The Scarlet Letter.

                              
                         The Scarlet Letter
                                             Nathaniel Hawthorne.
                                   

  


        The Scarlet Letter was Hawthorne’s most commercially successful work and is still regarded as his masterpiece. The entire novel is built on the five simple words contained in one of the biblical Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” The fact that Hawthorne was able to base such an enduring work on such a simple premise is an indication of genius.
                            This did not by any means imply that Hawthorne rejected traditional morality. He realized that it was the basis of civilization and wanted to place morality on a foundation of reason. The Scarlet Letter shows people being punished for their sins in the here and now through the operation of natural cause and effect. The Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale is punished by his own feelings of guilt, remorse, and shame. Long before the time of Sigmund Freud, Hawthorne showed how mental problems create physical ailments. Dimmesdale eventually dies of guilt, although his mind is relieved by his public confession.
Hawthorne’s novel was a financial success. No doubt it was popular because it dealt with sexual matters, although in a heavily veiled manner. Much has been made of Hawthorne’s use of symbolism; however, it may be that he employed it mainly because he was not able to describe certain things more explicitly. For example, the sin of adultery means sexual intercourse between a married person and a partner other than the lawful spouse. It was utterly impossible for Hawthorne to depict this graphically in his day; his book would never even have been published if he had mentioned such an act.
His solution was ingenious: Hester Prynne gives birth to a little girl who is living proof of the sin. So Pearl, her daughter, is a symbol of the act of adultery. Hawthorne also calls Pearl “a living hieroglyphic,” which simply means that as she gets older it should be possible to “read” her father’s identity from studying her facial features. Thus she is not only a symbol of adultery and a symbol of guilt but also a symbol of Dimmesdale’s craven fear of exposure.
                                                             The scarlet letter “A,” which Hester is condemned to wear over her breast, is another symbol of unlawful sexual intercourse. In a sense it might be described as a fetish: an object that arouses sexual desire, or at least sexual thoughts. Modern readers accustomed to explicit descriptions of sexuality would hardly find Hawthorne’s novel titillating, but the mere suggestion of unsanctioned sexual intercourse—or, indeed, any sexual behavior at all—was daring for Hawthorne’s time.
Like the minister’s black veil in the story of that name, Hester Prynne’s scarlet letter has a dual nature. It is a continuing accusation directed at all the members of the community: It suggests that all of them should be wearing their own letters over their breasts, although not all of them would wear the same letter. The fact that Hester’s letter “A” is ornate, like the letters in a book from which a child learns the alphabet, and the fact that her little daughter is constantly touching it and trying to understand its meaning, suggest that there is a whole alphabet of sins that could be attached to the gowns and shirt fronts of the other citizens.
Dimmesdale deserves more than one letter: He could wear a “C” for cowardice, an “H” for hypocrisy, or an “L” for lying. The novel implicitly refers to the famous incident in the New Testament in which a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery was brought before Jesus. Jesus was asked if it was permissible to stone her to death as prescribed by Mosaic law. Jesus replied: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” Everyone in the mob withdrew in silent admission of his or her own hidden guilt.
Hawthorne created the character of Roger Chillingworth because an antagonist was needed to move the plot along. One of Hawthorne’s weaknesses as a fiction writer was that he tended to lavish his attention on visual elements, such as descriptions of landscapes, and to avoid heated interactions between his characters. This weakness may be attributed to Hawthorne’s shy and passive character. Static plots with heavy emphasis on visual description might suffice for short works, but a full-length novel needs an ongoing conflict to retain reader interest. Chillingworth’s behavior is strange; why does he not kill Dimmesdale, for example, if he feels so outraged? He could certainly denounce him to the whole community, which might even be worse. It is only because of Chillingworth’s odd notion of revenge that the novel is able to move forward to its conclusion.
It is hard to see exactly what Chillingworth is trying to accomplish by his sadistic treatment of Dimmesdale; although he is indispensable to the plot, he is the least believable of all the characters. This seems like an artistic flaw in the novel, yet Hawthorne is masterful in demonstrating how human sins are not punished in some hypothetical afterlife but in the here and now through the suffering they bring. A sensitive man such as Dimmesdale must suffer for the suffering he causes others, and an insensitive man such as Chillingworth blinds himself to the harm he causes and is condemned to go through life as a blind man.