The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (Introduction)

 

The Scarlet Letter

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

(Introduction)

 

The Scarlet Letter is one of the most disturbing novels. It begins with the description of the Custom House in Salem, the native town of Hawthorne. The occupants of the Salem Custom House were his own Puritan ancestors who had come here two centuries ago from Great Britain. William Hawthorne, the first ancestor, was a soldier, legislator and judge, carried his Bible and the sword, and was known for the martyrdom of the witches. This fact always tormented Hawthorne. It was in the Custom House that Hawthorne chanced upon a dingy paper in which the surveyor Pue had related the details of one Hester Prynne who lived in the early seventeenth century, moved from place to place doing the job of a nurse rendering advice on all matters, while a few regarded her as a vile and undesirable person. The episode triggered off the creative impulses of Hawthorne, and years later he fashioned this story into a ‘Romance’ and was titled The Scarlet Letter.

As the narrative unfolds, Hester emerges out of the Salem prison along with her three-month old infant daughter, and is made to put on the scarlet letter for her adulterous act. Hester is described as tall and ladylike as she moves towards the scaffold on which she is required to stand as a part of her punishment. In this hour of severe ordeal, she remembers her dead parents and an aged man (Roger Chillingworth) with a deformed back, and then hugs the child fiercely. The clergymen try to get out of her the name of her paramour which she stubbornly refuses. The public ignominy at the market place and severity of the looks of the crowd, make her unwell as well as her child. In the crowd stands a physician, Roger Chillingworth who is discovered to be Hester’s husband. He treats the mother and the daughter. The wronged husband in the physician assures the nervous Hester that he would not have his revenge on her, but on the man who has seduced his wife, enjoining on her to keep his identity secret.

The custodians of public morality debate over the custody of the illegitimate child of Hester Prynne. Fearing that her love off-spring may not be separated from her, Hester meets the Governor who is already in the company of Arthur Dimmesdale, the priest, and Chillingworth, the physician. With Dimmesdale’s intervention, the custody of the child, Pearl, is entrusted to the mother. The situation is fraught with irony. The wronged husband, Chillingworth, seeks Dimmesdale’s good offices and so does Hester, without any one suspecting that the unknown paramour of Hester is none other than Arthur Dimmesdale. Maybe, Dimmesdale was at that point of time listening to his heart than to his ecclesiastical obligations.

Meanwhile, as Hester and Pearl carry the burden of their existence, Dimmesdale’s health deteriorates, and Chillingworth becomes the God-sent physician to take care of the malady that afflicts the priest. The sin of worm drills into the psyche of the priest and torments him with the acutest pain conceivable, thus throwing him into the morass of depression. The physician observes Dimmesdale minutely. As the two discuss the ideas of guilt and sin, Dimmesdale suffers from a sense of unease and spiritual torment. At this point of time, the wronged husband in Chillingworth zeroes in on the exact cause of Dimmesdale’s malady.

Seven years after Hester Prynne suffered ignominy on the scaffold, Arthur Dimmesdale one night, stands on the same scaffold and cries in a sense of anguish, maybe to atone for his sin, complicity, duplicity and cowardice. When in the Forest Scene Hester tries to seduce the mind of Dimmesdale with vision of togetherness at some distant place, the priest’s momentary vacillations are subdued because he is skeptical about his surviving if he abandons his profession. Hester gets convinced with the passage of time that Chillingworth’s evil association with Dimmesdale is the root cause of the latter’s worsening predicament.

Salem witnesses a lot of hustle and bustle on the day the new Governor is to take charge. On this day Dimmesdale delivers the sermon in tremulous voice as the hearers are enraptured by his high voice and holiness. A new sense of confidence, exuberance and hope is perceptible on the face of the priest, and he is all set to confess neither in privacy nor in secrecy. He moves through the crowd, comes to Hester and Pearl, stretches his arms towards the scaffold, calls them to his side. Holding Pearl’s hand and supported by Hester, Dimmesdale stands on the scaffold and confesses his sin to the magistrates. He tears open his clothes to reveal some deep wound, and the whole crowd is terror-stricken. Pearl kisses the priest. Smitten with remorse, Dimmesdale dies, reminding her of their sin and the justice of God. Years roll by. Meanwhile, Chillingworth too dies, leaving enormous wealth to Pearl. Hester and Pearl depart for England where Pearl gets married in an aristocratic family. Hester returns to Salem and through her acts of service and mercy to her own society members, she transforms herself through service and becomes an angel of mercy. After her death, she is buried near the grave of Dimmesdale with the letter ‘A’ marked on her tomb. The novel embodies the spirit of New England life of the seventeenth century.