Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter: The Range Of Three Major Problems

By

Markandeswar Dani

            The Scarlet Letter presents before a reader three major problems. The first is Hawthorne’s view of sin. The reader is not certain whether Hawthorne supports the Puritanic view of sin. In this paper I have made an attempt to find out whether the author justifies Hester’s stand point of her being a sinner in the eyes of the Puritans.it may be that Hawthorne attempts Psychological analysis of the conflict in the minds of the characters who believe themselves to be sinners. The problem of sin provokes n endless debate, but remains unsolved. Secondly, Hawthorne’s attitude towards Puritanism poses a question for the reader of The Scarlet Letter: he does not know exactly how Hawthorne opposes the quintessence of the Puritan way of life. As he goes through the novel he is puzzled by Hawthorne’s attachment to it. Hwthorne seems to be product of Puritanism and lso reaction against it. Thirdly, the reader wonders whether Hawthorne is an allegorist or a symbolist. Hawthorne was fascinated by allegories and his symbolic imagination was obvious to all. Here is an attempt to find some of the emblems Hawthorne makes use of here and there in the novel, and to suggest whether he was also an ‘emblematist’ in the old sense of the term.

While wandering without any clue in the subtleties of the novel, what puzzles the reader most is the problem of the sin. What is sin after all? Is it the act of adultery committed by Hester and Arthur, or the violation of what Hawthorne calls “the sanctity of a human heart?” Hawthorne does not seem explicit at all. He is more concerned with the consequences of sin rather than with the nature of sin. He seems to explore, explain, and assuage the lifelong torment of a mind in conflict.

A reader of The Scarlet Letter, who is reminded of Hawthorne’s “home feeling” and belief that his family ws ccursed, may feel that Hwthorne is trying to dismiss the problem of sin in The Scarlet Letter. He may find that the sins of Author, Hester and Roger are “assumptions merely” and is appalled to watch “the slow, relentless fires of subsequent remorse and revenge sear them all.” We are, however, not certain if the sins of Author, Hester and Roger are assumptions.

A reader, who believes in the orthodox Puritan concept of sin and Predestination, feels that the motive of sin is central to The Scarlet Letter. He perceives that sin corrupts not only the body and the mind but also the soul. He emphasizes the inherent sinfulness of human nature and believes that only with the example of Arthur Dimmesdle who falls victim to the sin of passion, leads his entire life through intolerable self –torture, and finally seems to be relived when he confesses his sin while dying on the scaffold.

For another reader who believes that suffering is also a part of human education, the problem of sin is not so puzzling. He views sin as the source of all knowledge, wisdom, power, and spiritual happiness. For “Hester and Dimmesdle not only expiate their sins but through them achieve wisdom, self knowledge, spiritual power in short, greatness which repay their suffering.” Sin led to suffering and isolation through which the characters gain knowledge, Hester commits adultery, suffers for it and finally reaches the pedestal of a saint to assure the wretched and wronged women that at some brighter period, when the world should have grown ripe for it, in Heaven’s own time, a new truth would be revealed, in order to establish the whole relation between man and woman on surer ground of mutual happiness.

A romantic reader of the Scarlet Letter receives the impression that no absolute sin is committed by Hester or Arthur. It is the Puritan society which is guilty of imposing, what O.P. Grewl says, the “red hot brand of Puritan punishment” upon them. And “the tension,” says Randall Stewert,” is tautly drawn between the Puritan (or Christian) respect for law and conscience and the ‘Romantic insistence’ but Hester never feels any sense of guilt. Hawthorne does not seem to condemn Hester or author, their love “had a consecration of its own” and it had never caused them to suffer. He seems to allow the romantic position its full weight and the romantic reader feels that sin is but the outcome of society’s imposition of a guilt consciousness upon the minds of the individuals.

A reader who thinks from a psychological point of view believes with Professor David Levin that “Hawthorne, like his ancestors, was pre-occupied with the normal life, with questions of responsibility and motivation, and with the moral and psychological effects of sin or misfortune.” He believes sin as something which disturbs the balance of the mind. He feels the conflict in Arthur’s mind between his terrible urge to confess his sin and his inability to do so. A mind perturbed by such a conflict gives way to endless self torture physical and psychological.

A reader who does not believe in the Puritan, the Romantic or the Psychological reading of The Scarlet Letter may feel that “sin in The Scarlet Letter is a violation of only that which the sinner thinks he violates. To one character, adultery is transgression against God’s law, to another no more than a violation of the natural order of things. According to him sin means essentially something different to each character. Hester feels to her own nature.” Arthur feels his sin in his lack of confession. Roger never feels that he sins. Hwthorne views his sin in the deliberate surrender of his intellect to the spirit of his revenge.

It seems that “there is almost always in Hawthorne a radical difference between the sin actually committed and the sin that the characters believe they have committed.” For instance, it is Arthur Dimmesdle and not Hawthorne for whom the sin of adultery is the most important fact of The Scarlet Letter. Mark Van Doren observes: “sin for him, for Haster, and for the people who punish her is equally a solemn fact, a problem for which there is no solution in life.” The problems of sin provide wide scope for endless debater. But, does The Scarlet Letterprovide a solution to this problem?