Pearl

“Again the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who is a merchant seeking fine pearls, who having found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had, and bought it.” –Matthew 13: 45-46

Pearl is alternately called an imp (evil) and an elf (good), a prophet (of god) and a magician (user of black magic). She has an incredible insight and power to see the truth, but one is never quite sure where her power comes from. Is it the result of her sinful conception and evil, or is it a blessing from God? What is the symbolic significance of Pearl in the narrative? How does she complicate the theme of good vs. evil?

Sex and Sin

This entire narrative revolves around a passionate encounter between two young Puritans and the consequences of their actions. Hawthorne is writing to a 19th century audience, so much of his treatment of this issue is subtle and veiled. Close reading, however, shows that this is an important theme. How is The Scarlet Letter challenging traditional American (Puritan) notions of sex, particularly extra-marital sex? How is it reinforcing those traditional morals? In the end, what message is the reader left with?

Magic and the Devil

One very interesting minor character is Mistress Hibbins, the witch. This woman chooses to follow Satan, while Hester Prynne labors to follow God but makes one mistake that haunts her for decades. Hawthorne said that the reason he wrote this novel was that he learned that one of his own ancestors was a judge who had ordered the hanging of witches during the Salem witch trials. What is the narrative and thematic function of the witch? What is the narrative saying about traditional (Puritan) notions of sin, virtue, magic, and the power of God, and how might the narrative prompt people to reconsider them?

Confession and Blessings

“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.”

The Puritans believed that God blessed the virtuous and cursed the sinful. Therefore, if you were poor or otherwise unfortunate it was easy to argue that this was the will of God. On the other hand, if you were wealthy, beautiful, or otherwise blessed it was easy to justify your status on the grounds that it was God’s will. This opened the door, as you might imagine, to a lot of hypocrisy among certain Puritan leaders. Does the outwardly blessed state of Dimmesdale, in contrast to his tormented interior, challenge that assumption? Do Hester and Pearl’s beauty and the increasing repulsiveness of Chillingworth fit in to that mythos? Is he simply hoisting the Puritans on their own petard, or is he challenging the Puritan mythos in a more fundamental way?

Fate vs. Free Will

We discussed the genre of Naturalism a bit at the beginning of class. Naturalism is similar to Romanticism except that a person’s fate is ultimately unavoidable (the stories tend to have sad endings). It is a pessimistic (or realistic?) philosophy of life. One common variation of this philosophy is the belief that “if God truly is all powerful then everything that happens must be the will of God, even evil, suffering and tragedy.” Does Dimmesdale’s speech at the end of chapter 23 support this theory of naturalism—that everything that happens to us is God’s will and that although we may not understand why things happen the way they do we should trust in God that everything is according to his plan? Or is Hawthorne challenging that concept through his critique of the Scarlet Letter as an unjust punishment, and his depiction of Chillingworth as evil?

Nature and the Forest

One of the key symbols in the narrative is the forest. Many of the interesting and important events seem to happen outside of town in the mysterious forest. Traditionally western culture has seen Nature as dark and mysterious—a place of magic, danger, and evil. This makes sense, because for the Puritans the natural world was a very real danger, full of wolves, bears, unpredictable weather, and other threats compared to the relative safety of “civilization.” Is Hawthorne challenging that conception of Nature as evil? Is he challenging the idea that natural areas are “wastelands”? To what extent is our society today still influenced by this traditional conception of Nature as something to be conquered, tamed, and civilized? Have we changed that belief, or is it still a driving force in our conception of ourselves and how our civilization relates to the Natural world?