On The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was born in Salem in 1804. The spelling of the family name remained Hathorne until young Nathaniel inserted the “w”. There were five people in his family, his father, mother, and two sisters. His father, a sea captain, died of yellow fever in Dutch Guiana when the boy was only four years old. When the news came of his father’s death, Hawthorne’s mother became very sorrowful. She almost stayed in her bedroom for forty years, coming out only rarely, so that the boy and his sisters lived in almost complete isolation from her and from each other.

A few years later, Hawthorne left his hometown Salem and entered Bowdoin College in Maine. He had two close friends there, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Franklin pierce who became the fourteenth president of America and appointed Hawthorne to a consular position in Liverpool. After graduation, Hawthorne returned to Salem. For a few years, he had been gathering his material by observing and listening to others. He listened to people from all walks of life: soldiers, farmers, wives. And after a few years, he began pouring them out as marvelously wrought tales.  

The following are his works: The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, Mosses from an Old Manse, The Marble Faun and so on. And among his works, The Scarlet Letter is the most famous one and is also his masterpiece.

The story happened in Boston about 200 years ago. It narrates love affairs between three persons, the punished woman Hester Prynne who was the daughter of an ancient house of decayed fortune. When she was young her family had married her to a husband who is called Roger Chillingworth. He was an old misshapen man and a doctor. No love existed between them at all. And the man was thought to be dead in a shipwreck. So, another man was a young minister came into her life, Dimmesdale, who had a high position among ministers and was highly respected among his people in town. Hester and Dimmesdale loved each other. But their love was forbidden at that time. It was sinful. What was worse, Hester got pregnant, but she could not tell others who the father of the baby was, because she loved Dimmesdale very much. Due to this, Hester was punished by society with a letter A on her chest, which was considered as an evil and is also a shame.

While Hester stood on the scaffold, an elderly, almost deformed man came into sight. He was her husband Chillingworth. However she still refused to name the father of her child. He felt that he was dishonored by the man and sworn to discover the identity of the man. And then he would take revenge on him. Later, he became Dimmesdale’s personal physician and suspected that the pastor was Pearl’s father.

  One night, unable to sleep, Dimmesdale walk to the pillory where Hester had stood in ignominy. There the family united. And all these things were seen by Chillingworth. Knowing that Chillingworth would take revenge on him he could not escape, the minister admitted his guilt to the watching people on the Election Day. When he exposed his breast, the stigma of the scarlet letter A was seen imprinted on the flesh above his heart. Later, Chillingworth also died, bequeathing his considerable property to Pearl. For a time Hester disappeared from the colony, but when she returned, the scarlet letter, once her badge of shame, became an emblem of her tender mercy and kindness. At her death, she directed that the only inscription on her tombstone should be the letter A.

  In this novel, I like Hester very much. For Hester was brave enough to face the cruel reality. She was always with a mind of courage. She had been alone with her child for so long, with little communication and shame! Hopelessness! Loneliness! Hester had to wear the letter A day after day, seven years as for punishment and ill fame.

When a woman had lived through a difficult experience, her character changed a great deal. Hester’s charitable deeds and quiet humility had earned her a reprieve from the scorn of the community. The letter on her chest represented her work on earth, always helping others, without expecting any thanks. The townspeople no longer view the letter as a punishment, but rather as representing her great strength and bravery and they said it meant “Able”.

Hawthorne’s unique gift was for the creation of strongly symbolism which touch the deepest roots of man’s moral nature. Here in the following I will say something about the symbolic meaning of the major characters’ names.

Firstly, Hester Prynne. She was one of the major characters in The Scarlet Letter. The writer gives her much symbolic meaning by giving her this name. Hester sounds like Hestier, Zeus’s sister in Greek mythology, who is a very beautiful goddess. This gives us a sense that Hester is a passionate beautiful woman. In this novel, she is the symbol of the truth, the goodness and the beauty. She is also very kind-hearted. She proves her worth with her uncommon sewing skills and provides community service. At first, people have prejudice on her. but with time going on, people begin to accept her as an able woman.

Secondly, Arthur Dimmesdale. He is a well-regarded young minister, whose initials are AD, which also stands for adultery. The author obviously tells us Arthur Dimmesdale is the partner of Hester by giving him this name. The word Dimmesdale also has many symbolic meanings. Dim means dark and weak and dale means valley, so the dimdale here is actually a symbol of the “dim-interior” of the clergyman. He loves Hester deeply, and he is the father of Pearl, but he can only show his passion for her in the forest or in darkness. His response to the sin is to lie. He concedes his guilt for seven years. At the same time, he is tortured by his sin for so many years. He hates his hypocrisy to sin, but dares not tell the truth that he is the fellow-sinner of Hester. From all these, we can see that he is weak. He does not take the responsibility that a man should take.

Thirdly, Roger Chillingworth. Like all of Hawthorne’s main characters, is complex and difficult to see through. The words “chilling” and “worth” consist of the surname Chillingworth. Chilling comes from the “chilly”, which means this man is a merciless avenger. He is calm in temperament, kindly, but keeps evil intention. He does not love Hester at all, but he married her. After marriage, he pays no attention to his young and beautiful wife, which indirectly leads to Hester’s tragedy. After he discovers that his wife bore another man’s child, Roger gives up his love to knowledge and decides to punish the man who dishonored him. Chillingworth also means that the avenger’s life is worthless. When he finds his wife betrayed him, he spent all his time on seeking revenge. So, after Dimmesdale died, he finds that he could no longer wreak his revenge, and died within the year. The poor man is more wretched than his victim is, for he had devoted himself.

Fourthly, Pearl. She is one of the most complex symbols in the book, the daughter of Hester. The most significant symbolic meaning of Pearl in the novel is her association with the scarlet letter “A”. One on hand, when Hester stood fully revealed before the crowd, it is her first impulse to clasp Pearl closely to her bosom. Pearl is the real scarlet letter, the scarlet letter in another form; the scarlet letter endowed with life. One the other hand, “pearl” as being of great price, is the only that Hester has in her life. Pearl also serves as moral in this novel. The moral she is meant to teach is that Hester and Dimmesdale should fully commits their sin and then take responsibility for their sin. The first thing Pearl sees in her infancy is the scarlet letter on her mother’s bosom. As a baby, she even reaches up and touches the letter, causing her mother intense agony at the shame it generated in her. Later, she plays a game when she throws flowers at her mother and jumps around in glee every time, she hits the scarlet letter. She also makes her own letter “A” to wear. When she finds Hester removes the scarlet letter from her chest in the forest, Pearl starts screaming and convulsing and refuses to cross the stream until Hester reattaches the letter. She is really a constant mental and physical reminder to Hester of what she has done wrong. With Pearl at her side, Hester will never escape the punishment of her wrong deed. Moreover, Pearl is the person who eventually makes Dimmesdale admits his crime.

More things in this novel are worth thinking. I think the ending of this novel is somewhat like the story of Liang ShanBo and Zhu YinTai. The ending criticizes Puritanism a lot. A couple can not get together when they are alive, after both of them die, they are buried together. How ironic it is!