puritanism: Those who condemn Hester’s are themselves condemnable
according to their own set of values. Similar to Hester’s becoming a living
symbol of immoral behavior, the scarlet A becomes and object with a life
seemingly its own: Whenever Hester is in the presence of a person who is making
a personal sin, “the red infamy upon her breast would give a sympathetic throb.”
In the Custom House preface, Howthorne describes his penchant for mixing
15
physical term, this emblem is only so much fabric and thread. But Howthorne’s
use of the symbol at various points in the story adds a dimension of fantasy to
factual description. In the Custom House, Hawthorne claims to have “experienced
a sensation . . . as if the letter were not of red cloth, but red-hot iron.” Similarly,
here in Chapter 5, he suggests that, at least according to some towns people, the
scarlet A literally sears Hester’s chest and that, “red-hot with infernal fire,” it
glows in the dark at night. These accounts create doubt in the reader’s mind
regarding the true nature and fuction of the symbol. Hawthornes’ imbuing the
scarlet A with characteristics that are both fantastical and symbolic is evident
throughout the novel – particularly when Chillingworth sees a scarlet A
emblazoned on Dimmesdale’s bare chest and when townspeople see a giant
scarlet A in the sky – and is a technique common to the romance genre
4.1.2 Another View of Hester Summary
Following her conversation with Dimmesdale on the scaffold , Hesters is
shocked by the changes in him. While he seems to have retained his intelligence,
his nerve is good. He is morally weak, and she ca only conclude that “a terrible
machinery brought to bear, and was still operating on mister Dimmesdale’s
well-being and repose.” Hester decides she has an obligation to help this man.
Four years have gone by, and Hester’s position in the community has
changed: she has been given credit for bearing her shame with courage, and her
16
become more humane and praised because of his suffering, Hester’s position has
risen because of her charity. Her scarlet A now stands for “Able”. But this has
come with a price: no friends, no passion, no love or affection.
True adversity, Hester has forget a new place for herself on the edge of
Puritan society. In contrast, Dimmesdale’s mental balance has suffered greatly.
Now she must help the man who seems to be on “the verge of lunacy”. In fact, she
feels ithas been an error on her part not to step forward before. Si she resolves to
speak with her husband.
Analysis
It is important to note the chapter title: “Another View of Hester.” This
chapter is a discussion of Hester’s personality, character, and intellect as well as a
summary and an update of her past four years (Pearl is now seven). This “other
view” refers to both the changing perception of the Puritan community toward
Hester and the narrator’s telling description of her.
Hester’s position in the eyes of the Puritan community has changed
considerably due to her grace and her charity. She has borne her shame and
sorrow with great dignity. The town describes her now as one “who is so kind to
the poor, helpful to the sick so comfortable to the afflicted!” Now the Scarlet
Letter has magical qualities, and myths are growing around its power.
But this new definition of Hester Prynne is not without a price. Her
luxuriant beauty and the warmth, charm, the passion that she wants showed have
17
passion in her life. Her humanity has been stripped from her by the severity of her
punishment And her charity and benevolence seem mechanical. No one crosses
the threshold of her cottage in friendship. To add to this burden her daughter
seems to have been “born amiss”.
Another view of Hester identified in the chapter title is that of the narrator,
not the Puritan community. Her life, having “changed from passion and feeling to
thought…see assumed a freedom of speculation…which [the Puritans], had they
known it would have held to be a deadlier crime then that stigmatized by the
Scarlet Letter.” The narator speculates that, had it not been for her responsibilities
to little Pearl, Hester “might have come down to us in history, hand in hand with
Anne Hutchinson, as the founders of religious sect” and quite probably would
have been executed for “attempting to undermine the foundation of the Puritan
establishment.” Tellingly, the narrator remarks, “The Scarlett Letter had not done
its office.”
This chapter also describes Hester’s motive in speaking with
Chillingworth, a conversation that will take place in the next chapter having seen
the terrible toll Chillingworth is taking on Dimmesdale, she decides that she is
partly to blame. Now she must do something to redeem her error in not identifying
18 4.2 Hester and Physician
Summary
While walking on the peninsula with Pearl, Hester sees Chillingworth and
sends Pearl down to play by the seashore while she speaks with her husband. She
is surprised at the changes in Chillingworth just as she was shocked by
Dimmesdale’s spiritual ailment and aging. Realizing Chillingworth is in the grip
of the devil, she feels responsible for “another ruin”. According to Hester, her
promise has caused Chillingworth to do evil minister, but Chillingworth denies his
role at first. Then he admits that, although he used to be kind gentle and
affectionate, he now allows evil to used him the physician believes it his fate to
become a friend. He releases Hester from her promise of silence.
Analysis
During this long seven years Chillingworth has become obsessed with
revenge and this deadly sin has changes him considerably. He pities Hester
because he feels she is not really sinful, and any breach with God’s law has been
paid many times over by her wearing of the scarlet letter. He further feels that if
she had “met earlier with a better love than mine this evil had not been”. On the
other hand, he also says it is fate to changes from a “kind, true, just” man to a
friend who does the devil’s work.
By placing these to characters together in this chapter without her Pearl,
19
the old scholar that makes us pity him despite his treatment of Dimmesdale, and
we feel that of them all, Hester has paid her dues and the serves our respect
4.2.1 The Governoors’s Hall Summary
Hesters has herd that certain ionfluential citizen feel Pearl should be taken
from her alarmed, Hester set out with Pearl for Governoor Bellingham’s mansion
to deliver gloves that he ordered. More important however Hester plans to plead
for the right to keep her daughter.
Pearl has been especially dressed for the occasion in an elaborate scarlet dress,
embroidered with gold thread. On the way to the Governoor’s mansion, Hester
and Pearl are accosted by a group Puritan children when they taunt Pearl, she
shows a temper as fiery as her appearance driving the children off with her
screams and threats.
Reaching the Governoor’s large, elaborate, stucco frame dueling Hester
and Pearl are admitted by a bondsmen. Inside a heavy oak hall, Hester and Pearl
stand before Governoor Bellingham’s suit of armor. In its curved, polished
breastplate, both Hester’s scarlet A and Pearl are distorted. Meanwhile, as Hester
contemplates her daughter’s changed image , a small group of man approaches.
Pearl become quite out of curriousity about the man who are coming down the
20 Analysis
In Additon to preparing the way for dramatic and crucial interview to
come between Hester and the Governor, this chapter this plays Hawthorne’s
imagination in developing Pearl’s strange nature and the scarlet symbol. Like a
symphony with variation, the assorted scarlet references in this chapter add to the
reachness of the letter’s meaning.
Hester comes to Governor Bellingham’s house because she has heard that
people-particularly the Governor-want to deprive her of Pearl. Once again
Hawthorne shows his disdain for the smug attitudes of the Puritans. They reason
that their “christian interest” requires them to remove Pearl – the product of sin –
from her mother’s influence. If Peark is “capable of moral and religious growth”
and perhaps even salvation, they see it as their “duty” to move her to a more
trustworthy Christian influence. Hawthorne cides these self-righteous Puritan and
likes their concern to a dispute in Puritan courts involving the right property in a
pig.
Hawthorne also design this chapter to advace the reader’s knowledge of
Pearl. Both in appearance ad actions. She is constant motion with “ reach and
luxurian beauty”. Her actions are fuill of fire and passion. When the Puritan fling
mud at Pearl she scares them off. She is an “angel of judgement”, and “Infant”
pestilence wants her fire is pent, she returns quietly to her mother and smiles. Her
action seem to be preter natural behavior in such a young child. Her scarlet dress a
21
passion”. Pearl’s scarlet appearance is closely associated with the scarlet letter
Hester’s bosom, and Hawthorne continues this relationship as the novel unfolds.
When Hester is told the Governoor see her imidiately, she firmly tells the
servant she will wait. Her determined manner indicates to the servant how
strongly she feels about the issue of Pearl’s guardianship. Because the servant is
new in the community, he has not heard the story of the scarlet letter. The
beautifully embroidered emblame on her dress and her determination cause him to
think she is a person of some influence. Hawthorne emphasizes the servant’s
recent arrival to impress upon the reader the well-known nature of the scarlet
letter story. Bellingham’s house is described as a mansion of fantasy: cheery,
gleaming, sunny, and having “never known that”. It comes to life as the only
interior describtion in the novel. Bellingham’s house is a mixture of stern Puritan
portraits and old world comfort. Is it any wonder that the polished mirror of the
breastplate Bellingham’s armor plays tricks on the eyes? Here in this fortress of
Puritan rules where man will decide her fate, Hester’s virtually vanishes behind
the scarlet A in the breastplate’s reflection. Even Pearl’naughtiness and impish
qualities are exaggerated – at least in Hester’s mind – as if to defy the stifling,
moralistic atmosphere of this place. The Governoor and his cronies arrieve, and
22 4.2.2 The Interior of a Heart
Summary
During her first three years, Pearl, who is so named because she came “of
great price”, grows into a physically beautiful, vigorous, and graceful little girl.
She is radiant in the rich and elaborate dresses that Hester sews for her. Inwardly,
however, Pearl possesses a complex character. She shows an unusual depth of
mind, coupled with a fiery passion that Hester is incapable of controlling either
with kindness or threats. Pearl shows a love of mischief and a disrespect for
authority, which frequently reminds Hester of her own sin of passion.
Because both Hester and Pearl are excluded from society, they are
constant companions. When Pearl is on walks with her mother she occasionally
finds her self surrounded by the curious children of the village. Rather than
attempt to make friends with them she pelts them with stones and violent word.
Pearl’s only companion in her playtime is her imagination. Significantly in
her games of make - believe , she never creates friends : she creates only enemies
– Puritans whom she pretends destroy. But the object that most captures her
imagination is scarlet letter A on her mother’s clothing. Hester worries that Pearl
posseses by a friend, and impression strengthened when Pearl denies having a
Heavenly Father and then laughingly demands that Hester tell her where came
23 Analysis
This chapter developes Pearl both as a character and as a symbol. Pearl is a
mischiefous and almost unworldly child, whose uncontrollable nature reflex the
sinful passion that led to her birth. Her’s character is closely tied to her birth,
which justifiece and makes the “other worldliness” about her very important. She
is a product and a symbol of the act of adultery, an act of love, and act of passion,
a sin, and a crime. Hawthorne, the narrator, states [“Pearl”] was worthy to have
been brought forth in Eden worthy to have been leavt there, to be the plaything of
the angel … “ However , she “lacked reference and adaptation to the world in to
which she was born”.
The Puritan community believed extramarital sex to be inherently evil and
influence by the devil, and, because Pearl is a product of her mother’s extramarital
sex, Hawthorne raises the issue of Pearl’s nature can something good come from
something evil ? is Pearl inherently evil because she was born from what the
Puritan conceifed to be an immoral, sinful union? Perhaps thinks Hester, who is
fearful at least of such a predetermined out come. Our modern sensibilities,
however, shudder at the implication that an immoral act between adults
necessarily means that a childs born from the sexual affair will be inherently evil.
Hawthorne’s condenations of Puritanizem continuous in this chapter his
strongest rebuttal of the society’s self – serving, false piety occours when he
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treatment of her. He notes of Hester’s fellows citizens, “Men had marked this
women’s sin by a Scarlet Letter, whish had such potent and disastrous efficacy
that knoe human sympathy could reach her, save it were sinful like herself “
ironically justaposted against the Purintan’s sentence that Hester wear the Scarlet
Letter A is “God, [who] as a direct consequence of the sin which man this
punished, had given her a lovely child,… to be finally a blessed soul in heaven!”
the comparison between the community’s (Puritan’s) and God’s responses to
Hester’s extramarital affair is dramatic.
4.2.3 The Minister’s Vigil Summary
After living the house, Dimmesdale walks to the scaffold where seven
years earlier, Heaster Prynne stood waering hen sign of shame and holding Pearl.
Now in the damp, cool air of the cloudy May night, Dimmesdale mounts the steps
while the town sleeps. Realizing the mockery of his being able to stand there now,
safe and unseen, where he should have stood seven years ago before the
townspeople, Dimmesdale is overcome by a self-hatred so terrible that it causes
him to cry aloud into the night.
Hester and Pearl, who are returning from Governor Winthrop’s deathbed,
mount the scaffold, and the three of them stand hand-in-hand, Hester and
Dimmesdale linked by Pearl. Twice, Pearl ask Dimmesdale if he will stand there
with them at noon the next day : the minister says he will stan there with them on
25
scaffold and its surroundings. Looking up Dimmesdale seems to see in the sky a
dull red light in the shape of immense letter A. At the same istant, Dimmesdale is
aware that Pearl is pointing toward Roger Chillingworth who stands nearby,
grimly smiling up at the three people on the scaffold. Over come with terror,
Dimmesdale ask Hester about the true identity of Chillingworth. Remembering
her promise to Chillingworth, Hester remains silent.
After next morning’s sermon, the sexton starlet the minister by returning
one of his gloves, which was found on the scaffold. (“Satan dropped it there,I take
it, intending a scurrilous jest against your reference.”) the sexton also ask about
the great red letter A that appeared in the sky the past night.
Analysis
This chapter , the second of three crucial scaffold scenes, appears exactly
in the middle of the novel. Again, Hawthorne gathers all of his major characters in
one place – this time in a chapter so foreboding, so convincing in its psychology,
and so rich in its symbolism that it is unquestionably one of the most powerful in
the novel.
In his description of Dimmesdale’s action while alone on the scaffold,
Hawthorne demonstrates his mastery of psychological realism. The sudden
changes in moodthat take placein the minister’s tired mind, the self –
condemnation for his cowardice, the near – insanity of his scream, and his impulse
to speak to Mr.Wilson all are developed convincingly. The first scaffold scene
26
punishment. This second scene, occurring at the midnight hour, puts both
“sinners” o the scaffold and concentrates on Dimmesdale’s guild and punishment.
All the major characters of the first scene are again present . The town, although,
sleeps or is other wise unaware of the action.
Previously we have seen Dimmesdale’s conscious mind attempting to
reason through the problem of his concealed guild. In contrast, in this chapter, we
see the tortured workings of his sbusconcious mind, which is the real source of his
algony. When Dimmesdale is forced by Pearl’s repeated question to bring the
issue in to the open his fear of confession still dominates his subcioncous desire to
confess. Just as the town was a sleep earlier and there was “no peril of discovery”
, now he backs off once again. His to refusals to publicly acknowledge his
relationship with Hesterand Pearl suggest, perhaps, Pieter’s first to denials of
Christ.
Hawthorne’s flair for gothic details is demonstrated I the appearance of a
spectacular, weird like and the startling reflation of the diabolical Roger
Chillingworth, who is standing near the scaffold. However although about have
the effect of supernatural occurances. Hawthorne is careful to give a natural
explanation for each them. The light, Hawthorne says , “was doubtlesscaused by
one of those meteors , which denied – whatcher may so often observe burning out
to waste.
Of course , the meteors seemed to those who saw it ”nothing was more commond
in those days then to interprate all meteoric appearances … as so many revelation
27
appeared at all is ambiguous although sexton refers to the letter, Hawthorne
suggest that the A may have appeared only in Dimmesdale’s imagination: “We
impute it … solely to the disease in his own eyes and heart, that the minister,
looking upward to the zenith, beheld there the appearance of an immense letter”
Hawthorne also indicates that the meaning is in the mind of an be holder. The
sexton sees it as an A for angel because Governoor Winthroph had recently
become an angel similarly Chillingworth appearance although a suggest his
knowledge of Dimmesdale where the books is logically explained by his having
attended the dying Governor Winthrop.
As in the first scaffold seems this chapter abounds in both major and minor
symbols: the scaffold it self : Dimmesdale standing on it : the three potential
observers representing Church, State and the World of Evil : the “electric chain “
of Hester , Pearl, and Dimmesdale : Pearl’s appeal to Dimmesdale : the revealing
light from the heaven : and the variation on the letter A.
4.3 The Pastor and His Parishioner Summary
As Dimmesdale walks in the wilderness, returning from a visit with
Apostle Eliot, he hears Hester’s voice and is surprised by her presence. At first, he
cannot tell whether she is a human or a ghost. In Fact they are both ghosts of their
former selves, and their chill hand and hesitant words reveal the strangeness of
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Both Hester and Dimmesdale talk with each other about the past seven
years , and Dimmesdale confesses his misery and unhappiness. While Hester
console him and mention people’s reference for him, the minister feels his guilt
and hypocrisy even more. He compares his silence with her public confession and
realizes how his hidden guilt is tormenting him.
Hester, realizing how deeply her silence has permitted Dimmesdale to be
tortured by her husband, seizes the moment to reveal Chillingworth’s secret. This
torture has led to insanity and “that eternal alienation from the good and true , of
which madness is perhaps the earthly type”. Hester also relizes that she still loves
Dimmesdale, and she begs his forgiveness for his silence.
The minister reacts to this revelation with anger at first , blaming her fot
his torture and realizing why he intuitively recoiled from Chillingworth on their
first encounter. Hester, who has silently borney disdain and scorn of the
community and who has lived these seven years without human sympathy, cannot
bear Dimmesdale’s condemnation, and she falls beside him and cries, “Thou shalt
forgive me! Let God punish ! Thou shalt forgive! “ she hugs him with great
tenderness and feels such a compassion for his sorrow that her seven years of
punishment seem to fall away.
Dimmesdale, for his part, forgives her and ask God to forgive them both.
He believe that Chillingworth is the worst sinner of them all because he “ violated
, in cold blood, the sancetity of the human heart,” unlike he and she, who “ never
did so”. They are reluctant to leave this place in the forest because here they find a
29
fears Chillingworth’s course now that he , no doubt , knows “her purpose to
reveal his true character”, and he ask Hester to give him courage.
Hester’s plans is for Dimmesdale to go deeper in to the wilderness and live
in natural freedom away the eyes of Puritan society or to return to Europe, where
he will be free of “these iron man and their opinions”. But Dimmesdale feels he
has not the streght to do either. While he falters, Hester encourages him, claiming
that he can lead a powerful life for good and still fulfill his mission on earth.
When the minister says, he cannot do this alone, she tells him she will go with
him.
Analysis
This chapter is pivotal in many respects : it advances the plot and
characters by revealing Hester ad Dimmesdale’s feelings of the past seven years
and the reawakening of their dormant love. Also in this chapter Hawthorne reveals
his philosophy on punishment and forgiveness: that deliberat, calculated acts of
malice are far worce than sins of passions. In this way, Chillingworth is the worst
of the three sinners. Finally, the author provides hope that his character will find
an escape, away out of their earthly torment. He explores the conflict between
natural law and Puritan in their escape plans.
During the past seven years Dimmesdale has been continually tormented
by the dichotomy between what he is and what people believe him to be. His
parishioners are “hungry for the truth “ and listen to his words as if “a tongue of
30
has not told it to any other human being. He bears his shame alone. Hawthorne
contrasts this with Hester’s vicible sign of her guilt, confession, and hope for
redemption. While Hester tries to console the minister and persuade him that he
has repented and left his sin behind, Dimmesdale knows that he can go no plays
without carrying his hidden guilt along.
Hester realizes that she still loves Dimmesdale, and she courageously tells
him this, even as she reveals her silence concerning Chillingworth. Hawthorne
contrast their love – “which had concecreation of its own” – and Chillingworth
revenge and ask the reader which sin is worst. Who has filleted God’s law with
sure and certain knowledge? And whose place is it to provide redemption and
forgiveness? While Hester believe they can outrun “these iron men” with they
rules, guilt, and punishment, Dimmesdale is not so sure. Two froms of moral laws
are work here – the laws of God and nature and the laws interpreted and written
by “these iron men” in the long run can escaping the rules of man enable them
also to do God’s will?
Dimmesdale is reductant to leave because he believes God has given him a
post which he must not desert. This wilderness of God’s world is in need of his
gifts. Hester assures him that he can do God’s will another place – Europe – and it
is only the Puritan laws that hold him in bondage. He can “preach! Write! Act!”
and live a true life in europe instead of dying, as he seems to be doing here in the
wilderness, with fear and shame by his side. Hawthorne shows the relative
strength of hia character in this argument. Hester reaches within her self and uses
31
years. In fact for Hester “ the whole seven years of out law and ignominy had
been little other than preparation for this very hour. “ deep inside she knows they
can leave the Puritan colony and still have a life of spiritual richness. They have
paid for their sin and can still respect and uphold God’s law. Dimmesdale , on the
other hand, lacks this persfective and Hester’s courage and several times he calls
on her for strenght.
4.3.1 The Child at The Brookside Summary
Hester decides the times has come for Dimmesdale to make Pearl. Hester
and Dimmesdale are joined spiritually and genetically to this childs and “in her
was visible the tie that united that. While Dimmesdale confesses that he has
always been afraid someone would recognize his features in Pearl, Hester simply
speaks of Pearl’s beauty and sees her as “living hieroglyphic”. Dimmesdale
remembers Pearl being kind to him, yet he also feels ill at eas arrounds children
and is not very confident about this meeting. Hester’s however assures him that
Pearl will love him and that he should be careful not to overwhelm her with
emotion.
Pearl moves very slowly toward them, trying to this term her parents
relationship. Dimmesdale sences her hesitation and puts his hand once again over
his heart. Seeing the scarlet letter on the ground and her mother’s hair sensuously
falling about her shoulders, Pearl point her finger, stamps her foot, shrieks, and
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Hester’s and Dimmesdale’s reactions to Pearl’s behavior vary. Hester
relizes that Pearl recognizes the changes in her “ the letter is gone from her bosom
and her hair is no longer hidden under a cap”. And she hurries to fasten the hated
badge to her dress and to draw her cap over her hair. She acscusses Pearl’s by
saying children cannot abide changes easily. Dimmesdale, on the other hand, begs
Hester to do whatever will stop this fit pacify Pearl. As soon as Hester changes
her appearance Pearl willingly comes to her and mockingly kisses the scarlet
letter.
Pearl desires the minister to acknowledge her in public.While Hester
assures her that this admission will happen in the future, Dimmesdale kisses
Pearl’s forehead in an attempt to mollify her. Pearl immediately goes to the brook
and washes off the kiss. There she remains apart from the adults, and the brook
babbles cheerlessly on.
Analysis
Pearl is the one who moves the action in this chapter, and her response to
Dimmesdale and Hester together does not forshadow a happy ending. In fact,
more than ever, Pearl is a symbol of the passionate act of her parents. She is a
constant reminder of Hester’s sin and, if Hester tries momentarily to forget the
past, Pearl certainly disapproves. Pearl, throughout the novel, has shown herself to
be unnamanable to human rules and laws and seems to lack human symphaty.
Pearl interpreted on one level, acts like a child who has syuddenly realized
33
wilderness. Her image is reflected perfectly in the brook, with separaties her from
Hester and the minister, and as she burtsts into a fit of passion at the absence of
Hester’s scarlet letter,”… it’s seemed as if a hidden multitude were lending her
their symphaty an encouregment”.
4.3.2 The Procession Summary
While Hester ponders Chillingworth’ smile, the Election Day procession
begins. First music adds a “higher and more heroic air.” Then comes a company
of gentlemen soldiers, brilliantly garbed. Next are the political dignitaries stagble
dignified, and drawing a reverent reaction from the crowd. Finally comes the
minister, Dimmesdale, whose intellectual prowess is mentioned by Hawthorne.
He has changed, shoeing great energy and an air of purpose in his walk and
demeanor. His strength, his spiritual, and he has an abstracted air as though he
hears things not of this earth.
The focus now goes to Hester and her reaction to Dimmesdale. How far
away he seems and remote from the man she met only three days ago in the
forest! She realizes what a great gulv that is between them, and she can scarcely
forgive him for him remoteness. Even Pearl does not recognize him because he
has changed so completely.
Meanwhile, Mistress Hibbins appears end speak with Hester and Pearl. As
Pearl questions, Mistress Hibbins about what the minister hides, the witch tells
34
scarlet token. When presset about house she knows this, Mistress Hibbins explains
that intuitively recognizing a fellow sinner is not difficult. She leaves having said
that soon, the world will know Dimmesdale’s sins.
Now Hester hars the voice of Dimmesdale givibg his sermon while she
cannot hear the word. She does hear sympathy, emotion, and compassion mixed
with a “love expression of anguish.” He may not be telling the world his sin, but
Hester hears the sadness and despair his tone because she is so in sympathy with
his heart. Then Pearl scampers of through the crowd in her bright red dress and
sees the shipmaster, who gives her a message for her mother: Chillingworth has
secured passage for himself and Dimmesdale on the ship. When Hester hears this,
she glances around the crowd and sees the same faces that were at the first
scaffold scene. The chapter ends with the lines “The sainted minister in the
church! The woman of the scarlet letter in the marketplace!” who would believe “
that the same scorching stigma was on them both/”
Analysis
In this chapter, Hawthorne interrupts the plot to comment on the stage of
the politicians in his time. He describes the early politician of the colony as
lacking mental brilliance but full of “ ponderous sobriety “. They had great
fortitude and inner strength, and in an emergency,they met wise decisions and
stoods up to any attack on the colony. Hawthorne even feels they would have
peers in the old world who wold she in them the same authority as English
35
that is teem had diminished. He writes that the people of the 1600s had a “ quality
of reverence: which in their descendants, if its survive at all, exists in smaller
proportion, and with a vastly diminished force, in the selection and estimate of
public man.
After the pleasant sojourne into seventeenth century politics, Hawthorne
turns the focus on Hester. When Hawthorne describes Hester’s reaction to
Dimmesdale’s remoteness he virtually eliminate the possibility that they have a
future together. In her mind, Hester compares.
Dimmesdale as he appears at the celebration “ he seem so remote from her
own sphre, and utterly beyond her rich”. With how he was just three days earlier
in the forest ( how deeply had thay known each other then!”. She begins to think
she must have dreamed that meeting in the forest because now Demmidale seems
wholly unsympathetic and removed to his Puritan world. While she can still feel
his emotion, she also can hardly forgive him for with drawing from her and their
plans to share their leaves.
Hawthorne uses Mistrees Hibbins to foreshadows the ending and
emphasize the intuitive understanding of human hearts. The old which reveals that
the minstrees’s sin will soon be public knowledge and when pressed by Hester to
explain herself, says that the forest leaves it mark on everyone : even without tell
– tale signs , suches leaves or twigs in a persons hair, the effidence is in his
demeanor when Pearl ask about sinful secret, the witch warns the chils that she
36
In this passage, Hawthorne not only describes his ideas about sin,
temptation and human frailty, but he also explains the intuitive nature of human
knowledge. Dimmesdale may have removed himself from Hester’s emotional,
sphere on this day but she has certainly not lost her intuitive connection with him.
In his voice, she hears and recognized the voices of his heart and also the “low
expression anguish”. She may not be able to hear his words distinctly, but she ca
feel his sorrow – laden and guilt heart. In the tone of voice is pleasant for
forgiveness.
Somehow, the two sinners must come together. To move towards the
climax, Hawthorne has cut off escape with Chillingworth’s action, and he ends the
chapter by describing desain end the sinner side by side. Although the world
remain unaware, the principal character are moving closer and closer to this
revelation.
4.3.3 The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter Summary
At the end of Dimmesdale’s election day sermons, the crowd emerges
from the church inpirate by powerfull words they have just heard from a man
whom they feel is soon to die. This moment is the most brilliant and triumphant in
Dimmesdale’s public life. As the procession of dignitaries marches to a banquet at
the townhall, the feelings of the crowd are expressed in the spontaneous shout of
tribute to Dimmesdale.” Never, on new England soil, has stood the manso
37
as the people see Dimmesdale totter feebly and nervously in the procession. His
face has taken on a deadly pallor, and he can scarcely walk. Several people
attempt to help him, but the minister repels them until he comes to the scaffold
where Hester stands holding Pearl by the hand. There Dimmesdale pauses.
As the minister turns to the scaffold he calls Hester and Pearl to his side.
Suddenly, Choillingworth appears and attempts to stold Dimmesdale, but the
minister scorn the old physician and cries out too.
Hester to help him get up to the scaffold. The crowed watches in
astonishment as the minister, lining on Hester and holdings Pearl’s hand, ascents
the scaffold steps. Chillingworth’s face darkens as he realizes that now here else
but on the scaffold can Dimmesdale escape him.
The minister tells Hester that he is dying and must acknowledge his
shame. Then hi turns to the crowd and cries out his guilt. His steps in front of
Hester and Pearl and declares that on his breast the sign of his sin. He tears the
ministerial band from his breast and for a moment, stands flues had with thriumph
before the horrified crowd. Then he sing down upon the scaffold.
Hester lifts Dimmesdale’s head and cradles it against her bosom.
Chillingworth, meanwhile, kniles down and, in a tone of defeat, repeats, offer and
offer, “thou has escaped me!” the minister ask God’s forgiveness for
Chillingwort’s sins : then he turn to Pearl and ask for the kiss. Pearl kisses him
and weeps.
Dimmesdale, obviously dying now, tells Hester farewell. She asked
38
he fears that eternal happiness is note a state for a which they can hope. The
minister leaves the matter to God, whose mercy he has seen in the afflection
leading to his public confession. His dying words are “Praise be his name! his will
be done! Farewell!”
Analysis
Hawthorne brings all the principals character together at a third cscaffold
scene in this chapter, which begins with the thriumph of Dimmesdale’s sermon
and end with hie death.
Dimmesdale’s sermon is a personal thriumph. In fact, Hawthorne
ironically compares him to an angel who had “shaken his bright wings over the
people” and “sheed down a shower of golden truth upon them” this final irony
between his public and private lives revealed when he confesses his sins on the
scaffold to all of the people who think of him as a saint. He gives up everything :
his child, his love, his life, and his honor. The relationship to God that he has been
preaching about cannot be based on a lie. God sees everything, and Dimmesdale
no matter how hard he has tried, cannot outrun the truth that his conscience and
his mind believe. Sailing to Europe will not bring hbim beyond the reach of God’s
knowledge.
Not only dodes Dimmesdale confess but he must do so alone although
Hester helps him to the scaffold where she was punish seven years before, she
cannot help him, make his peace with God. The church, in the form of Mr. Wilson
39
up as he approaches the scaffold be he repels them and goes on alone. He does
turn to Hester prior to his death and ask for the strength, guided by God. Having
escaped the clutches of Chillingworth, it turns to Hester with “an expression of
doubt and anxiety in his eyes.”
Before actually confessing, he ask her, “is this not better that what we
dreamed of in the forests?” He is asking Hester to confirm the righterousness of
this act and explains to her: “for thee and Pearl, be it as God shall order…let me
now do the will which he hath made plan before my sight.” Although Dimmesdale
may still doubt his choice and requires Hester’s strength, in the end, he leaves his
fate to God, trusting that his mercy will be more certain in death than
Chillingworth’s relentless thorment is in life.
Give that he is dying, Dimmesdale ask Hester whether confession is better
than fleeing. She has lived for seven long years with the torment of her neighbor
and the shame of her scarlet letter. She hurriedly answers him that perhaps the
three of them dying together would be preferable, but if Dimmesdale dies alone
what will she have? She will have no love, no live, other than the loneliness she
has already has, and a daughter who will have no father.
Pearl is given the most wonderful give: a life that is filled with love and
happiness. When her father finally publishly acknowledges her, she kisses him
and weeps an actual tears. As Houton says, “the spell is broken.” There is hope
that Pearl will grow up be able to interract with other humans beings, find love,
40
Chillingworth loses his victory in two way. First, he no longer has
Dimmesdale to torment, and second, he receive Dimmesdale’s blessing. Even as
he is dying the minister manages to retain his reverence and his kindness by
asking God’s forgiveness for Chillingworth. As Hester noted in her husband’s
changed appearance earlier, revenge is never a positive motive and generally
consume it possessor.
4.4 The “A” Symbol
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter includes many profound and
important symbol. This device is symbolism is potried well I the novel, especially
through the scarlet letter “A”. The “A” is the best example because of the changes
in the meaning throughout the novel. In the beginning of the novel, the scarlet
letter “A” is viewed as a symbol of sin. The middle of the novel is a trasision
period, where the scarlet letter “A” is viewed differently.
In the commencement of the novel , the letter is taken as a label of
punishment and sin. Hester Prynne bears the label of the letter upon her chest. She
stands as a lebel of and outcast in front of society. She is wearing the symbol to
burden her with punishment throughout her life. She stands on a plank where her
punishment is given, “thus she will be a living sermon against sin, until the
ignominious letter be and graved upon her thumbstone” (59) . society places its
blames upon this women. It is because of this one letter than Hester’s life is
changes. The letter’s meaning in hurritan society baniches her from her normal
41
torture : “ of an impulse and passionate nature. She had fortified herself to
encounter the stings and fenomous steps of public contumely wreaking it self in
every variety of isult but there was a quality so much more terrible in the solem
mood of popular mind, that she longed rather to behold all those rigid
countenances contorted with scornful merriment and herself the object” (54)
This implies that Hester’s sin of bearing a child without the presence of
husband will always be remembered. In the middle of the novel, is the transition
period where the letter “A” is viewed differently than before. In this section of the
novel, Hester’s appearance is altered to where she is no longer seen as a person of
sin. The letter changes from a symbol of sin to amore vague symbol. Society now
sees Hester as a person who is strong yet bears a symbol which divers herself. At
this point, Hester has learned to deal with the letter. She has grown stronger from
it. She is able to with stand the pressures of society. As she grow stronger, her
personality becomes more opposed to being seen as a sinner. The letter’s meaning
has changes, hatred, buy a gradual and quite process, will even be transformed to
love, unless the change by impeded by a continually irritation of the original
feeling of hostility” (147). This foreshadows the future even of the novel.
Another view of the letter is that it for treys guilt. It for treys the guilt of
Dimmesdale, the father of Hester’s child. Hester has learned to deal with her
punishment and grow stronger from it, but Dimmesdale, who went unpunished
and is a respectable man in the Puritan society, must now live with the guilt of
having a child “illegally”. This guilt help him to become weaker as novel
42
universe were gazing at a scarlet token of his naked breast, cry over his heart. On
the spot, in very truth there was, and there long had been the gnawing and
poisonous tooth of bodily pain” (136).
After seven years of torture caused by scarlet letter , Hester tosses the
letter aside for an hour. The return of this letter however, is beneficial to Hester.
The letter’s refusal to be sweep away, Pearl’s refusal to join an unlettered Hester
and Dimmesdale insistence that Hester do whatever it takes to quite Pearl, force
Hester to reaccept the symbol of the sin she had wrongly diforced, and therefore
allow Dimmesdale and Hester to share a mutual public shame. When Hester
tosses her sin aside in the forest scene she is not successful in living her si
forever. “the mystic token a lighted on the hitherd verge of the sterams. With a
hand’s breath further fly it would have fallen into the water, and have given the
little grove another to carry onward…” (pg. 185) the brook does not carry off
Hester’s letter and therefore, the disgrace of her sin is still close by.
When Hawthorne says that Hester’s new thought “have taught her much
amiss” (pg183) he also gives Hester one last chance to reaccept the sin that she
has commited in Puritan code which she has so strongly rejected. By keeping the
letter close at hand, Hester may still return to her rightful place in shame. Very
much in tune with this letter is Pearl. Pearl immediately recognizes that the letter
has been cast aside, and recognizes that in away she has been cast aside too. Pearl
has always been another symbol of the sin between Hester and Dimmesdale, as
43
When Hester removes the letter from her bosom in Pearls’s eyes she also
removes her child. “ length assuming a singular air of authority, Pearl stretchead
out her hand… and pointing evidently towards her mother’s breast. And beneath,
in the mirror of the brook, was the flower – girdled and sunny image of little
Pearl, pointing her small finger too”. (pg 191) this quotes symbolizes the two
aspecs of Pearl both commanding Hester to return the letter to her bosom.
The elfish, disobedient Pearl and the Pearl who creates beauty both point
to their mother in a mixtoray of shock and disgust. Pearl recognizes the fact that
Hester cannot toss her sin aside so lightly, and makes Hester recoginize that fact
also. Also worthy of note, is the fact that Pearl mix Hester pick up the letter and
reattach it her self. “bring it hither said Hester. ‘come thou and take it up!”
answered Pearl” (pg.193) Pearl wants no part of Hester’s sin, and frankly tells
Hester so. She knows that the sin of Hester and Dimmesdale can only be borney
by them, and remind Hester’s of this facts by makin her retrieve that which she
wrongly threw away.
Hester finally perceives this fact, but not its depermeaning. “ but in very
thruth she is right as regards this hateful token. I must bear its torture yet a little
longer – only a few days longer – until we shall have left this region…” (pg 193)
Hester reattaches the letter, but mistakenly believes that it could ever be fully
removed from her. As is seen letter in the book , Chillingworth, a symbol of
punishment is intent on following Hester and Dimmesdale to the ends of the earth.
Hester also reattaches this letter in order to pacify Pearl, as requested by
44
pacifying the child do it forthwith!... I know nothing that I would not sooner
encounter than this in passion a child!... it has a preternatural effect. Pasify her if
thou loves me!’ “ (pg192) the wimpering minister requests Haster to quite Pearl
by refastening the letter of shame on her bosom. Pearl’s cry remind Dimmesdale
of the sin that they are both pretending they can disown, and it bothers him. All of
these factors demand that Hester take back the symbol of her guilt. By reaccepting
this guilt it gives Hester a chance to become the humble and faithful ultra -
Puritan that she was.
Hester’s reattachment of the letter also allows Hester and Dimmesdale to
share their moment of public humiliation together in the market square upon the
scaffold. When Chillingworth, a symbol of all that is evil tries dissuade
Dimmesdale from doing this, it further adds to the joy of Dimmesdale in being
relieved of his secret seen” (Chillingworth) ‘ Madman,hold !... wave back that
women ! cast of this child! All shall be well ! … would you bring infamy o your
sacret profession? ‘ ‘ ha, tempter! Methinks thou art to late ! answered the
minister…! With God’s help I shall escape thee now !’ “ (pg 230) Dimmesdale
joins Hester on the scaffold, that in all truth, Hester had been on for seven years.
Dimmesdale reveals in his dying gasps as he is free from his threacherous sin.
“’Is this not better,’ murmured he, ‘than what we dreamed of in the forest?’
…(Hester) ‘Better? Yea’ …. “ (pg. 231) if Hester had not retrieved her letter in
the forest , this moment would never have occurred.
Hester and Dimmesdale would have run off, but they would never be as
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the most. The actions of Pearl, Dimmesdale and fate all return the letter to Hester.
They give Hester back both of what made her the sinner and the able. They also
gave her a chance to fully reconcile with Dimmesdale and her community. In the
end, the pain that Hester received when she refastened th eletter to her bosom was
paid back in full.
4.4.1 The Meaning of “A” Symbol
4.4.4.1 Different meanings of the scarlet letter “A”
The changes of the symbolic Meaning of the Scarlet Letter “A”
In this novel, the scarlet letter “A” changes its meaning many different
times. This change is significant. It shows growth in the characters, and the
community in which they live. The letter “A” begins as a symbol of sin. It then
becomes a symbol of alone and alienation, and finally it becomes a symbol of
able, angel and admirable.
4.4.4.2 Adultery
The letter “A”, worn on Hester’s bosom, is a symbol of her adultery
against Roger Chillingworth. This is the puritan way of treating her as a criminal,
for the crime of adultery. The puritan treatment continues, because as Hester
walks through the streets, she will be looked down upon as if she is some sort of
