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march 5, hawthorne the scarlet letter and peiss

Thu, 03/05/2009 - 13:00 — Naomie Delone




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    As we’re reading the scarlet letter, we can feel that the scarlet letter changes meanings as the story evolves. At the beginning of the story, Hester came out of the prison wearing the scarlet letter, this symbol of shame with pride. She has made it a symbol of resistance by embroidering it beautifully and made it more of a decorative accessory than a letter of shame. The humanism of Hester towards the poor and the sick has turned the A standing for “adulterer” into an A for “able”. What is however interesting is how Hester feels no shame for wearing the scarlet letter in public and yet is ashamed to reveal to Pearl the meaning of the letter. Although Pearl insists several times on knowing more about the letter, Hester refuses to tell her what her secret is. By doing so, Hester does not realize that she is hiding Pearl’s true identity from her since Pearl represents the living version of the scarlet letter. Therefore by not telling her what the letter really means, Pearl is unable to know herself.

    In chapter 19, Hester removes the scarlet letter and throws it away as a sign of freedom from the puritan society. To our big surprise, Pearl starts screaming and asks her mother to put the letter back on her chest. It would seem that Pearl is really here the child of the devil. Why does she want her mother to wear the badge of shame? But then when we really think about it, as we said, Pearl is considered as an embodiment of the scarlet letter. Thus, Hester throwing the letter away would be considered as her throwing Pearl away.  We also notice that Pearl asks her mother several times about the minister keeping his hands over his heart as if he were also hiding a scarlet letter. Pearl also refuses that his father kisses her in the forest. By asking him to kiss her in public, she wants him to reveal him as her father and to bring her out of shame.

  In chapter 23, finally the truth is revealed. Here again, truth is revealed by the mean of confession. What makes the beauty of the story is that truth is not extracted from Dimmesdale at the end but he is the one who decides to confess the truth so that Hester and Pearl can live without shame. Dimmesdale dies right after the confession. Is it because he had retained the truth for too long? Chillingworth will also die as a consequence of Dimmesdale’s death. His strength was built on Dimmesdale’s weakness by not revealing  that he was Pearl’s father and now that he has confessed the truth and become strong, Chillingworth has become weak  and has therefore no other reason to live because he thought that Dimmesdale, Hester and Pearl would be the prisoners of shame forever.

 

Comments

Sun, 03/08/2009 - 18:28 — Lee Quinby

 Naomie, although I agree

 Naomie, although I agree with Jaimie that Pearl is not exactly conscious of the way she has been perceived as an embodiment of her mother's letter, I think you are right to see her visceral  response as akin to a feeling of abandonment. That is, what she has always known as integral to her mother's identity has been cast away and she deeply fears that she too might be.  This strikes me as perceptive on Hawthorne's part in describing fragile emotional bonds between a mother and daughter, especially in this case when all others bonds have been cut off and the child has cost the mother so much suffering.

I also think this scene is astute in letting us see Hester's ambivalence about the role of motherhood. Though she has been devoted to Pearl, it has been a great burden on her.  The return of the sensual comes from casting away that burden along with the public penalty she has been made to wear.  When she puts it back on at Pearl's insistence, she resumes her devotion but also kills off her sensual side again. 

Sun, 03/08/2009 - 15:26 — jstettin

Poor Pearl

In equating Pearl with the scarlet letter, you make the point that by casting off the letter, Hester, in a way, throws away Pearl, and that in turn gives cause to Pearl's devilish tantrum.  (And I do believe that it is only the tantrum which is devilish, not Pearl herself.)  I do agree that Pearl is living manifestation of the scarlet A, but the question is, does she know that?  Is she aware of her connection?  We discussed in class that Pearl is very astute and perceptive child, but I am not sure if she paralleled the disposal of the letter as a disposal of her person.