The scarlet letter

The scarlet letter

Hester Prynne, a woman who lived in Boston, has been condemned to wear, for her adultery, committed because she thought that her husband had been killed by indians, a scarlet letter on her breast. She didn't want to reveal the name of her lover, the father of her child, who was Reverend Dimmesdale. But  when her husband had been released by Indians and went to visit her, she made a promise: she would have hidden his real identity, so he could be free to change his name in doctor Roger Chillingworth and could look for revenge, becoming the Reverend Dimmesdale's assistant. In the meantime Hester and Pearl lived alone, excluded by society. So, the doctor prepared a revenge: he infact believed that Dimmesdale was Hester's lover, and father of Pearl. Then the reverend, after long sufferences caused by crowd, that repeated always that he was a saint without sin, he decided to pay for his sin, revealing Pearl's father's identity. But Mr Chillingworth had made a good work on Reverend's body and spirit, with strange medicines, so the Reverend died, leaving Hester, who died some years later, and the little Pearl. The Reverend and Hester had a common tombstone, where was written:

On a field, sable, The letter A, gules.

Analysis

This masterpiece is famous because a woman is the heroine of the story.

.Hester Prynne is a very different type of heroine: she is a strong, determined woman. She is rebellious and refuses authority. Her suffering, her punishment and social isolation make her an indipendent individual. With the helping of poor people, she make herself a different woman, and people forgive her sin.

She is truly the author of her own destiny. She left the prison and walked to the scaffold of her own free will. She bravely decided to remain in Boston, even though she could have fled. She made the decision for herself and the reverend to flee together to Europe. Once returned to Boston she wore the scarlet letter again because she wanted to do so.

Her decisions shows her independence. She represented what America would one day become.

Hawthorne's novel is full of allegories. Hester, who comes from England, represents the new colonial mentality that wants to break away from Old World traditions.

.Pearl, who is born in the New World, is a symbol of the American future.

She represents what Hester desperately fought to be: a strong, indipendent, open-minded American woman of the future.

.Reverend Dimmesdale symbolizes the hypocrisy behind many authoritative institutions, such as religion.

While Reverend enjoyed admiration, devotion and prestige, he was hiding a hideous secret that caused 2 other people to suffer.

He never doubted that their sin was evil. And when he confessed his sin and received his punishment, he could lose his position in society.

.Roger Chillingworth is the extreme representation of a pitiless conscience. He's obsessed by vengeance and loses all human qualities.

Hawthorne had an interior conflict between his respect for the past and his great repugnance of the Puritan cruelty.

He was a very great psycologist, creating complex characters that reflected the many facets of the human mind- love, sex,sin, evil, punishment, rebellion, hypocrisy, revenge and hate.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE's life

.The author of this book, "the scarlet letter", born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts.

.Salem's indian name was Naumkeag, "city of peace", but it has long been known as the "witch city" because of the witch trials of 1692.

Today Salem is recognized as an American historic treasure. It's full of park lands, open spaces, public beaches and recreational activities,"witch museums"with myths and facts about witchcraft, and we can visit museums, historic sites and attractions, including Nathaniel's birthplace, the Salem Customhouse where he worked and the original home of "witch trial Judge" Jonathan Corwin.

.Hawthornie's family took part in the Salem Witch Trials and the Quaker persecution.

.The Quakers (or Society of Friends) was another religious group inspired by the Protestantism. They believed that the sense of life was to worship God and to suffer voluntarily, and that they could approach God directly,without the clergy. They could live free only in Pennsylvania.

.The Witch, instead, was a person who had made a pact with Satan, in exchange of their soul for special evil powers, to torment other mortals.

The victims were called bewitched. The witchs were arrested and tried in a court of law, and who was found guilty, was hanged.

The witch, today, is seen as an old ugly lady, dressed in black with a pointed hat, and flies through the night sky on her broom, with a black cat.

There are yet some things of occult that are still present in our modern society, as exorcism (a way to "drive the devil out" of a person who is said to be possessed by Satan), prayers, sects, rituals and talismans.

.One of Nathaniel's ancestor, once, condemned a woman to death, but she put a curse on his family. There weren't proofs that the curse had any effects! However, Nathaniel was influenced by this fact,in his writing.

.His works show his interest in the Puritans, and in the concept of sin, punishment and evil.

.Puritanism was a protestant religious reform movement, developed during the late 16th century. They wanted to purify the church of any remaining Roman Catholic influence, rejecting the Pope and reading alone the Bible with an own interpretation. They believed also in predestination, that is a belief that a person was predestined by God for eternal salvation or eternal damnation. And success in the work world was seen as a sign of God's favor: devotion to hard work is at the basis of the Puritan morality. They had austere morality, dressed black-clothes and cultivated family piety, honesty, work, education and science. They were often persecuted and they went to the New World where they could finally practice their religion freely!

All of these aspects appassionated Nathaniel.

.In 1828 he published his first work, "fanshawe", but it was unpopular.

.He published also other works.

.And finally, in 1846 he published THE SCARLET LETTER, after leaving his job at the Salem Customhouse.

.In 1853, with the election of the President of the United States, he was appointed U.S. Consul in Liverpool and Manchester. But he left his work to travel and to write.

.In 1864,he died, leaving a lot of unfinished works.

The scarlet letter's note

In 1976, an old notebook was found among some papers: it was Hawthorne's notebook, with his words, ideas, and the first ideas for his future work. Eleven years before he began writing the novel, creating some imagines of some of his characters.

When he worked at the Customhouse, he found a mysterious package, where he found a fine red cloth, worn and faded, with a gold image on it: a capital letter "A".

In these sheets of paper, there were other sheets of papers, written by Surveyor Pue, who told the story of the Scarlet Letter's girl.

Hawthorne, so, discovered informations regarding the life and sufferings of the woman: this story took place in the Puritan Boston, between 1642 and 1649.

So,it was a true story!