Summary
(1) of the novel: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne In
the introductory chapter the author narrates an account of his
experiences as a Surveyor in the Custom House, in Salem, Massachusetts.
There he discovered an old manuscript and a piece of faded scarlet
fabric, in the form of the letter “A”. He proceeds to tell the story
which he has developed from this documentary material. The tale is set in Boston during the 1640s. A woman, named Hester Prynne,
is put on show in the market-place as part of her punishment for an act
of adultery. In her arms she carries a baby girl, and on the breast of
her gown she wears the scarlet letter “A” . The magistrates of the
town ask her to disclose the identity of the child’s father. She
steadfastly refuses. From her position on the public platform, Hester recognises with horror a
strange man in the crowd. It is her husband, a scholar and physician,
who has assumed the name, Roger Chillingworth. On her return to prison,
Hester is attended by this physician, who declares his intention to
discover the name of her lover. He makes Hester promise not to reveal
his own identity, as her husband. The woman is released from prison, and lives as an outcast on the margins
of the community. She undertakes needlecraft to support herself and her
daughter, Pearl, but demonstrates an artistry in her work which exceeds
merely functional requirements. As Pearl grows she behaves with alarming wildness, and the authorities
consider taking her from her mother. However, Hester persuades the
magistrates to allow her to oversee her daughter’s development. Chillingworth takes up residence in the same lodgings as Arthur Dimmesdale,
a highly respected young minister. Dimmesdale has recently shown
symptoms of rapidly declining health, and the physician undertakes to
monitor his well being. Very soon, this constant observation assumes a
profoundly sinister aspect. The minister’s discomfort is compounded by the fact that little Pearl
shows a pronounced interest in him, as if she has recognised intuitively
that this man is her father. Dimmesdale undergoes private agonies,
racked by the anguish of concealment, as he lives his double life. One night, under cover of darkness, he ascends the platform where Hester
had endured exposure to the public gaze. By chance, she and Pearl
encounter him there. An unearthly light, with the form of a scarlet
“A” appears in the sky. Hester resolves that she must break her vow and disclose Chillingworth’s
identity, in order to free Dimmesdale from the physician’s devilish
attentions. She meets the minister in the forest and tells him that the
man who claimed to assist him is actually married to her. He is appalled
at the discovery. Hester proposes that they should escape, with Pearl, to Europe. After
initial resistance, the minister eventually agrees to the plan. Hester
removes the scarlet letter, but when Pearl returns from playing she
insists that her mother should continue to wear the stigma. Filled with agitated excitement at the prospect of a new life, Dimmesdale delivers the prestigious Election Sermon. At the end of it he summons Hester and Pearl to the platform and makes a public declaration of his guilt. He reveals a scarlet letter “A” which he has etched in his own flesh, and then he dies. Chillingworth,
deprived of his prey, dies soon afterwards. Hester and Pearl disappear
from Boston, but at length Hester returns to her cottage by the sea. She
receives regular letters and gifts, apparently from Pearl, who is living
as a wealthy lady in Europe.
Summary (2) of the novel: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. On
a day in June 1642, the people of the Puritan colony o Boston await the
public humiliation of a sinner among them. Hester Prynne is to stand on
the scaffold in the village square for three hours. The red letter
“A” which she has embroidered on her dress and the baby she holds in
her arms brand her as an adulteress. Hester
refuses to name the father. Her husband, an old scholar, had sent her
ahead two years earlier and is now in the crowd observing the scene.
Under the guise of medical doctor and the assumed name of Roger
Chillingworth, Dr. Prynne demands unsuccessfully the name of the
child’s father and vows revenge on him. Hester
takes up residence with her daughter Pearl at the edge of the village.
Chillingworthe remains as the town physician and moves in with the young
Reverend Dimmesdale, whose physical health is deteriorating but whose
sermons about sin are more powerful than ever. Chillingworth determines
that Dimmesdale is indeed the father of Pearl and torments the minister
with innuendo and debate while keeping him alive with medicines. During
this period Hester successfully rebuffs efforts to remove Pearl from her
keeping. For
seven years, Hester suffers her outcast state until the deterioration of
the minister’s health forces her to confront him. Arthur Dimmesdale,
her lover, and Hester meet in the forest where they renew their love and
commitment and resolve to return to England together. However, the
minister is unable to endure his spiritual agony and mounts the public
scaffold in the dark of night, confessing his sin where no one can hear
him. He is discovered by Hester and Pearl, and observed there by
Chillingworth, who persuades him that his confession is a symptom of his
illness. The
next morning, however, the minister leaves a public procession to mount
the scaffold in the light of day. Joined by Hester and Pearl, and un
successfully restrained by Chillingworth, now deprived of his life’s
purpose, dies within a year, leaving his fortune to Pearl. Mother and
daughter leave Boston, but
many years later Hester returns to take up quiet residence and resume
wearing the scarlet letter and doing good works.
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“The Custom-House”, Introductory to The
Scarlet Letter. The
author establishes himself as narrator of this book by adopting a
first-person voice in this introduction, and by relating experiences
drawn from his own life, while acting as Surveyor in the Custom-House,
in Salem Massachusetts. After
describing the dilapidated building, Nathaniel Hawthorne discusses his
New England ancestors. The first “was a soldier, legislator, judge”,
“a ruler in the Church”, and had “all the Puritanic traits, both
good and evil”(p.12) He
proceeds to describe his role as Surveyor, and his own aged colleagues:
the Inspector and the Collector. Throughout his description he presents
thinly veiled suggestions that this government institutions is
peculiarly prone to corrupt practice. During
this break in his literary career, Nathaniel Hawthorne discovered, he
tells us, a bundle of documents left by a previous Surveyor with a
penchant for antiquarian research. The most immediately intriguing part
of the package is a faded piece of fine red cloth, with traces of
embroidery. Accompanying
the cloth is a fairly full account of its history, and of the story of
Hester Prynne. The written account of this singular woman was composed
largely from oral testimony, gathered from aged members of the local
community. She is remembered as a dignified and sober figure, who in
later life acted as a voluntary nurse and counsellor, assisting the
needy of Massachusetts. Nathaniel
Hawthorne identifies himself as the narrating voice, indicating that in
writing this long introductory chapter, he has been driven by an
“autobiographical impulse” (p. 7).
By immediately invoking his own life, Nathaniel Hawthorne forms a
bridge between the mid-nineteenth-century present, and the
mid-seventeenth-century New England past, which forms the setting for
the tale of The Scarlet Letter. That histrorical dimension is
important to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s conception of morality. He believed
that human beings had to acknowledge the past, and act responsibly
towards its legacy. He also believed that we have the capacity to learn
from history and to make practical improvements in the way society is
organised. He saw American democracy as an important stage in that
gradual amelioration. It
was a convention of the early-seventeenth-century English novel for
authors to announce that they were acting as editors of documents that
had come into their possession. A famous example of this practice is
Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe
(1709). Nathaniel Hawthorne uses
his introductory chapter to explain how he came into possession of the
manuscript which outlines the story of the scarlet “A”. It
is also important that the narrator does not lay claim to privileged
understanding of the materials. He has found them, and is relating them
to us. He may suggest certain ways to read them, but he does not have
the authority of an originator, or God-like figure, and that should
encourage us to feel that our own acts of interpretation are equally
legitimate. The Scarlet Letter emphasises that reading and
interpreting are processes in which all human beings are necessarily
engaged at all times. The
narrator imagines his reader to be in a relaxed conversational
relationship with him. The frank informality of his tone contrasts
starkly with the stern reserve of the Puritan community, described in
the tale that follows. Salem,
in Massachusetts, is the narrator’s home town. In 1692, it acquired
notoriety as the scene of virulent persecution of witches. One of the
presiding judges was William’s son, John Hathorne. ( William Hathorne,
1607-81, was Nathaniel Hawthorne’s great-great-great grandfather.) In
the twentieth century, that persecution has been dramatised by the
American playwright, Arthur Miller, in The Crucible (1951). It
was a symptom not only of irrational religious fervour, but also of
appalling intolerance towards women within a gravely patriarchal
society. The eccentric Mistress Hibbins, who appears at intervals
throughout The Scarlet Letter, was eventually executed as a
witch.
William Hathorne’s severe persecution of Quaker women is actually on
record, but more generally this first New England ancestor of the author
personifies a structure of social power, which is fundamentally oriented
towards men and conventionally masculine values. As such he is an
incarnation of that society which stigmatises and seeks to ostracise
Hester Prynne. It persists in milder form in the “patriarchal body of
veterans” at the Custom-House. Nathaniel Hawthorne suggests that
telling this tale is part of his expiation for the sins of his
forefathers. He is not willing to ignore this unpalatable aspect of his
family’s past. He archly suggests that their guilt has met with
sufficient retribution in his own person; they would not have approved
of his being a writer. Art
and artistry assume major thematic importance in The Scarlet Letter.
Nathaniel Hawthorne believed that art has the capacity to mediate
between head and heart, between discipline and imagination. It may thus
give a clearer and fairer sense of how human beings live than cold
rational detachment of impassioned emotional response. It is Hester
Prynne’s artistic skills which preserve her humanity amidst adversity,
and provide a means for her to gain respect from the community.
Nathaniel Hawthorne is surely also indulging in self-justification in an
American cultural climate that was predominantly practical and had
little time for, or tradition of aesthetic pleasure. In his temporary
stay at the Custom-House, he tells us, he lived remote from literature,
in the company of men who cared little for the written word.
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