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Sin is as old as Adam and Eve, moreover there is no world without sin. “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Genesis 3:1-24 ) The Puritans adopt that theory and believe that every person is born as a sinner but God has chosen to save the elected few. This essay deals with the topic of sin in the life of Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Furthermore, how Hester develops through her punishment, the scarlet letter A. In contrast, the essay compares Hester´s transformation to the character development of Chillingworth, Hester´s husband, who appears as an innocent character. But his character alters when he finds out that Arthur Dimmesdale is Hester´s lover and starts to wreak vengeance on Dimmesdale. He does so by pretending to be a doctor and he makes sure that Dimmesdale doesn´t get better but worse when he gets physically sick as a consequence of his sin. Both characters, Hester and Chillingworth, are sinners, but the difference is the motivation of the sin: love compared to revenge.
Nathaniel Hawthorne started to write The Scarlet Letter when he got fired from his job after a change in politics. He worked for several years as Surveyor of the Salem Custom-House, also the name of the preface. Hence, Hawthorne had reasons for thinking about revenge and one can say he got some “measure of revenge on the Whigs who conspired against him, but the preface was written when the novel itself was nearly completed” (Person 466) In addition to that, Hawthorne’s great-great-grandfather was a judge in the infamous Salem witchcraft trial, where several people were executed. Hawthorne felt guilty for his family heritage. Undoubtedly, the sense of guilt is shared by many of his character: starting with Hester Prynne.
The novel begins with her being punished for committing adultery. The theme of sin is introduced by Hester’s public shaming and the scarlet letter. Hawthorne is an author known for his criticism of Puritanism. The critique is represented throughout the novel, starting in the first scene, where Hester is being punished in front of the prison at the scaffold. The puritans believe that sin needs not only to be punished, but the sinner has to be sought publicly. The scarlet letter therefore is a symbol for everyone else to see who Hester is, namely a sinner, as an example for someone who they don’t want to become. One can argue that the punishment serves the community more than the sinner as a symbol to make up for their depravation. Consequently, Hester’s life in Boston is quite hard. The townspeople avoid her and endure their stares, their whispers and their contempt. For them, Hester is the ultimate example of sin. Pearl, the child born out of wedlock, is also a symbol of the sin but also a critique of the Puritan lifestyle. Nina Baym sees Pearl as “Hester’s id, acting out her unconscious rebellion against the unfairness of Puritan justice (138)” (Last 363) The metaphor of Hester’s id goes back to the idea of Sigmund Freud. He structured the human psyche in three parts: the id, ego and superego. Freud describes the id as chaotic and having a primitive nature. These characteristics are also shown by Pearl.
Pearl is the reason Hester´s adultery were known. She is “a direct consequence of the sin” (Hawthorne 41) On the contrast, her mother Hester calls her Pearl as something pure and made from nature. The puritans believe in the original sin and describe Pearl as an “imp of evil, emblem and product of sin, she had no right among christened infants.” (Hawthorne 31) That’s why they want to separate Pearl and her mother. But Hester does everything to keep her daughter, her happiness. By showing her rebellious spirit and by being allowed to keep her daughter, she beaks the puritan rule. Hester fights against the puritan society and their unfair laws. By saying, “Mother, (…), the sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom” (Hawthorne 98), Pearl points out that the symbol of the puritan laws, the scarlet letter, is the reason the sun hides from her. The sunlight can be seen as happiness and the scarlet letter, the puritan punishment, is the reason that Hester can’t be happy. By following Puritan laws, it is hard for Hester to be happy. The hard laws and the plain lifestyle contrast the way of life of Hester and the view of Hawthorne.
The role of sin in Hester’s life is enormous. The consequences of her sin accompany her every day and as a consequence Hester needs to find a way to live with her sin which is tough due to the scarlet letter as a daily reminder. But also, Pearl makes her constantly aware of that scarlet letter even though she is too young to realize what the scarlet letter means. By reminding Hester everyday of her sin, Pearl is a kind of punishment and for Hester her torture. Pearl is a symbol for the scarlet letter. Hester says, “She is the scarlet letter, only capable of being loved” (51) It is difficult “not to read Pearl allegorically, as the narrator repeatedly insists on her symbolic significance.” (Last 363) Her action of sin makes Hester who she is and influences her way of living. Hester not only lives with her sin but tries to make the best out of it, not only for her but also for her daughter to find back into the community. Hester starts to fashion “clothes for the poor and even feeds them from her meager supply, although frequently the only thanks she gets is a jibe.” (Sandeen 427) Despite that, Hester shows her good heart and helps everyone till she becomes “self-ordained a Sister of Mercy” (Hawthorne 75). “In such emergencies, Hester´s nature showed itself warm and rich; a well spring of human tenderness.” (82) Hester tries to make up for her sin and be a part of the community again. Her hard work starts to be rewarded and the people begin to change the way they look at Hester. The meaning of the letter ‘A’ becomes more ambiguous and shows a plurality of meaning. The original meaning of adultery changed to angel, able, artist.
To sum up, despite the scarlet letter A as a constant reminder and the townspeople who showed Hester their disrespect and reluctance, she never showed misbehavior, exactly the opposite. By helping other people and working hard, Hester´s character shifts from sinner to a person her daughter can look up to. Exactly the ambivalent development goes Chillingworth through.
Chillingworth is a “physician’ and ‘a man of skill in all Christian modes of physical science’ (19) Throughout the novel, Chillingworth changes from an innocent character to someone who is obsessed with revenge. A character who is introduced as being wronged and without sin, for now, starts to show his true self from the first appearance. After he sent his wife to the new world to wait for him until he finished some business, Chillingworth sees Hester again during her publicly shaming. Instead of being angry at her and having an emotional breakdown, he tells her to keep silent and not to tell anyone that he is her husband. Moreover, he forces her to stay in Boston. His intention is to be near Hester so he can watch her being punished and also to find out who the father of Pear is. Beyond that, Chillingworth wants Pearls father to pay the price for his sin. “It irks (him), nevertheless, that the partner of her iniquity should not, at least, stand on the scaffold by her side.”(14) If there is no justice, Chillingworth is willing to do anything to make justice himself and says, “I shall feel him tremble. I shall feel myself shudder, suddenly and unawares.” (22) This shows his dark obsession which will drive the plot for the rest of the novel. His dark inner side is also shown by Hawthorne describing Chillingworth’s first appearance and building a symbol of evil revenge: “dropping down, as it were, out of the sky, or starting from the nether earth, had an aspect of mystery, which was easily heightened to the miraculous. (Hawthorne 53) Hawthorne describes Chillingworth as supernatural, someone who comes from the nether earth. The nether earth can be seen as the world of the dead. Thus, Hawthorne creates an evil image of Chillingworth. Though Chillingworth haven´t done anything wrong yet, his first appearance already shows his dark side which drives the plot of the novel.
When Dimmesdale get sick, it´s Chillingworth change to start his revenge and let Dimmesdale get his punishment. However, Dimmesdale´s punishment is to keep silent. He can´t handle the situation to keep such a secret and he not only gets psychically but physically sick. In other words, his hypocrisy drives him sick. Chillingworth pretends to be a doctor and starts taking care of Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale can basically feel Chillingworth’s dark side. When he first sees him, he is ‘overcome with terror.’ (79) He can´t help him but had to ask Hester for help: ‘Who is that man”, ‘I shiver at him! Dost thou know the man? I hate him, Hester!’ (79) Despite of Dimmesdale’s suffering, Hester can´t tell him anything due to her oat to Chillingworth. By not telling him anything, Hester protects Chillingworth´s new identity. His obsession with Dimmesdale and his revenge increases during the plot of the novel and Chillingworth becomes more and more a sinner. Although he wants to punish a sin, he sins as well. Starting with forcing Hester to be quiet, followed by the intention to hide behind a new character, a doctor, and concluding with treating Dimmesdale and make him feel worth. He intentionally gives him the wrong medicine, consequently there´s not only no change for him to get better but to get worse. “He now dug into the poor clergyman’s heart, like a miner searching for gold” (59) and uses his nature knowledge to torture Dimmesdale. Instead of choosing to kill him, quick and painless, he tortures him. He makes Dimmesdale regret his sin every day without even knowing who his punisher is. By punishing Dimmesdale every day, there is a parallel to the puritan method of punishing Hester with the scarlet letter A. She has to wear it every day on her bosom and Dimmesdale feels pain every day. Chillingworth not only tortures Dimmesdale, but also Hester because she has to watch her love getting worse and worse every day. Moreover, her husband is the reason why her love has to suffer, and she can´t tell him. Person states, that Chillingworth´s plan is to make “sure that Hester understands the likely consequences of his action and thus of her own -the power of her silence- before she commits herself. He threatens, should she give away his identity, to blast Dimmesdale´s reputation, even to kill him.”(144)
All in all, Chillingworth wants his wife and her lover to regret their love. His revenge is worth him Dimmesdale´s death. He would kill someone to punish his wife, to take revenge. By that he forgets that killing someone is a black sin and acts against the law of puritanism. But both sinners go through an ambivalent development of sin. Chillingworth becomes a sinner throughout the novel driven by his obsession with revenge. In comparison, Hester starts off as a character who is a sinner but throughout the novel all Hester had done was to make up for her sin. To compare the sin of both characters, one has to look at their motives. At one hand we have revenge. And on the other side there is love and passion. Hester fell in love with Dimmesdale. She never loved Chillingworth. Why they got married in the first place is unclear. Hester even tells him that she “felt no love, nor feigned any.“ (Hawthorne 22) Chillingworth, on his part, admits that he “had married Hester simply because he had wished to kindle „a household fire“ for his later years” (Sandeen 425). Both never really felt love, and what is a marriage without love? It is something like a contract. Hester therefore never committed adultery but quit a contract, if only looking at the inner perspective. Hester proves her love to Dimmesdale by wearing the scarlet letter. She had the chance not to wear it by telling the townspeople who the father of Pearl is. However, Hester decides rather to wear the scarlet letter than to reveal Dimmesdale. “If Hester is willing to endure ‘the torture of the scarlet letter,’ it is because she is still in love, not because she is penitent.’ (Sandeen 426) The power of Hester´s love is impressive. It lets her suffer as a price she has agreed on to pay for her guilt. But still, she takes the cost for love. Sandeen even argues, “Hawthorne in The Scarlet Letter was writing his own version of the traditional story of passion.” (425) and even Hawthorne himself preferred to call his novel a romance. Everything what happens in The Scarlet Letter happens because of love and passion. Therefore, the force which moves through the story is called not sin or guilty passion but love. In contrast to love as one motive of committing a sin there is revenge. Chillingworth can´t stand Dimmesdale not being punished and decides to do it himself. He not only takes on a new identity as a doctor but also gives Dimmesdale wrong medicine every day. By that Chillingworth kills Dimmesdale every day: bit by bit. Compared to Dimmesdale and Hester, who use their nature knowledge to make up for their sin, Chillingworth uses nature to commit his sin. Both Arthur and Hester can regard the guilt of their adultery as less sinful than that of the vengeful husband. Dimmesdale admits only to relative guilt: ‘That old man’s revenge has been blacker than my sin. He has violated, in cold blood, the sanctity of a human heart. Thou and I, Hester, never did so!’ Every wronged husband would be expected to punish his wife for loving someone else. It hurts to be betrayed but it doesn´t give someone the right to hurt back. Eye to eye is a principle of the bible, but the bible also tells us: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” (John 8) Only when you are without sin, then you can punish someone for committing a sin. But to keep in mind, when you start punishing someone, it’s possible that you start to sin as well and are not better but worse than the other person.
All in all, there is no world without sin. The bible showed us that one man brought sin into the world and no one is without sin. But by looking at the intention of the sin one can find out if the person is a good person or evil. In that way, Hester is not a bad person; however, she is a sinner. She sinned out of love and passion but also tried to make up for it by living a life the Puritans consider good. In contrast, Chillingworth had a bad intention: he wanted revenge so bad he even is willing to kill someone. He chose day by day to hurt someone in order to get his revenge. Something, Hester never did.
Works cited
- Last, Suzan. “Hawthorne’s Feminine Voices: Reading ‘The Scarlet Letter’ as a Woman.” The Journal of Narrative Technique, vol. 27, no. 3, 1997, pp. 349 376. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/30225475. Accessed 17 Feb. 2020.
- Person, Leland S. “Hester’s Revenge: The Power of Silence in The Scarlet Letter.” Nineteenth-Century Literature, vol. 43, no. 4, 1989, pp. 465–483. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3045035. Accessed 17 Feb. 2020.
- Sandeen, Ernest. “The Scarlet Letter as a Love Story.” PMLA, vol. 77, no. 4, 1962, pp. 425–435. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/460567. Accessed 17 Feb. 2020.
- Hawthorne, Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Scarlet Letter. Independently published, 2019) The English Standard Version Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments with Apocrypha, Oxford UP, 2009.
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