(full name)
Mrs. V.
10th grade Lit Comp B
5/2/24
The Scarlet Letter: Wonderfully Archaic
In 2020, Nintendo released the Super Mario 3D All Stars collection. It was a collection of 3 of their most prestigious 3D Mario titles, including Super Mario 64. There are a lot of reasons why people don’t like 3D All Stars, but one of them was the lack of “anti-aging cream.” You see, Super Mario 64 is generally considered to be one of the best 3D platformers of all time, however, it does have some flaws caused mostly just by being one of the first 3D platformers ever made, releasing all the way back in 1996. It’s a phenomenal game for 1996, but that’s the thing; “for 1996.” It would have been so easy to just fix these little issues for the 3D All Stars release, “modernizing” the game and making it something people could truly love twenty-four years later, but they didn’t. I have a very similar problem with old literature like The Scarlet Letter. The Scarlet Letter is a historical fiction novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850, largely inspired by his disdain for his own ancestors, who had taken part in the strict and grisly puritan way of “living.” Overall, it’s a great book for anyone willing to put up with the writing style of the time, which frankly, I’m not. To the average reader in 2024, The Scarlet Letter is filled to the brim with unnecessarily arduous argot, filler, and confusing sentence structure. If this book was written today, I bet it wouldn’t be half the length it is. To prove a point, I’ll summarize the entire plot in a single paragraph, as well as look at Dimmesdale’s character arc, followed by an in-depth analysis of the author’s language and why it doesn’t work today.
The overall plot of The Scarlet Letter is actually pretty good, with some mature themes that were quite ahead of its time. It starts by setting the stage in the late 1600s in Boston, specifically at a prison. The prison has a rose bush growing next to it, which the narrator offers one of the roses growing from it to us, the reader! How kind! Unfortunately, by the time we finish a single sentence in this book, the rose will have reproduced, wilted away, and had its children reproduce and wilt away as well. Shortly after, we are introduced to our main character, Hester Prynne, who has been condemned of adultery and sentenced to stand on the public shaming podium with her baby and wear a scarlet-colored letter A for the rest of her life. This A stands for “adulterer,” and is meant to be a way to shame her and show the rest of the townsfolk what happens to adulterers. As you may be able to guess, this scarlet letter is going to play a role in symbolizing Hester’s guilt, and also is the start of many things that establish a theme of public shame versus private guilt. The town’s governors say some things and Reverend Dimmesdale, a well renowned minister, demands that Hester reveal her fellow adulterer, to which Hester staunchly refuses. Much later, we learn that Dimmesdale was Hester’s lover, so the fact that Dimmesdale tells Hester to essentially expose himself while he’s up there in front of everyone shows his integrity and his faith in Hester. While up there, she spots her husband, who she has not seen in two years, and upon descending from the podium, they have a talk. To summarize, her husband, now named Roger Chillingworth, asks who she cheated on him with, Hester refuses to answer, and Roger assures Hester that he’ll find out anyway and makes Hester swear not to tell anyone who he is. There are many signs that point towards Roger being the “Black Man”, or in other words, the devil, (yeah, that metaphor didn’t age super well,) but the signs only increase more and more as the book goes on (and on and on and on…). A few months later, once Hester is out of prison, she settles in an abandoned cabin and does needlework for the people of Boston. Hester is not exactly optimistic about how her daughter, now revealed to be named Pearl, will turn out. After all, “she knew her deed had been evil; she could have no faith, therefore, that its result would be good”(61). However, while Pearl is quite the “outcast,” she doesn’t seem to be all that terrible. Eventually, rumors begin to spread that Pearl could potentially be taken away from Hester, and she goes to Governor Bellingham’s place to inquire about this. It takes some convincing and some help from Dimmesdale, but it’s eventually decided that no, Pearl will not be taken from Hester. Some time later, Dimmesdale falls ill. By this time, Roger has become a doctor in Boston, so he tries his best to help him. Initially, the townsfolk are beyond grateful for this help, but as time passes rumors begin to spread regarding his past, and people begin to speculate that he is the Devil in disguise. Nothing is seeming to work regarding curing Dimmesdale, despite Roger’s immense dedication. After a lengthy conversation about buried sin, Roger becomes suspicious of Dimmisdale possibly being the father of Pearl, and (somehow) confirms his suspicions by lifting up his shirt while he’s asleep. Roger then tortures him for a bit (the book never makes it super clear how) while still keeping his identity secret from Dimmesdale. While Dimmesdale picks up some bad vibes from Roger, he’s never able to find real concrete evidence that Roger is actually doing anything bad to him, so he attempts to just suffer through it. His suffering does inspire some very powerful sermons, however. I find this part of the book quite interesting, as an understanding of mental health this good is not something I expected from a book written in 1850. I’ve heard that the people who are suffering on the inside the most appear the happiest on the outside, because they don’t want others to feel what they feel, and as someone who has been through that, I wholeheartedly agree. To see this concept represented in such an old book makes me wonder if perhaps the author could also relate to these feelings. Dimmesdale’s guilt begins to overtake him. Multiple times, Dimmesdale outright tells people that he’s a horrible sinner, though never actually telling people exactly why. Unfortunately for him, however, all this does is make people revere him all the more and go “Alas, if he discern such sinfulness in his own white soul, what horrid spectacle would he behold in thine or mine”(99)! Thinking that you’re much lesser than what other people think of you or that you don’t deserve your success or position in life are classic symptoms of imposter syndrome, and Nathaniel Hawthorne does a great job at representing these symptoms in Dimmesdale. Now, Dimmesdale starts to go completely insane. He hallucinates, he practices self harm in the form of whipping himself, he fasts, and he doesn’t sleep. Eventually, he reaches a breaking point and decides to stand on the scaffold where Hester stood for her public ignominy so long ago, in the hopes that it will at least partially atone for his sin. I saw this as a bit of irony, as any true christian of today will know that nothing you do on this earth can atone for your sins, save for praying for God’s forgiveness. I suppose we can add that to the list of peculiar puritan practices. While up there, he fantasizes about what would happen if the townsfolk saw him, their beloved minister, standing upon the pedestal of shame, where the yucky sinners go. Reverend Wilson passes by, coming home from sitting at the deathbed of Governor Winthrop, not noticing Dimmesdale in the darkness, when Dimmesdale calls out to him, saying “A good evening to you, venerable Father Wilson! Come up hither, I pray you, and pass a pleasant hour with me”(103)! In his delirium, he’s revealed himself to one of the town governors, and now he’s about to- wait, what? He didn’t actually say that? That’s… probably even worse, considering the fact that Dimmesdale would’ve disagreed with you, at least for a moment. Wilson passes on by, and Dimmesdale begins to lose himself in his own hallucinations and fantasies. He involuntarily laughs aloud at “the grotesque horror of (these pictures)”(104), which, to his surprise, is met by a laugh from Pearl. Dimmesdale calls out to Pearl and Hester, the latter of which responds. Hester and Pearl join Dimmesdale on the scaffold at his request, and he feels revitalized by their presence as they hold hands. Pearl asks if they could do this again tomorrow at noon, to which Dimmesdale declines, still not quite wanting to be seen as Hester’s lover by the public eye yet. A meteor appears in the sky and leaves behind a dull red letter “A” in the sky, an interesting coincidence considering our favorite adulterers happen to be standing outside next to each other, one of which wearing a similarly colored letter A. Jokes aside, I’ve heard this is meant to symbolize something, but what exactly is it symbolizing? The fact that Dimmesdale and Hester are existing next to each other? The fact that they are both guilty of adultery? We can see that pretty clearly already, thank you very much. Anyways, the meteor illuminates their surroundings, and Roger happens to be walking home from Winthrop’s deathbed and spots Dimmesdale and the gang hanging out on the scaffold. In order to maintain trust with Dimmesdale, Roger pretends to assume he sleepwalked up there and offers to lead him home, to which Dimmesdale accepts. The next day, he preaches his most powerful sermon yet, and after, a church sexton brings Dimmesdale his glove that was found on the scaffold, which he assumes to have been placed there by Satan in a futile attempt to put dirt on Dimmesdale’s name. Additionally, not a single person in the town interpreted the red letter A in the sky last night to mean “adulterer” or anything of the like, but rather “angel,” signifying that Governor Winthrop ascended to heaven and became an angel. If it wasn’t painfully clear how much trust the town has in Dimmesdale at this point, it should be now. Nobody could ever even imagine that Dimmesdale would hide something like this from them. A few years pass, and Hester, while still often shamed and scorned, is becoming a bit more active and accepted in society. She does frequent charity work, and people begin to interpret her scarlet letter to mean “able” rather than “adulterer.” However, she’s also gotten really tired of life, questioning if existence as a woman in this fervently sexist society is worth accepting. She also worries about Dimmesdale and how she might be harming him by not telling him Roger’s true identity. Eventually, she has enough and resolves to ask Roger to stop tormenting Dimmesdale, which she does to essentially no avail. As he walks away, Hester realizes that she hates her husband. Despite her best judgment, and realizing that it must surely be a sin to do so, she hates her husband, to the point where she deems that marrying him is “her crime most to be repented of”(121). Hester looks for Pearl and finds her pretending to be a mermaid, with eelgrass on her chest purposefully arranged to look like the letter A that Hester wears, in hopes that Hester will ask her about it. Hester does indeed ask about it, asking if Pearl knows what the scarlet letter means, and Pearl says she does; it’s for the same reason that the minister puts his hand over his heart. When pressed further, Pearl says she’s said all she knows. This would not be the first time Pearl has said something uncannily smart, likely without even knowing. For instance, in the very next chapter, Hester and Pearl go into the forest because Hester heard that Dimmesdale will be passing through there and she wants to tell him Roger’s true identity. As they’re walking, Pearl notices that Hester doesn’t seem to be getting much sunlight and says “Mother, the sun does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom. (...) I am but a child. It will not flee from me; for I wear nothing on my bosom yet!”(126) Eventually, they’re able to spot Dimmesdale in the distance, and Pearl asks if that is the “black man,” a metaphor which has come up before in reference to Satan. Hester affirms that it is no black man, but the minister, and tells Pearl to go play so they can talk in private. Hester and Dimmesdale sit down by a brook and she tells him the truth about Roger. Understandably, Dimmesdale is quite upset that she didn’t tell him sooner, but eventually decides that Roger is still worse than Hester or himself and it would be more productive to be upset at him. Dimmesdale begins to worry that Roger will tattle on them, to which Hester reaffirms him and tells him not to worry as they hatch a plan to run away together with Pearl to Europe. This decision reinvigorates the both of them; they can see the light at the end of the tunnel, they just have to suffer a bit longer. Hester takes off the scarlet letter and calls Pearl over, who refuses to come, pointing to the place where the scarlet letter used to be. She only comes once Hester puts it back on. Once she does, Pearl comes over and kisses Hester and, to her dismay, the scarlet letter. Pearl asks if “he will go back with us, hand in hand, we three together, into the town”(145), to which Hester says no, and as such, “Pearl would show no favor to the clergyman”(146). Dimmesdale kisses Pearl on the forehead and Pearl runs to the brook to wash it off. Dimmesdale returns to town, thinking about their plan to go to Europe, which involves boarding a ship run by people who Hester had gotten to know through charity work. This plan changes something inside Dimmesdale, making things he once knew so well seem strange and unfamiliar. He can barely restrain himself from saying blasphemous things to the people he comes across. After numerous close calls, he encounters Mistress Hibbens the “reputed witch-lady”(151), who smiles and offers to come with him to the forest next time. Thoroughly disturbed, Dimmesdale begins to worry that he may have sold his soul to the devil while in the forest. Finally Dimmesdale makes it home, where he tells Roger that he will no longer need the drugs he’s been giving him. Roger instantly recognizes that Dimmesdale is most likely on to him but is afraid to actually say anything on the matter, so he pretends to be happy for him, saying “I joy to hear it. It may be that my remedies, so long administered in vain, begin now to take due effect”(154). Roger leaves and Dimmesdale throws out the sermon he was going to preach for the upcoming election day and starts fresh. Later, on the election day, Hester imagines telling everyone how awesome she is for running away, her thoughts interrupted when one of the sailormen mentions that Roger will be joining them on their trip to Europe. Understandably, this severely startles Hester, and she spots Roger from a distance, smiling wickedly at her. A bit later, she, among others, notice Dimmesdale and how he looks much more energetic than he has in a while. This saddens Hester, making her feel like she doesn’t even know him anymore, and she wonders if all this is even a good idea. Hester encounters Mistress Hibbins, who says that Dimmesdale has become a servant of the Black Man and that he will soon be revealed as such. Once she leaves, Hester goes to the foot of the scaffold to listen to Dimmesdale’s sermon as Pearl wanders around aimlessly. I suppose people were a bit less overprotective of their kids back then, huh? I mean, think about it; not even forty years ago, they unironically had to broadcast public service announcements saying things like “It’s 10PM. Do you know where your kids are?” If that’s how it was in the 80s and 90s, imagine how it must’ve been in the 1600s. Eventually, Pearl comes back with a message from one of the sailors whose ship they plan to board, saying that Roger will bring Dimmesdale aboard the ship with him, and that Hester can stay where she is and focus on literally anything other than what Roger will probably do to Dimmesdale. Hester is rightly concerned about this, and as she thinks about what to do, she suddenly realizes that everyone is staring at her and her scarlet letter. Why? Good question. Anyways, Dimmesdale wraps up his sermon, and everyone agrees that it was his best sermon ever. Dimmesdale walks by Hester, stops, and ascends the scaffold, beckoning Hester and Pearl to join him. Roger begs Dimmesdale not to go through with this, and he rebukes him. Dimmesdale confesses everything up there in front of everyone, and shows how he too has a sort of red mark on his chest. Dimmesdale then sinks down, exchanges some words with Hester and Pearl, and… dies. There are a couple theories on how he died, namely Roger’s “revenge,” Dimmesdale’s own self-harm methods, or simply his own remorse and anguish. I find it most likely that it’s a combo of the second and third ones, as the fact that Roger was shouting “Thou hast escaped me”(174)! as Dimmesdale was dying implies at the very least that Roger did not intentionally kill him. Roger dies within the year and Hester and Pearl disappear, turning the story of the scarlet letter into a legend. However, many years later, Hester returns to Boston alone, moving into her old cottage and doing charity work like the old days. Eventually she dies, and Hester and Dimmesdale share a tombstone. Quite the lengthy story, but also quite mature and overall one worth reading.
Arthur Dimmesdale is such a fascinating character. In the beginning, we have no way of knowing what Dimmesdale is feeling, as we don’t even know that he’s going to be a major character yet. The first pieces of character development we see are largely revelatory, meaning that instead of the traits of the character actually changing, they are simply being revealed to us, which still changes the audience’s view of the character, and therefore can be called character development. In chapter eight, it’s revealed to us that the minister frequently puts his hand over his heart whenever “his peculiarly nervous temperament was thrown into agitation”(78). This is the first hint we get that there might be something preternatural going on behind the scenes in Dimmesdale’s mind. In chapter nine, we finally begin to understand just how dire Dimmesdale's mental and physical state is. Not even the acclaimed physician Roger Chillingworth, who, mind you, has not discovered Dimmesdale’s secret yet, can cure him, likely due to the fact that his condition is solely being caused by his own guilt and remorse. No amount of drugs or medicine can change the past. By chapter eleven, Roger has begun his revenge, and it starts to show with Dimmesdale’s increasing pain, both mental and physical in the form of self-harm. It seems the only thing that can give him peace is being with Hester, as shown in chapters twelve and eighteen. In chapters eighteen through nineteen, it seems as though things are finally starting to look up for Dimmesdale, and yet by chapter twenty it seems he’s even more confused than ever, and it only gets worse, culminating in his untimely death. Dimmesdale truly is a strange character, one that at times I don’t fully get, but others I do more than anyone else.
Now, it’s time to look at the one thing that holds this book back from being truly magnificent. The thing that puts off so many people and prevents it from being a widely talked about story that people remember. The author’s language and writing style. One of the very first sentences in this book goes “The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison.”(33) That’s a lot of words, right? Especially for something that essentially boils down to “The founders of a new colony, despite whatever dreams they may have for a utopian paradise, indubitably recognize that building a cemetery and a prison early on is a requirement for a functional society.” Already we can see overtly complicated sentences and words, in large part due to the time it was written. Whether or not that’s a good thing is ultimately up to the reader, but for the average high school student being forced to read it, it’s an inauspicious first impression at best, and a deal-breaker at worst. Essentially my point is that people don’t talk like this anymore, and most people don’t want to have to decode the author’s language just to read a book. Additionally, there are parts that kinda just seem to drag on. While some chapters, like chapter twelve, are thoroughly thrilling to read, some, like chapter five… aren’t. For example, there’s one paragraph in chapter five that lasts over half a page, which can essentially be summarized as “It may seem strange that Hester didn’t leave Boston, considering she had every right to do so, and you’d be right.” Or how about the entirety of chapters seven and eight, which might as well just say “Hester heard that Pearl was going to be taken away from her, so she went to the governor’s place to ask about it and, after some convincing, is told no, the child will not be taken from her.” To me, these two chapters are a bit of a distraction that doesn't really progress the plot very much other than somewhat strengthening our knowledge of the relationship between Hester and Pearl, which frankly, could’ve been done with a lot less words. The overall story of this book would hardly change if these two chapters were entirely removed. In short, there’s a reason why there are “no fear” translations of books like these; it’s because a lot of people find it more enjoyable to actually be able to comprehend what they’re reading.
The scarlet letter is a great book for anyone who’s okay with archaic sentence structure and grammar. The plot, while it occasionally can drag on a bit, is overall pretty engaging, Dimmesdale is a fascinating character that was way ahead of its time, and yet not as many people appreciate this book as much as it deserves due to the outdated writing style, though to be fair, at least it’s better than Beowulf, which would oftentimes just completely derail the plot to describe the origin story of some random sword “just ‘cuz.” Overall, this book gets a recommendation from me. If you don’t feel like deciphering 150+ year old text, you can pick up a “no fear” translation of the book that translates the text into modern English that normies can understand for just a few bucks. Otherwise, there are free audiobooks on Youtube that you can listen to right now.