The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Barnes and Noble New York 2015 edition by Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.
233 pages
The first edition of The Scarlet Letter was published in 1859 by Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, Boston.
The Custom-House Introductory
The “veil” is mentioned (which is a theme in African American literature): “…we may prate of the circumstances that lie around us, and even of ourself, but still keep the inmost Me behind its veil” (2).
This story falls under the structure of a found text; the author is merely retelling it in his own way. It is fictional all the way around.
“Over the entrance hovers an enormous specimen of the American eagle, with outspread wings, a shield before her breast, and, if I recollect aright, a bunch of intermingled thunderbolts and barbed arrows in each claw. With the customary infirmity of temper that characterizes this unhappy fowl, she appears, by the fierceness of her beak and eye and the general truculency of her attitude, to threaten mischief to the inoffensive community; and especially to warn all citizens, careful of their safety, against intruding on the premises which she overshadows with her wings. Nevertheless, vixenly as she looks, many people are seeking, at this very moment, to shelter themselves under the wing of the federal eagle; imagining, I presume, that her bosom has all the softness and snugness of an eider-down pillow. But she has no great tenderness, even in her best of moods, and, sooner or later,–oftener soon than late,–is apt to fling off her nestlings with a scratch of her claw, a dab of her beak, or a rankling wound from her barbed arrows” (3).
Of course, most of the ideas found within this next will take new-wave feminists by horrid surprise. Here is one early swipe:
“…and it is easy to conclude, from the general slovenliness of the place, that this is a sanctuary into which womankind, with her tools of magic, the broom and mop, has very infrequent access” (5).
Keep in mind, this is a man writing in the 1840s, and one of the many things Hawthorne is doing is showing the injustice and unequal treatment of women.
Have you ever thought of your hometown as beautifully as this:
“…there is within me a feeling for old Salem, which, in lack of a better phrase, I must be content to call affection. The sentiment is probably assignable to the deep and aged roots which my family has struck into the soil. It is now nearly two centuries and a quarter since the original Briton, the earliest emigrant of my name, made his appearance in the wild and forest-bordered settlement, which has since become a city. And here his descendants have been born and died, and have mingled their earthly substance with the soil; until no small portion of it must necessarily be akin to the mortal frame wherewith, for a little while, I walk the streets. In part, therefore, the attachment which I speak of is the mere sensuous sympathy of dust for dust” (6).
When the narrator imagines his forefathers looking down on him, it is with disdain:
“Doubtless, however, either of these stern and black-browed Puritans would have thought it quite a sufficient retribution for his sins, that, after so long a lapse of years, the old trunk of the family tree, with so much venerable moss upon it, should have borne, as its topmost bough, an idler like myself. No aim, that I have ever cherished, would they recognize as laudable; no success of mine–if my life, beyond its domestic scope, had ever been brightened by success–would they deem otherwise than worthless, if not positively disgraceful. ‘What is he?’ murmurs one gray shadow of my forefathers to the other. ‘A writer of story-books! What kind of a business in life,–what mode of glorifying God, or being serviceable to mankind in his day and generation,–may that be? Why, the degenerate fellow might as well have been a fiddler!’ Such are the compliments bandied between my great-grandsires and myself, across the gulf of time! And yet, let them scorn me as they will, strong traits of their nature have intertwined themselves with mine” (7).
“His voice and laugh, which perpetually reechoed through the Custom-House, had nothing of the tremulous quaver and cackle of an old man’s utterance; they came strutting out of his lungs, like the crow of a cock, or the blast of a clarion” (13).
“His countenance, in this repose, was mild and kindly. If his notice was sought, an expression of courtesy and interest gleamed out upon his features; proving that there was light within him, and that it was only the outward medium of the intellectual lamp that obstructed the rays in their passage. The closer you penetrated to the substance of his mind, the sounder it appeared. When no longer called upon to speak, or listen, either of which operations cost him an evident effort, his face would briefly subside into its former not uncheerful quietude. It was not painful to behold this look; for, though dim, it had not the imbecility of decaying age. The framework of his nature, originally strong and massive, was not yet crumpled into ruin” (16).
“It is a good lesson–though it may often be a hard one–for a man who has dreamed of literary fame, and of making for himself a rank among the world’s dignitaries by such means, to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognized, and to find how utterly devoid of significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves, and all he aims at” (21-2).
The name of the main female character is Hester Prynne, introduced on page 26.
The narrator likes to write, so when he finds the tale of Hester Prynne, he can’t resist dressing it up. As he thinks about writing the story, the characters taunt him in his mind.
“Moonlight, in a familiar room, falling so white upon the carpet, and showing all its figures so distinctly,–making every object so minutely visible, yet so unlike a morning or noontide visibility,–is a medium the most suitable for a romance-writer to get acquainted with his illusive guests” (29).
“…the impalpable beauty of my soap-bubble was broken by the rude contact of some actual circumstance” (31).
“The moment when a man’s head drops off is seldom or never, I am inclined to think, precisely the most agreeable of his life.”
“In view of my previous weariness of office, and vague thoughts of resignation, my fortune somewhat resembled that of a person who should entertain an idea of committing suicide, and, altogether beyond his hopes, meet with the good hap to be murdered” (35).
The setup: how he came to write this story.
Chapter 1: The Prison-Door
In the building of Boston, there was first a cemetery and then a prison. The jail has a rose bush on its doorstep.
Chapter II: The Market-Place
“But, in that early severity of the Puritan character…amongst whom religion and law were almost identical…the mildest and the severest acts of public discipline were alike made venerable and awful” (41-2).
“…such bystanders…the women…wedging their most unsubstantial person, if occasion were, into the throng nearest to the scaffold at an execution. Morally, as well as materially, there was a courser fibre in those wives and maidens of old English birth and breeding” (42).
The women of the town are loud and crowded at the jail.
Page 43 mentions branding or marking (one of Vladimir Propp’s steps in the anatomy of a folktale)
Hester Prynne steps from the jail with a 3-month-old baby and an “A” embroidered on the chest of her dress.
“The scene was not without a mixture of awe, such as must always invest the spectacle of guilt and shame in a fellow-creature, before society shall have grown corrupt enough to smile, instead of shuddering, at it” (47).
[I believe we have reached this stage]
Hester stands on the pillory before the townspeople. She grew up in this town.
Chapter III: The Recognition
“A writhing horror twisted itself across his features, like a snake gliding swiftly over them, and making one little pause, with all its wreathed intervolutions in open sight” (52).
Herter’s husband had sent her ahead to America, but he has yet to arrive. She will not reveal the father of her baby. She has to stand on the pillory for three hours but must wear the “A” (for adulterer) forever.
“…with a hard experience written in his wrinkles” (55).
Even to lessen her punishment, Hester will not admit who fathered her child. A stranger with an Indian at his side comes into town and asks what is going on.
Chapter IV: The Interview
The man who motioned to Hester outside is named Roger Chillingworth. We learn he is Hester’s long-lost husband! He valued her youth, but they were not in love. Chillingworth practices medicine and vows to find the father of Hester’s baby. Chillingworth wants Hester to keep his return a secret. If she does not, he will reveal the father of her baby (who will then also be punished).
Chapter V: Hester at Her Needle
“Such loss of faith is ever one of the saddest results of sin” (75).
Hester begins life as a single mother. She could leave town but chooses to stay and face the music. She makes her living as a tailor and seamstress. She knows that if ALL sins were to be revealed, she would not be the only one wearing an A.
Chapter VI: Pearl
Details about Hester’s wild child, Pearl. She now wonders about the A on her mother’s bosom.
Chapter VII: The Governor’s Hall
Some people would like Pearl to be removed from her mother. Hester takes Pearl and the gloves she has made to one of those people: the governor.
Chapter VIII: The Elf-Child and the Minister
[In the Washington Square Press Classic printing in paperback, there is a “reader’s supplement” at this point that includes a cool black and white picture of Hawthorne. The insert focuses on Hawthorne’s biographical background followed by historical background. Next, there is a section of the pictorial background showing pictures of actual places along with renderings of the characters and actions within the story. There is a visual glossary of some of the more unusual items mentioned. Next, there is a section titled “literary allusions and notes” on the custom house and the text of the novel. There are critical excerpts before getting back to the text. This very much feels like the high school teacher specifically noted which version of the novel to purchase due to the extra material found within.]
Chapter IX: The Leech
Chillingworth is now Reverend Dimmesdale’s personal physician…but is something evil afoot?
“Youthful men, not having taken a deep root, give up their hold of life so easily” (106).
“It was as if a window were thrown open, admitting a freer atmosphere into the close and stifled study, where his life was wasting itself away, amid lamp-light, or obstructed day-beams, and the musty fragrance, be it sensual or moral, that exhales from books” (107).
After the minister Dimmesdale is sick for a long time, he and Doc Chillingworth move in together so the doc can look after him. When the minister doesn’t get better, a rumor begins that Chillingworth is of the devil and is trying to win over the minister’s soul. A man has also seen Chillingworh years before under a different name.
Chapter X: The Leech and His Patient
Chillingworth is starting to believe that Dimmesdale’s illness is caused by keeping a deep, dark secret. While the minister is sleeping, the doc takes off the minister’s vestment and finds out something new.
Chapter XI: The Interior of a Heart
The minister is dying of guilt. Although only hinted, the minister has a scarlet A on his chest as well!
Chapter XII: The Minister’s Vigil
“The town did not awake; or, if it did, the drowsy slumberers mistook the cry either for something frightful in a dream, or for the noise of witches; whose voices, at that period, were often heard to pass over the settlements or lonely cottages, as they rode with Satan through the air” (130).
Dimmesdale stands upon the sinner’s stage in the middle of the night. Hester and Pearl are out for some reason, and they all join hands. A large scarlet A is seen to light up the sky. Dimmesdale accidentally leaves a glove behind. The Doctor finds them there but leads the minister home without question.
Chapter XIII: Another View of Hester
“Indeed, the same dark question often rose into her mind, with reference to the whole race of womanhood. Was existence worth accepting, even to the happiest among them? As concerned her own individual existence, she had long ago decided in the negative, and dismissed the point as settled. A tendency to speculation, though it may keep woman quiet, as it does man, yet makes her sad. She discerns, it may be, such a hopeless task before her. As a first step, the whole system of society is to be torn down, and built up anew. Then, the very nature of the opposite sex, or its long hereditary habit, which has become like nature, is to be essentially modified, before woman can be allowed to assume what seems a fair and suitable position. Finally, all other difficulties being obviated, woman cannot take advantage of these preliminary reforms, until she herself shall have undergone a still mightier change; in which, perhaps, the ethereal essence, wherein she has her truest life, will be found to have evaporated. A woman never overcomes these problems by any exercise of thought. They are not to be solved, or only in one way. If her heart chance to come uppermost, they vanish” 145-6).
Hester comes to understand that Chillingworth, her former husband, is not a positive influence on his patient, Dimmesdale. She must do something.
Chapter XIV: Hester and the Physician
Hester tells her ex-husband that she is going to reveal their secret to the reverend. He’s like, whatever. Do it!
Chapter XV: Hester and Pearl
On this page, I looked up the word sedulous: working hard and steadily; diligent; constant; persistent
“Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart! Else it may be their miserable fortune, as it was Roger Chillingworth’s, when some mightier touch than their own may have awakened all her sensibilities, to be reproached even for the calm content, the marble image of happiness, which they will have imposed upon her as the warm reality” (155).
“Heretofore, the mother, while loving her child with the intensity of a sole affection, had schooled herself to hope for little other return than the waywardness of an April breeze; which spends its time in airy sport, and has its gusts of inexplicable passion, and is petulant in its best of moods, and chills oftener than caresses you, when you take it to your bosom; in requital of which misdemeanours, it will sometimes, of its own vague purpose, kiss your cheek with a kind of doubtful tenderness, and play gently with your hair, and then begone about its other idle business, leaving a dreamy pleasure at your heart” (158).
Page 160: asperity: harshness of tone or manner
Hester now cannot stand Chillingworth even though they used to be married. Pearl is becoming old enough to ask what is meant by the scarlet letter. Pearl also notes that the reverend always covers his heart with his hand. Hester has never lied about it until now.
Chapter XVI: A Forest Walk
Looked up a word on page 163: scrofula: a disease with glandular swellings, probably a form of tuberculosis.
Hester wants to tell Dimmesdale of Chillingworth’s nefarious plan. She will cut him off at the pass in the forest to tell him everything.
Chapter XVII: The Pastor and His Parishioner
Hester tells the preacher that he has an evil within his midst. She gives him a brilliant pep talk, but Dimmesdale is having none of it. The reverend does believe Chillingworth will tell on the, but he doesn’t want to leave town. They will see how things pan out.
Chapter XVIII: A Flood of Sunshine
What a great band name:
“…sick, sin-stained, and sorrow-blackened” (178).
“She had not known the weight, until she felt the freedom” (179)!
“Hester smiled, and again called to Pearl, who was visible, at some distance, as the minister had described her, like a bright-apparelled vision, in a sunbeam, which fell down upon her through an arch of bouts. The ray quivered to and fro, making her figure dim or distinct,–now like a real child, now like a child’s spirit,–as the splendor went and came again. She heard her mother’s voice, and approached slowly through the forest.
“Pearl had not found the hour pass wearisomely, while her mother sat talking with the clergyman. The great black forest–stern as it showed itself to those who brought the guilt and troubles of the world into its bosom–became the playmate of the lonely infant, as well as it knew how. Sombre as it was, it put on the kindest of its moods to welcome her. It offered her the partridge-berries, the growth of the preceding autumn, but ripening only in the spring, and now red as drops of blood upon the withered leaves. These Pearl gathered, and was pleased with their wild flavor. The small denizens of the wilderness hardly took pains to move out of her path. A partridge, indeed, with a brood of ten behind her, ran forward threateningly, but soon repented of her fierceness, and clucked to her young ones not to be afraid. A pigeon, alone on a low branch, allowed Pearl to come beneath, and uttered a sound as much of greeting as alarm. A squirrel, from the lofty depths of his domestic tree, chattered either in anger or merriment,–for a squirrel is such a choleric and humorous little personage that it is hard to distinguish between his moods,–so he chattered at the child, and flung down a nut upon her head. It was a last year’s nut, and already gnawed by his sharp tooth. A fox, started from his sleep by her light footstep on the leaves, looked inquisitively at Pearl, as doubting whether it were better to steal off, or renew his nap on the same spot. A wolf, it is said,–but here the tale has surely lapsed into the improbable,–came up, and smelt of Pearl’s robe, and offered his savage head to be patted by her hand. The truth seems to be, however, that the mother-forest, and these wild things which it nourished, all recognized a kindred wildness in the human child.
“And she was gentler here than in the grassy-margined streets of the settlement, or in her mother’s cottage. The flowers appeared to know it; and one and another whispered, as she passed, ‘Adorn thyself with me, thou beautiful child, adorn thyself with me!’–and, to please them, Pearl gathered the violets, and anemones, and columbines, and some twigs of the freshest green, which the old trees held down before her eyes. With these she decorated her hair, and her young waist, and became a nymph-child, or an infant dryad, or whatever else was in closest sympathy with the antique wood. In such guise had Pearl adorned herself, when she heard her mother’s voice, and came slowly back” (180-1).
Dimmesdale and Hester feel: what the heck? Why not go for it and be together? They are about to tell Pearl.
Chapter XIX: The Child at the Brook-Side
Pearl is not sure if she will like this new arrangement. Are they all going to run away together? Where is her mother’s A?!?
Chapter XX: The Minister in a Maze
When the reverend returns home, he feels much changed. He is thinking evil thoughts. Chillingworth knows something has changed, but they do not speak of it. Dimmesdale writes his final sermon in a frenzy.
Chapter XXI: The New England Holiday
Animadversion: a critical or unfavorable comment. The act of criticizing adversely
“We have yet to learn again the forgotten art of gayety” (205).
Hester has set up for Pearl, Dimmesdale, and herself to leave with a boat soon. Guess who else has just chartered a room? Fucking Chillignworth!
Chapter XXII: The Procession
Hester knows her ex-husband plans to travel with her new boyfriend and will be his cabinmate. What will she do?
Chapter XXIII: The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter
After his last triumphant sermon, the crowd is walking with him when Dimmesdale gets up on the scaffold with Hester and Pearl and confesses his sin. He soon dies.
Chapter XXIV: Conclusion
Nugatory: of no value or importance
How does The Scarlet Letter end? Rush to your local library to find out!
Tattooed Professor 