The Scarlet Letter

    This is probably Nathaniel Hawthorne's best known and best loved work, and with good reason. It is a masterwork of extraordinary power. I first read it when I was in high school, some 45 years ago. I remember that I liked it a great deal, but couldn't recall hardly any details about the story. And not so much because so many years had passed, but because, as a teenager I wasn't yet able to comprehend the deeper meanings—social, moral, religious—that Hawthorne wove around the obvious theme—that of a Puritan woman committing adultery, which could have been punishable by death. Hawthorne has a lot to say about society, women, ridiculous religious laws and hypocrisy. He would have liked the #MeToo movement, and lived his own life often outside the status quo.
    It was written in 1850, around the time Hawthorne had lost his miserable and artistically paralyzing job at the Custom House in Salem, Massachusetts. He was descended from a long line of Salem Hathornes, and to separate himself from the witch-hunting judge who was his ancestor, he added the "w" in his name. He may have separated himself in name, but those witches and evil rituals in the woods seem to creep into most of his stories. This one is no exception, but the main theme focuses on Hester Prynne, and her lifelong punishment for a sin committed. My goodness! Wouldn't those Puritans be aghast today!!
    The story, set in the mid-1600s, begins as Hester Prynne is being led from jail holding her baby, and wearing what is now her life sentence, a huge embroidered letter "A" for all to see. She is put on display on the scaffold for three hours for all to mock her. She refuses to tell who fathered her child. While standing above the crowd, she spots someone whom she would rather not see, an old misshapen man. It is her husband, who was believed to be dead. He has taken the name Roger Chillingworth, a fitting name for his calm, cold and calculating manner. Known as a researcher and scholar, he has been studying herbal medicine with the Native Americans, and now poses as a doctor, of rather fine skill, actually. He visits Hester after she is returned to prison, and gives the baby some medicine that immediately calms her, though Hester is afraid it is poison. He presses her for the name of the father, which she refuses to divulge. It doesn't matter. He is resolved to find it out on his own and inflict his personal torment on the offender, which he does. He makes Hester promise not to reveal his identity. And so, we have this trio of lives interconnected by the consequences of an act of passion. And as the story unfurls, we challenge the Puritan definition of "sin" and "evil." Who is really the most evil character of the three?
    Hester bears her punishment with dignity. She and her baby are outcasts, but she is highly gifted in needlework. Soon orders pour in for special garments for dignitaries, burial clothing, and richly decorated accessories for special occasions. She names her child Pearl, who from the beginning proves to be a wild and free spirit and becomes fascinated with the scarlet letter that her mother must wear. Though at first the officials want to take Pearl away from Hester, the young and well-loved minister, Arthur Dimmesdale argues in Hester's favor. Many still believe Pearl has some elfin qualities, or perhaps is even evil or a witch. To a modern reader, the descriptions of her sound like that of a normal happy child. Perhaps they did to Hawthorne, too.
    Seven years pass. Though Hester has voluntarily separated herself and Pearl from society, she is always there to help others. She sits at the sickbeds, gives most of her earnings to the poor, and makes them clothing. She asks for nothing, but goes quietly about her duties. Little by little, the townspeople begin to see the letter "A" as a token of her strength, which takes on a new meaning. It stands for "Able" they say. Hester gains a silent respect. But what about the other two members of the trio. Arthur Dimmesdale, though still adored by his parish, has been in failing health for all these years. Weakened and pale, he walks at death's door. And to make it worse, unknown by him, the "good doctor," Chillingworth has taken him under his wing. They live together, and Roger now has committed his energy to "healing" the minister of his disease. But what is the nature of it? Physical, or spiritual? The pain in his chest grows worse, and others are accustomed to see his hand over his bosom. One evening, while he sleeps, soundly for once, Chillingworth investigates his chest. He has now confirmed what he had suspected was true.
    But one night, in a state of frantic wandering, the minister climbs the scaffold where, seven years before, Hester was put on display. It happened that on that night, a former governor had died, and both Hester and Chillingworth were there, the latter as doctor, and the former, to prepare the funeral garment. They both pass the minister. Dimmesdale calls Hester and Pearl to join him. She can see now how her promise to her former husband is killing the minister. She resolves to tell him the truth.
    An opportunity comes along soon, because Dimmesdale had gone on a visit. Hester and Pearl await his return in the woods. After seven long years, they still love each other, and when Hester reveals to him the true motives of the man who is her husband, who has been posing as a friend, they resolve to get away on a ship headed back to England. Suddenly, the burden of shame seems to lift off the minister. He is transformed into a vision of strength and energy. But their plans are thwarted, in the end, and though that is sad, Chillingworth is revealed for the truly evil being that he is and his chance for revenge escapes him, thus giving him no more reason to live.
    That is the main plot of the story. The rest consists of delving into the social, moral and religious strictures of the time and the lens through which the different characters view life. The most, really the only joyful chapter, is toward the end, when Dimmesdale and Hester meet in the woods. Entitled "A Flood of Sunshine," we see Hester in a whole new light. (Please note: the rest of this paragraph contains a spoiler, if you prefer to not read it.) Throughout the whole of the story, she is surrounded by an aura of grief, sorrow and repentance. Why did she not reveal the name of Pearl's father? Out of duty? No, it is out of love. Pearl was not conceived in a fit of passion, she was conceived between two people who loved each other deeply. (And also, he could have been sent to the gallows.) That changes our entire perception of her. Here, in this scene, she holds Arthur to her breast. She tosses off her scarlet letter, and lets down her hair. The passion that has been bottled for seven years explodes. She is a woman again, and she is beautiful.
    In all those years of wearing the letter, Hester has gone her own way in life, caring little for the rules and laws that have bound her. She, like her daughter-sprite, has become a free spirit, though still appearing to the townsfolk as bound by her punishment. But as for sin, there is something within her now that yearns for love and freedom, and that breaking of the spell quickly spreads to her lover.

Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods. For years past she looked from this estranged point of view at human institutions, and whatever priests or legislators have established, criticizing all with hardly more reverence than the Indian would feel for the clerical band, the judicial robe, the pillory, the gallows, the fireside, or the church. The tendency of her fate and fortunes had been to set her free. The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread.

And here is the moment theminister is set free:

"Do I feel joy again?" cried he, wondering at himself. "Methought the germ of it was dead in me! O Hester, thou art my better angel! I seem to have flung myself—sick, sin-stained, and sorrow-blackened—down upon these forest leaves, and to have risen up all made anew, and with the powers to glorify Him that hath been merciful! This is already the better life! Why did we not find it sooner?"

And here is another quote, concerning the hypocrisy of the townspeople. Hester notices that the scarlet letter gives her a strange intuition:

She was terror-stricken by the revelations that were thus made. What were they? Could they be other than the insidious whispers of the bad angel, who would fain have persuaded the struggling woman, as yet only half his victim, that the outward guise of purity was but a lie, and that if truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom besides Hester Prynne's.

Incidentally, Hawthorne's long Introductory, "The Custom House," is rather humorous as he describes the elderly and basically useless old men whose lifelong appointments at that institution retained them way past their sell-by date. He claims to have found a parchment in that very building containing the remnants of a cloth with an embroidered scarlet letter, along with notes saved by an ancient former Surveyor, Pue, for the Massachusetts Bay Colony. That is fictional. However the story may have been based on a real person, since Hawthorne studied Puritan history. Other characters, however, were real. Here is an interesting article on New England Folklore with more info. Hawthorne, by the way, was not appreciated for his commentary on several local politicians!
Needless to say, but I'll say it anyways, this is a must-read. If you read it years ago, perhaps in high school, like I did, please read it again. In this day and age, many of us are yearning for humanity to return to a sense of morals and integrity, but, Lord have Mercy, not like the Puritans! What a suffocation of the human spirit!