Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter Essay

07/11/12 Essay Literature Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter The Scarlet Letter was written in 1850 by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The story takes place in the harsh Puritan society of the seventeenth-century Boston. The novel begins with an introductory chapter - The Custom House, in which Nathaniel Hawthorne actually worked in before getting discharged from his fonctions, and before writting The Scarlet Letter. In this Chapter he finds the manuscript of The Scarlet Letter and and a gold thread, he mingles fantasy and reality, thus introducing the tone of the novel, a romance novel, as he calls it. He is also one of the most prolific symbolists in American literature, the study of its symbols is essantial to understand his novels. But in this romance novel ; Hawthorne wanted to go beyond the shallow characters of his predecessors' books and create what he called a "psychological romance" - one that would contain all the conventional techniques of romance but add deep, probing portraits of human beings in conflict with themselves. The plot starts with Hester Prynne, holding her infant on the saffold of the market place, with an A, supposedly for « Adultery » sewed on her bosom, in front of the Purtitan crowd. Her punishment, has been given by the Purtian representatives, of the State - Governor Bellingham- and of the Church - Reverend John Wilson-. The unfolding of the plot is made by the three scaffold scenes, where the four main characters are reunited : Hester and Pearl, her infant who becomes a seven years old child, Minister Arthur Dimmesdale, the preacher of the colony, and Hester's love, and Roger Chillingworth an odd physician who is in reality Roger Prynne Hester's Husband. The relationships between the characters are complex, and in constant conflict with each other. The plot and themes of the novel are set in the Purtitan society at the confluence of these relationships. Their complexity and conflictual tone, are entrenched in the novel mostly by the intense feeling of deep affection, Love,between lovers, or love for a child and its parents? And law : the system of rules that a particular country or community recognizes as regulating the actions of its members and may enforce by the imposition of penalties, but this is the Boston of the Puritans: Bible-reading, rule making, judgment framing. In Puritan society when you desobey the law you also sin, because the two are a unity. Surrounding, the colony, is the forest of the Devil, dark, shadowy, momentarily filled with sunlight, but always the home of those who would break the rules and those who listen to their passions. The wilderness plays an important part in the novel, it is where the characters reveal their true faces : the settings are themselves reflecting the opposition between love and law, wilderness and Puritan Society, imaginary and reality. Nonetheless natural laws, laws of moral and of course, God's law are not to be forgotten. To what extent do the relationships created by Hawthorne, are a representation of a conflict between love and law in the Puritan society ? And is the conflict the only interpretation depicted by Hawthorne when love and law are to be juxtaposed ? First I will focus on the conflict between the head and the heart, that Hester and Dimmesdale have to face, each on their own, in their own way with the flaws and strenghts, that Hawthorne gave them. Then I will analyse Pearl as a symbol of adultery, as seen by Puritan laws, and of an act of passion, and love, and its ressemblance, and possible association with the scarlet letter also a symbol. Finally I will study, the role of God's law, in the matter, and how Hawthorne defines the unpardonable sin as the domination of intellect over emotion. Hester lives in a Puritan colony, and yet she is not a puritan she comes from England, and followed her husband to an american colony of Puritans, in Boston. She goes to Boston alone, and her husband is supposed to meet her there. She finds comfort in the person of Minister Arthur Dimmesdale, and let herself be tempted by an act of passion, and love that gave birth to a « sinful » child. Then Hester has to carry the burden of her shame embodied in the Scarlet Letter, and in Pearl. Hester follows what we can call natural laws : Roger Prynne (aka Chillingworth) is described as old, deformed, and a man of science confine in his books, whereas Hester is young and beautiful, in the world of natural laws this union is odd. But Dimmesdale and Hester are a perfect match. But in the Puritan society, t...