Even her name is important, as Hawthorne writes when he introduces her to the reader. He says, "she named the infant 'Pearl,' as being of great price - purchased with all she had - her mother's only treasure!" (Hawthorne 109)
" Dimmesdale's "selfhood is so fractured that he has to appeal to someone else to make known who he is. He exhorts Hester to name her fellow sinner, aware that the guilty party is himself (Gilmore, 2001)
She refuses to name the father of her child and is forced to live with guilt by wearing a scarlet "A" on her gown. Hester is also guilty of hiding the fact the Chillingworth is her husband, and upon telling Dimmesdale the truth, begs "Let God punish! Thou shalt forgive! (Hawthorne, 236)
Hawthorne points out "whether thus typified or no, that an evil deed invests itself with the character of doom (Hawthorne, 257)." Arthur Dimmesdale The Reverend Dimmesdale is "usually understood to be guilty of two sins, one of commission (his adultery with Hester) and one of omission (his cowardly and hypocritical failure to confess) (Pimple, 1993)
Hester even has to fight for guardianship of her own child, as the elders of her community believe that if "the child, on the other hand, were really capable of moral and religious growth, and possessed the elements of ultimate salvation, then, surely, it would enjoy all the fairer prospect of these advantages by being transferred to wiser and better guardianship than Hester Prynne's." (Hawthorne, 1850, Chapter 7) Hester's punishment may make the modern reader angry at the religious hypocrisy of her community, and her morality of willing to conceal the name of Pearl's father and to love her child seems noble
To endorse Hester's view of life, the justification of the entire Puritan society would collapse. Hester is described early on as having "impulsive and passionate nature" (Hawthorne, 1850, Chapter 2) When Hester first emerges from her prison, she is described as: "supported by an unnatural tension of the nerves, and by all the combative energy of her character, which enabled her to convert the scene into a kind of lurid triumph
Hardy begins painting Tess as a tragic figure early in the book, and he continues in this vein throughout the novel. He writes, "In the ill-judged execution of the well-judged plan of things the call seldom produces the comer, the man to love rarely coincides with the hour for loving" (Hardy 46)
She is an excellent mother, which is clear from this passage: "Hester Prynne, nevertheless, the loving mother of this one child, ran little risk of erring on the side of undue severity. Mindful, however, of her own errors and misfortunes, she early sought to impose a tender but strict control over the infant immortality that was committed to her charge" (Hawthorne 134)
Accordingly, one critic notes that "The Scarlet Letter addresses the anonymous toil of women under the barbarism of patriarchy, but we must go farther to undertstand its immediate and continuing power long before feminism became an unavoidable presence." (Arac, 248) the sense that Hester had been wronged by the impositions of society resonates in this text
In his inquiry on the subject, a stranger describes him as fortunate "to find yourself, at length, in a land where iniquity is searched out, and punished in the sight of rulers and people, as here in our godly New England." (Hawthorne, 71) This statement of intent strikes as a core romantic value, contending with no small degree of irony that there is a sense of moral authority in the air which bears a dominant effect on the lives of New Englanders
Exploring through the body of his work such aspects of the nascent democracy's social order as its proclivity toward an unquestionably dominant patriarchy, its wanton superficiality and its ambitiously constant pursuit of perfection, Hawthorne would remark compellingly on the vices of the American experience during the early 19th century. (Stewart, 85) on the subject of adultery, Hawthorne introduces us to convicted adulteress, Hester Prynee, who has been so identified by the scarlet a affixed to her at all times as a punishment for her indiscretions
She is a striking child and she is as unique as her mother. Hawthorne describes her as "the beauty that became every day more brilliant, and the intelligence that threw its quivering sunshine over the tiny features of this child!" (Hawthorne 109)
Other critics have also confirmed Pearl's darker side, noting that Hawthorne uses her as a symbol of the darker, devilish spirit the townspeople fear. Critic Alfred Reid writes, "The character of Pearl likewise exemplifies Hawthorne's tendency to allegorize spiritual phenomena" (Reid 117)
All around, there were monuments carved with armorial bearings; and on this simple slab of slate -- as the curious investigator may still discern, and perplex himself with the purport -- there appeared the semblance of an engraved escutcheon. It bore a device, a herald's wording of which may serve for a motto and brief description of our now concluded legend; so sombre is it, and relieved only by one ever-glowing point of light gloomier than the shadow: "ON A FIELD, SABLE, THE LETTER A, GULES" (Hawthorne, 180) From a New Historicist standpoint, it is worth looking closely at this transformation of the novel's titular symbol
The first instance presents the theme of domesticity in showing the relationships between men and women. In this aspect, the writer presents Linda, the slave girl as a person with the desire to grow and build her own family, with children and a home (Jacobs 2)
Amazingly, he can carry on the conversation without so much as a stutter. He has no problem calling Hester a "poor, sinful woman" (Hawthorne 108) that should keep Pearl because she can "remind her, at every moment, of her fall -- but yet to teach her" (108)
Like the black veil of the minister, Hester's scarlet letter had become her identity, and so she wore it freely in the same manner as Hooper wore his veil, for "what mortal might no do the same" (Hawthorne3 pp). Many scholars view "The Scarlet Letter" as a resurrection story, turning Dimmesdale into a Christ-life figure because while on the scaffold he confesses his affair, thus "the minister's redemption in the eyes of God is complete" (Barna pp)
S. Boone writes in the March 22, 2005 issue of "Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature," that "The Minister's Black Veil" is perhaps Hawthorne's most "enigmatic tale" (Boone pp)
Hawthorne attended Bowdoin College, 1821-1825, and afterwards devoted himself to writing, publishing his first novel in 1829 (Hawthorne pp). He attempted living at Brook Farm, a community experiment begun by a group of Transcendentalists, but was less than enthusiastic by what he saw as hypocrisy and excessive idealism (Canada pp)
Davis suggests that the veil is an emblem that signifies Hawthorne's authorial ethics, keeping a necessary distance between himself and others (Boone pp). One of the most famous theories is Edgar Allan Poe's assertion of "a crime of dark dye" in this story, leading critics to consider the veil as a symbol of ambiguity, a symbol of symbolism and signification (Emmett pp)