Thesis Statement 1: Society has a way of punishing people they envy by emphasizing the latter’s weakness and making a ridicule out of that individual only to boost their personal worth.
- Claim: When the beautiful and poised Hester Prynne arrived at Boston, she came alone awaiting for the arrival of her husband Roger Chillingworth, however, to everyone’s knowledge. This made the women of Boston threatened by her.
Interpretation: That left the young, beautiful and poised Hester Prynne the interest of men. This grew the displeasure of the women of Boston.
- Claim: Many believed that Hester Prynne did not love her husband, Roger Chillingworth.
Primary Evidence: Roger Chillingworth was a cunning man. In addition, he was not also very good looking. In fact, his body deformity is evident, and it makes him even less attractive.
Interpretation: Many then assumed that Hester Prynne could not possibly be in love with that kind of a man, and they assumed, mostly the women, that Hester Prynne only married Roger Chillingworth for a purpose.
- Claim: Roger Chillingworth was known he feeds on the vitality of others for the purpose of self-aggrandizement. Thus, everyone assumed that Hester Prynne, behind her gentleness, has a hidden personality.
Primary Evidence: Hester Prynne became the apple of the eye of Arthur Dimmesdale. He was very well-known and respected despite his eccentric qualities. Being a scholar and influential and affluent, the women of Boston still wants his attention. Unfortunately, Arthur Dimmesdale already had his eye on Hester Prynne.
Interpretation: This further grew the outrage and displeasure of the women to Hester Prynne and started fabricating rumors about her until Prynne became pregnant despite her husband’s absence.
Conclusion: The people’s displeasure for Hester Prynne made her the constant subject of interest among the people. Towards the story, they started becoming too critical of her action and find ways to make her look like a villain.
Thesis Statement 2: Society is not angered by the crime nor the action, they are angered by the person.
- Claim: It is already an establish fact that Hester Prynne became the subject of the people’s displeasure especially after an affair. Thus, she had faced public ridicule and public condemnation.
Primary Evidence: The public wanted to shame Hester Prynne for committing adultery. Thus, wherever she go she was asked to wear an embroidered “A” standing for adultery to remind every one of her sin and her infidelity.
Interpretation: While Hester Prynne did commit a crime, she was already trialed and had to face the punishment. The “A” was not necessary because it should not be a public affair that she committed adultery. However, the public wanted to shame her as much as they want her to be penalized for her adulterous action.
- Claim: When Hester Prynne bore a daughter, Pearl, she too faced the consequence of her mother’s action. She was ridiculed by the public and was brought to shame for being the daughter of an adulterous woman and for not having a father.
Primary Evidence: The crowd was critical of her and would usually mock her for her mother’s letter.
Interpretation: The crowd wanted Pearl to carry the same stigma as her mother and made her face similar feeling as her mother.
- Claim: The society continues to litigate and prosecute Hester Prynne even after the trial because they were not pleased by simply the solitary confinement and the public shame of letting Prynne wore an “A” symbolizing her adultery.
Primary Evidence: When Pearl was born, the society earnestly tried to separate her from Prynne.
Interpretation: The society intends to make Prynne miserable, and they will stop at nothing until she submits to what they wanted.
Conclusion: Society is not seriously angered by the act if justice has already been served and the person accused of a crime had already been punished. It is the person that they are after if despite the punishment, the society continues to condemn and prosecute the person and it even extends to a person’s family. It was no longer the adultery that was the issue especially after Pearl was born and matured. It was more on the person, in this case Hester Prynne, rather than the act that she committed.
Annotated Bibliography
Heddendorf, David. "Anthony Trollope's Scarlet Letter." Sewanee Review (2013): 368-375. Print.
The article narrates the author’s character and personality for exploring the lurid playfulness in the novel The Scarlet Letter. It invokes the reader’s critical analysis of the horror that public displeasure can cause. This is useful in the research because it will highlight the implications of falling to society’s displeasure.
Liggera, J. " Hawthorne Coins a Term in The Scarlet Letter." Nathaniel Hawthorne Review (2005): 44-49. Print.
The article narrates the author’s character and personality for exploring the lurid playfulness in the novel The Scarlet Letter. It invokes the reader’s critical analysis of the horror that public displeasure can cause. This is useful in the research because it will highlight the implications of falling to society’s displeasure.
Manheim, Daniel. "Pearl's Golden Chain in The Scarlet Letter." Explicator (2010): 177-180. Print.
The article narrates how forgiveness is the cure for redemption. It focuses on the critical review and analysis Hawthorne's lead character. This will prove the point being emphasized in the paper that in order for social indignation and public condemnation to stop, the persecuted individual should show how much the society has been successful at making the person feel bad about themselves.
Pease, Donald E. " Hawthorne in the Custom-House: The Metapolitics, Post politics, and Politics of The Scarlet Letter." Boundary 2 (2005): 53-70. Print.
This article explores Hawthorne’s political personality and how it has affected his story-telling abilities in the presentation of The Scarlet Letter. This article is useful in this research because it opens a lot of political argument and legal justification of the punishment awarded to the novel’s character warranting whether there was any merit to the penalty awarded to the novel's lead character.
Wolter, Jürgen C. " Southern Hesters: Hawthorne's Influence on Kate Chopin, Toni Morrison, William Faulkner, and Tennessee Williams." Southern Quarterly (2012): 24-41. Print.
This article explores the novel’s lead character’s personality and her relationships with the women in the story. This also highlights that comparison in the characters found in the stories of authors Kate Chopin, Toni Morrison, William Faulkner, and Tennessee Williams. This is useful in the research because it allows for the establishment of proof of how society can become too critical over a person that they will be compelled to bring public shame to the individual that gives them such displeasure.
Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter: An Adulterous Affair with Society
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s was highly recognized for his clever pursuit to majestically capture the social indignation for having to commit adultery during the 17th century. Considered as Hawthorne’s magnus opus, the novel The Scarlet Letter has received different kinds of criticisms. Nevertheless, the novel offers a different approach to public scrutiny and jealousy which became an interesting theme of the story. Reading the Hawthorne’s greatest literary masterpiece, two messages has come across in terms of jealousy and social indignation. These will serve as the theses of this paper. Society has a way of taking revenge on people they abhor or those who may have simply met their displeasure. Angered by Hester Prynne’s beauty and poise, society has subjected the woman to social indignation for a crime that many may have very well committed but has not been found. Public shame was given a different meaning when Hawthorne published the Scarlett Letter. It emphasized that the society is angered not by a crime committed, but by the person who commits the crime and penalize the crime not for the action but the person. This paper will talk in details the two theme’s in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and explore the subject of social indignation rooted in greed, jealousy, and revenge. Specifically, it will establish the premise why this paper opens a new theme for Hawthorne’s novel which stands as how society is not enraged by the crime nor the act but by the person committing the crime or the act.
Synopsis of the Novel
The Scarlet Letter centers on the struggle in the life of Hester Prynne when she was came to the small Puritan community in Boston in June of 1642. Already married, Hester Prynne came alone in the advice of her husband to go ahead. However, two years had passed and Hester’s husband did not come. There were news that he was lost at sea. Unfortunately, without the confirmation of her husband’s death, Hester is not allowed to marry nor is she allowed to have relationships. Beautiful, poised and very ladylike, Hester Prynne gained the attention of everyone including the men. And despite of her being married, Hester Prynne generates enough attention from the men of the very conservative Puritan community. This prompted women to despise her and soon, Hester Prynne fell into the society’s displeasure especially the women. The society has become too critical of Hester Prynne’s every move.
The most unfortunate thing happened two years after Hester Prynne’s arrival in Boston. She became pregnant and the news of her pregnancy spread like wildfire among the women of the Puritan community. Everyone started making speculations, but their biggest concern was that these seemingly meek and pure woman is not pregnant but was without a husband. This could only mean that she was committing adultery. Later on, Hester Prynne was brought to trial for adultery, and she was informed that to be saved or at least to have her sentence lowered, she should tell the court the father of her child. Hester Prynne refused to disclose the identity of the man who got her pregnant in the belief that this would not prove anything. As a result, she was charged to stand atop of the scaffolding in the village square wearing an embroidered sign that bore the letter “A”. This would be the symbol of her sin and a reminder that she committed adultery. During the length of her life in Boston, Hester carried the stigma that she later on passed to her daughter Pearl.
However, unknown to the public except for Hester Prynne, Mr. Prynne, her husband has already arrived. He hid in the identity of the village physician and went by the name Roger Chillingworth. The village physician has a dark personality and has the intention of using other people to better himself. Among Chillingworth’s victim was young and eloquent minister Arthur Dimmesdale, who also happens to be Hester Prynne’s lover and the father of her daughter Pearl. Towards the end, Arthur Dimmesdale admitted to the public that he was Pearl’s father, and that goes to admitting the ills of Chillingworth. Moments after Arthur Dimmesdale admitted to his secret, he died and barely a year later Chillingworth also passed away. This relieved Hester Prynne of the crime of adultery and she along with her daughter left Boston. Years later, she decided to come, and the people no longer recalled the incident that brought her public shame.
Discussion
When the beautiful and poised Hester Prynne arrived at Boston, she came alone awaiting for the arrival of her husband Roger Chillingworth. While everyone knew of her marital status, Hester Prynne did not escape the admiration and lusting eyes of the men in the Puritan village she started to make as her new home. This was just among the reasons why she fell to the women’s displeasure. The crowd even grew more remorseful of the young, beautiful and delicate Hester Pyrnne when the threat that she will be a stiff competition of the women in the Puritan community among the few good men grew. “In all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it She stood apart from mortal interests, yet close beside them, like a ghost that revisits the familiar fireside, and can no longer make itself seen or felt” (Hawthorne 196). In this passage, one can almost undertsand the feeling of the novel’s heroine. In this passge it suggests that there were two approaches that society seemed to thrown Hester Prynne’s. One was the impression that they were very pleased of her and the other was complete remorse. Those who were pretending to be her friend were in fact simply trying to earn her trust only to gossip about her later on.
This scenario was not limited to Hawthorne’s novel. In fact, Jürgen Wolter established that this was common among women and heroines in rich classic novels (Wolter 26). Wolter pointed out varying examples ranging from Kate Chopin, Toni Morrison, William Faulkner, and Tennessee Williams. It almost gave an impression that beautiful and pious women always gain the displeasure of her fellow women. For example in Kate Chopin’s heroine in the story The Awakening, Edna Pontellier experiences the same social indignation and isolation after she has gained liberation from the stigma of being the submissive wife.
As the story progresses the readers were able to see how skeptical and critical the society was about a person. This shows that the public would first see the superficial before they would see an individual’s character. And while Hester Prynne seemed like a glow and breathe of fresh air, women were so threatened of her and were very determined to bring her down. Nevertheless there had been speculations as manifested in the lines. “might have return them all with bitter and sincerely smile (Hawthorne 71). Heddendorf tried to interpret Hawthorne’s literary technique particularly in addressing the horrors of public displeasure. In fact, according to Heddendorf falling under the displeasure of the public can bring shame, remorse and prejudice (369-370).
On the other hand, after carefully reviewing the incident that took place especially after Hester Prynne’s daughter Pearl was born, it revealed that the judgment of penalty had been carried by Pearl as argued by Pease (2005, 55). This opens the argument that society is does not intend to penalize the person for the action committed rather, it is because of impression that the person has created. In the case of Hester Prynne, the society was not harsh to her because she committed adultery. Instead, the crown was displeased of the person. This is why the penalty of public shame that was supposed to be Hester Prynne’s punishment was even carried by her daughter Pearl. The society creates the stigma that individuals carry with them and unless the stigma was not intended to harm but rather serve merely as retribution, it was not supposed to be transferred to other people especially the accused’s family. Similarly, Manheim also pointed out that Pearl was also chained to her mother’s so-called act of immorality although she had nothing to do with it except be born out of that “illicit affair”.
Conclusion
The people’s displeasure for Hester Prynne made her the constant subject of interest among the people. Towards the story, they started becoming too critical of her action and find ways to make her look like a villain. Society is not seriously angered by the act if justice has already been served and the person accused of a crime had already been punished. It is the person that they are after if despite the punishment, the society continues to condemn and prosecute the person and it even extends to a person’s family. It was no longer the adultery that was the issue especially after Pearl was born and matured. It was more on the person, in this case Hester Prynne, rather than the act that she committed.
Works Cited
Heddendorf, David. "Anthorny Trollope's Scarlet Letter." Sewanee Review (2013): 368-375. Print.
Liggera, J. "Hawthorne Coins a Term in "The Scarlet Letter."." Nathaniel Hawthorne Review (2005): 44-49. Print.
Manheim, Daniel. "Pearl's Golden Chain in The Scarlet Letter." Explicator (2010): 177-180. Print.
Pease, Donald E. "Hawthorne in the Custom-House: The Metapolitics, Postpolitics, and Politics of "The Scarlet Letter."." Boundary 2 (2005): 53-70. Print.
Wolter, Jürgen C. "Southern Hesters: Hawthorne's Influence on Kate Chopin, Toni Morrison, William Faulkner, and Tennessee Williams." Southern Quarterly (2012): 24-41. Print.
