Sexuality and American Culture

The Scarlet Letter, as a scathing condemnation of the sexual policing in Puritan New England and, perhaps, also a call for relaxed sexual mores in the author's own time, is a novel clearly very far ahead of its mid-nineteenth century Victorian time. Hawthorne's tale, audacious in its mere subject matter alone, goes as far as to not only cast Hester Prynne, a "fallen," adulterous woman, as its protagonist, but to actually sympathize with her and to celebrate her strength and fortitude. Yet for as progressive as the novel is, this very celebration of Hester's virtuous nature, synonymous, essentially, with her gender, strongly reflects the nineteenth century attitudes by which Hawthorne's own attitudes toward women were informed. Hawthorne makes continuous references to Hester's "womanhood," the "race of womanhood," the "essence essential to keep her a woman." While reading the latter half of the book, these phrases jumped out at me as peculiarly inconsistent with a work that, in almost all other respects, seems so far removed from such a backwards frame of mind.

After reading the Cott essay in Peiss, however, I gained much insight which helps to explain what seemed to me a glaring contradiction. Apparently, this elevation of women's moral status to a position so high that they could only be destined to fall was, at the time, relatively progressive in its own right. Prior to the spread of Protestant Evangelism beginning in the late eighteenth century that gave rise to the idea of "passionlessness," women were not at all seen in such a pure, virginal light. They were seen not only as highly sexual beings, but perhaps as even more sexual than men; they were considered to exist in a "fallen" state, due to Eve's sin, and were, therefore, considered less able to exercise restraint and control. As this began to change, the idea that women were above such moral decreptitude and that they could easily resist any sexual or otherwise licentious temptations took hold. Initially, this notion did not actually imply that women were asexual, but, rather, that they were capable of exercising sexual control. Eventually, however, it came to be believed, especially in the medical field, that because women were not openly expressing any sign of sexuality, they had none. Basically, they were assumed to be "passionless."

Although we can clearly see today why there are so many things wrong with this idea, forward-thinking women at the time actually found it very appealing. It allowed them to be seen as moral and intellectual beings, rather than as sexual slaves who existed solely for men's pleasure. This idea is very in line with feminist thinking today, although it leaves out the fact that women actually desire - and deserve - sexual pleasure themselves. Though that was the price Victorian women were willing to pay in exchange for what they considered to be a new form of power by which to escape male sexual dominance.

Thus, it is perhaps very likely that Hawthorne thought himself to be doing women a service by placing such a strong emphasis on their moral, rather than their sexual, nature. It is of much significance that Hester is cast, not as the whore that everyone else in her Puritan town originally sees her as, but simply as a good, kind, generous woman, even if these qualities are described almost exclusively in terms of her gender.

Furthermore, although Hawthorne's novel does very pointedly reflect such Victorian notions of womanhood, he clearly does not adopt the full-fledged notion of passionlessness. To even suggest that a woman not only had sexual relations with a man outside of marriage, but that she actually had desire for him - and continues to have desire for him even years after their affair - defies passionlessness in itself. And Hawthorne does not condemn Hester's desire either. Although her affair with Reverend Dimmesdale is continually referred to as a sin, the narrator clearly does not see it as such. The love that they maintain for each other is treated not only with sympathy, but with respect.

The final chapter describes Hester in her older age as assuring the townswomen that "at some brighter period" in time, "a new truth would be revealed," one that would "establish the whole relation between man and woman on a surer ground of mutual happiness." I took this as Hawthorne calling upon his own society to usher in such an age, an age in which men and women will be granted the freedom to live and love as they please.

Though mired somewhat in the Victorian gender notions of his time, Hawthorne no longer seems to me, with the insight I received from the Cott essay, any less progressive than he did when I first started his fascinating tale.