Scarlett Letter: Interpretation, Research Paper Example

The Scarlet Letter, is a story of forbidden love, wild emotion, and passion. The story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, was published in 1850, while the story takes places in the centuries before in Mid-17^th century, centered on the times of the Puritans. The story revolves early Massachusetts Bay Colony, around the main character of Hester Prynne and her lover. During this time, the Salem Witch Trials were still ongoing, and many of the Quaker women were persecuted for a number of fallacies. In taking a closer look at The Scarlet Letter, the themes of this story revolve closely around the life of the author Nathaniel Hawthorne, the problems with the Puritan religion which played an exceptional amount of influence in the lives of colonist that implemented deep restrictions on the practice of freedom, and the way the affair impacted the lives of the main characters and the village. For the main character, Hester, was subject to harsh treatment but finds strength in her persecution.

Before going into depth, a thorough analysis is required, in which to explore briefly the period in Mid-17^th century Boston, and the religious world of Puritans. The society at this time was governed mainly by Puritans, who were religious women and men that had first settled on Plymouth Rock. They first left at the Church of England in regards to the lax rules in which members were given more freedom to practice. The success of the novel was due to a number of reasons including how new United States was, and the unique American central dilemma, set of characters, language, and American style. One of the central themes that this novel demonstrates the concept of the relationship of man to him or herself and a Christian God. The character of Chillingworth becomes the Puritan values embodiment, in which led the masses to destroy and lynch in the name of God, but largely motivated by the measure of their own repressed envy, greed, and lust.

Scarlett Letter revolves around the effects of the affair rather than the affair itself. This is evident with Hawthorne choosing to leave out all of the sordid details of the rendezvous between Dimmesdale and Hester entirely. Instead, Hawthorne concerned himself with the aftermath, including the values of society in which allowed the punishment of the sin to continue long after it would seem reasonable, the rearing of the child born of sin, and ultimately the shaming of Hester. It uses the public shaming of Hester as a springboard to explore in the contemporary society, the lingering taboos of Puritan New England. “This personage prefigured and represented in his aspect the whole dismal severity of the Puritanic code of law, which it was his business to administer in its final and closest application to the offender” (Hawthorne Chapter 1). Hawthorne uses his greatest assets in is use of writing to explore the emotions and thoughts, and utilizes them to both demonize the thoughts consumed by the affair, and humanize the parties involved in it.

In looking further at the story behind The Scarlett Letter, Hawthorne begins the story by describing Massachusetts Bay Colony jail during the mid-17^th century. Inside of the jail sits the adulteress, Hester Prynne just before being set loose to be paraded throughout town displaying the signature forced punishment of the scarlet “A” sewn to her clothing. This Scarlett “A” is a symbol for the adultery, in which at once hesitant, but endures her badge, as she wants to protect her baby daughter and the father of her bastard child (Hawthorne Chapter 1). She continually wears her “A” stitched with gold threading to give an air of elegance, and she carries her daughter Pearl with her as she is paraded to the scaffold. Hester identifies her husband Chillingworth in the crowd, as he visits her once she returns to prison (Hawthorne Chapter 3).  He forces to not reveal him as her husband, and vows to find the men she committed adultery with. Once released from prison, Hester moves into the woods, where she lives in solitude with Pearl.

Hester earns income by providing stitch work for local dignitaries, and helps the sick and poor. Pearl grows up refusing to obey her mother, and Chillingworth earns the reputation as a physician, and uses this to get close to the ailing minister, Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale is consumed with guilt, and feels that Chillingworth is tormenting him. In fact, Chillingworth is slowly killing him, and eventually Hester tells Dimmesdale, Chillingworth’s true identity. Hester tries to find an escape route on a passing ship, but Chillingworth persuades him to get onboard. Dimmesdale delivers a riveting performance, in which afterwards goes out onto the scaffold, inviting Hester and Pearl. It is with this jester, he escapes Dimmesdale’s hold, “Thy power is not what it was! With God’s help, I shall escape thee now!” (Hawthorne Chapter 13) Dimmesdale dies on the scaffold, but first revealing that he is Pearl’s father, and his self-inflicted letter A on his chest. Hester and Pearl leave town, with Pearl never returning, presumed to be happily married.

The most apparent theme of the novel is the issues with adultery and the punishment.  The punishment of Hester for her adultery, being forced to wear a scarlet letter as a mark of shame for the rest of her life, is considered unusual and harsh. However, considering that Puritans at this time based their practices from the Bible, it was considered legal. As Hawthorne describes, “In fact, this scaffold constituted a portion of a penal machine, which now, for two or three generations past, has been merely historical and traditionary among us, but was held, in the old time, to be as effectual an agent, in the promotion of good citizenship, as ever was the guillotine among the terrorists of France” (Hawthorne Chapter 1). According to Exodus and Leviticus, one should not commit adultery, and if a men were to commit the sin, then both the adulterer and the adulteress would be put to death (Bible Gateway) The types of adultery described in the bible ranged from lustful looks, to thoughts, and the act. For the Puritan society, adultery was seen as a breach of contract between individuals, and they should have been put to die as a result on the legal and moral statutes (Morris 446). This law in this society dates back to the early 1600s, and later condemned by whipping or corporal punishment (Pleck 33). For Hawthorne his ancestor during the Salem Witch Trials in 1688, Major John Hathorne was the magistrate, and he ordered the severe whipping of a woman named Hester Craford after she gave birth to an illegitimate child (Curtis 544). In 1694, the law in Plymouth offered the punishment of displaying an A on the dress, in which gave way to the story of Hester in the Scarlett Letter.

What Hawthorne meant to convey in his story of Hester, is to demonstrate the difference between allowing someone to suffer for their consequences of an unjust act privately and shaming someone in public. As aforementioned, the legal statues were strict, in accordance with their interpretation of the Bible, and the capital sin such as adultery required the death of both parties, or at the very least, corporal punishment that was both severe and public. This is evident in Chapter 1, as a crowd goer calls for harsher punishment, “This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die; is there not law for it? Truly there is, both in the Scripture and the statute-book” (Chapter 1). It is in this society in which shows that Hester committed the sin with Dimmesdale, but the public shaming cannot start to account for all the context of the illicit affair or the complexities of the relationships. What Hawthorne chooses to do is portray how the innate thoughts, the emotional destruction of people involved in the affair, the guilt, and the private torture are more than enough punishment for the crime. It brings the questions if society had the right to impose these laws that are considered private onto their citizens. To take this approach, then the actions of the colony are seen as crimes against Hester and her daughter Pearl. The Puritan communities have found themselves during this time in punishing the sin to leniently or too light, with execution and whipping seen as too harsh, but the embroidery of the A seen too light (Pleck 38). The Scarlett Letter provides a perspective at looking at adultery that would let individuals suffer appropriately for their own indiscretions without forcing society to figure out the proper punishment. This including redefining the private matters in which they should not in any way be involved. In Hawthorne’s generation this view was already palatable, although public interest remained in matters of sexual sins. Hawthorne in his story, tries to influence readers to agree that adultery was a crime, it was not needed to punish by society, but a crime of the heart, that had its own set of consequences in suffering, shame, and guilt, accompanied by innate indiscretion.

Chillingworth’s character provides another apparent theme in which he acts as the arbiter of moral judgment, since the minister Dimmesdale is supposed to be the purveyor of righteousness, is by this sinful crime tainted. “At this instant old Roger Chillingworth thrust himself through the crowd–or, perhaps, so dark, disturbed, and evil was his look, he rose up out of some nether region–to snatch back his victim from what he sought to do!” (Hawthorne Chapter 13) Chillingworth forgives Hester surprisingly, but the reader also understands the recoil to him. He is older, deformed, and has been gone, unlike Hester who is young and beautiful (Hawthorne Chapter 3). For Chillingworth perspective of Dimmesdale, he sees someone that has passion and vigor that equal to Hester, and wants to suck the life force out of him, symbolically and literarily. Chillingworth continues to grow stronger throughout the novel, as Dimmesdale continues to weaken, and until Dimmesdale shows the act of defiance at the end of the novel, does it leave Chillingworth stripped of his power to forgive or punish (Hawthorne Chapter 13).

Hester’s mark of shame, the scarlet letter in a number of numerous ways is symbolic, and perhaps the most in the way she chooses to bear it. For the novel, Hawthorne’s generative image, was that of women forced to wear the letter A, because she was charged with adultery. However, from wearing the letter she decided she wanted to own it, and have it as a symbol of pride. “…Hester Prynne were now impressed as if they beheld her for the first time—was that SCARLET LETTER, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom” (Hawthorne Chapter 1). By trade, Hester was a knitter, and she sees the letter as a burden from society, and an act enforced guilt by the community, which seems to make little difference from her thoughts privately. For Dimmesdale that made his own letter embedded on his flesh, it was rage and guilt from not confessing earlier. From this, we see society’s difference between Hester who has made peace with her sin, by confessing and enduring the consequences, and Dimmesdale how imposes his own punishment because he cannot confess to society.

In all, the Scarlett Letter serves as a moral symbolism that Hawthorne demonstrates in portraying the symbol A throughout the novel. He never defines what the symbol actually stands for, with him referring to as the ignominious letter, the red letter, the scarlet letter, the letter A, a certain token, or the mark. However, the reader is able to discern what the symbol represents, especially to Hester. The main points were to identify the various themes and symbols in order to provide an in-depth interpretation on what the Scarlett Letter means. The themes of punishment, forgiveness, guilt, and the Puritan way are apparent in creating this story that Hawthorne wrote to discern the relationships between men or women with themselves and with their God.

Works Cited

Curtis, George William. “The Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne.” North American Review 99 (1864): 539-57.

Flaherty, David. “Law and the enforcement of morals in early America.” American law and the constitutional order: Historical perspectives (1978): 53-66.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The scarlet letter. Simon and Schuster, 2004.

“Matthew and Exodus”. Bible Gateway. N.d. Web. 17 June 2015. https://www.biblegateway.com/

Morris, Richard B. “Massachusetts and the Common Law: the Declaration of 1646.” The American Historical Review 31.3 (1926): 443-453.

Pleck, Elizabeth. “Criminal approaches to family violence, 1640-1980.” Crime and justice (1989): 19-57.

Zanger, Jules. “Crime and Punishment in Early Massachusetts.” The William and Mary Quarterly: A Magazine of Early American History (1965): 471-477.