The Scarlet Letter and Judging Today's Promiscuity Problem

Call me fickle, but my love of The Scarlet Letter waned. What I thought was going to be a tad satirical in tone ended up being rather wordy and...well...dull.  Call it a glitch in my character, but this story could have been written in far fewer words. I know, I know, it's a classic therefore it has license for sentences that span three-quarters of the page. But I have to ask, why?  Did people really talk that way back in Hawthorn's day? But I digress.

I've been trying to get "caught up" on the classics. You know, reading all those books that I'm going to make my kids read (and that I should have read). But I'm starting to really wonder just what the criteria is for a 'classic'. Seems to me the key ingredient is sex in it's myriad forms-namely adultery. And while there are those who think the 'classics' are important commentaries on society as a whole, I have been wondering just what it is that I want my kids to get from these works.

Here's my take on The Scarlet Letter.

Scarlet in a nutshell: The story opens with Hester Prynne exiting a Puritan jail holding her illegitimate child. The letter A is emblazoned on her chest. She must wear this for the rest of her days as a reminder to her and others of her sin; it is her obligatory repentance. Hawthorn, from the beginning, paints Hester as being the heroine of this novel, despite her fall from Puritan grace. (Actually, it seems that Hawthorn's purpose for this book was to stress that the Puritans lacked grace.)

From the beginning one is asking, "Who's the father?" And the townspeople are asking the same thing. But Hester won't dime-out her lover. Thus the story plods along. Hester holds in her secret and a certain Reverend Dimmesdale wanders through the village guilt-ridden and holding his hand over his breast. Not hard to figure out who Daddy is. In all fairness to Hawthorn, I didn't anticipate a mystery, but...maybe I did.

Add to the plot Hester's husband, Roger Chillingsworth. Yes, this fallen woman has a husband. They are estranged. He re-enters her life at the precise moment that she is standing on the scaffold in the middle of the village displaying her shame. He has evil intentions. He is bound and determined to find out the identity of her partner in crime. He isn't motivated by chivalry; he's motivated by a sick taste for other people's discomfort.

Since the Rev. Dimmesdale doesn't do a grand job of hiding his guilt, at least not from the reader or Roger Chillingsworth, Chillingsworth figures out who Hester's lover is and proceeds to invade his life under the guise of a physician desiring to "restore the young minister to health".  The townspeople thought this great medicine:

"When an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be deceived."

In truth, Chillingsworth is twisted. He pries, insinuates, casts sideways glances, and basically drives Dimmesdale into a frenzy. The minister's double life is more than he can bear.

"The minister well knew-subtle, but remorseful hypocrite that he was!...And yet, by the constitution of his nature, he loved the truth, and loathed the lie, as few men ever did. Therefore, above all else, he loathed his miserable self!...His inward trouble drove him to practices, more in accordance with the old, corrupted faith of Rome, than with the better light of the church of which he had been born and bred. In Mr. Dimmesdale's secret closet, under lock and key, there was a bloody scourge."

The dance of Chillingsworth and Dimmesdale goes on for some time while Hester becomes a somewhat useful, but not respected, member of the community by performing acts of charity. She's also on to what her estranged husband is doing. She decides to fess up to the Reverend because she can't stand to see him tortured thusly.  After Hester's admission, the Rev. puts two and two together and laments. Then he and Hester hatch a plan to get away...

I'll stop there.

The story line is good, it just lacked...oomph!

So, why would I have my kids read this?  Well, for one, so they could say they did. Hey, that goes a long way in some circles. (kidding...)

But seriously, is this a book that I feel my boys should read? The jury is still out on that one.  I've heard it said that The Scarlet Letter should be read because it shows what happens when society passes moral judgments. Those of that camp generally feel society shouldn't judge-period.  But not judging is really a judgment...isn't it? And it really depends on who's doing the judging.  Moral issues are rarely neutral. Hawthorn doesn't so much judge Hester as he judges the townspeople. He seems to sport a sort of reverence toward his heroine:

"The tendency of her fate and fortunes had been to set her free. The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, - stern and wild ones, - and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss."

Was Hawthorn doing then what we are so plainly doing today - making heroes out of those who have transgressed the law, God's law for that matter? I'm not saying Hester, or anyone,  should run around with an A on her breast forever; I'm a big fan of forgiveness. But she definitely gets to stand on the moral high ground with strength of character while the rest of the village looks like a bunch of bigots.

But I think, possibly, I've handled Hawthorn too harshly. It seems he was prescient:

"The scene was not without a mixture of awe, such as must always invest the spectacle of guilt and shame in a fellow-creature, before society shall have grown corrupt enough to smile, instead of shuddering, at it." 

So, how does our society judge the actions of others?  How do we compare with Hawthorn's Puritanical society? How are we handling our own adultery problem of today? Well, we aren't branding our young girls with the letter A, that's for sure. On the contrary, we are providing abortion on demand, handing out birth control pills like candy, and putting day care centers in the high schools. In short, we aren't judging them, but are we helping them?

Obviously, life-long public shame isn't the answer. But to swing the pendulum to the extreme of enabling is dangerous at best. We will always have those who break moral laws (for we are all sinners who fall short), just as we will always have those who judge through the lens of bigotry-fast forgetting the grace they have long been living under. But it shouldn't change right to wrong and wrong to right. Like it or not, there are moral absolutes.

Hmmm, maybe I will have my boys read The Scarlet Letter after all.

Comments

[Carrie]

Oh well said!!!

I had to read this book in high school and I hated it.

I agree with you that Hawthorn seemed to be more bent on showing that the puritans LACKED grace. BTW, know of any good books that discuss (acurately) who the puritans really were as a social unit? I'm hunting.

I, too, am trying to focus on more of the classics which I hated reading growing up (in part because the curriculum required that that I read The Scarlett Letter and I found it unappealing). The more classics I read the less impressed I am with the "genre" (shall we say?) as a whole. What IS the criteria for a classic? And, at least sometimes....why should we care?

[Lynn]

I'm starting to wonder the same thing myself. I wrote on this a while back. It seems most of the "classics" are bent on immorality. Golly, my kids need that, don't they? And many of the authors who wrote those classics led some pretty suspicious lives, at best.