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Tag Archives: Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Great American (Historical) Novel: The Scarlet Letter

06 Monday Jun 2022

Posted by Novelhistorian in Reviews and Columns

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adultery, book review, Boston, Charles Darwin, desire as human, good vs evil, H. L. Mencken, historical fiction, literary fiction, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Puritanism, seventeenth century, sin and redemption, truth through observation, verbose style

Review: The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Penguin, 2003. 228 pp. $8

Maybe you know the story, even if you’ve never read the novel. Hester Prynne, a woman of seventeenth-century Boston, must be punished for having borne a child out of wedlock. In this most Puritan community, she’s lucky to escape with her life; instead, she spends several months in prison, after which she must forever wear a scarlet letter A, announcing that she’s an adulteress.

The simplest of premises, you’d think, yet there’s nothing simple about this quintessential American moral tale, written in 1850. Hawthorne, descended from a judge at the Salem witch trials, an ancestry that shamed him and influenced his work and life, cuts surgically into the withered, envious soul of Puritanism and holds the stinking mess up to the light. (For those interested in a fictional account of the author’s life and struggle with his unwanted legacy, see Erika Robuck’s House of Hawthorne.)

It’s not just that the reader is meant to understand and sympathize with Hester, who’s actually a bit of a stubborn drip, at times. It’s that Hawthorne wants you to see the society that condemns her, a group of caviling hypocrites who may or may not lust for her but certainly do for the wealth and power they possess. Nobody escapes, Hawthorne says; there’s evil in all of us, and desires aplenty.

Mary Hallock Foote’s illustration of Hester and Pearl, from an 1878 edition of The Scarlet Letter (courtesy Wikimedia Commons; public domain)

H.L. Mencken, writing more than a half-century after Hawthorne, quipped that Puritanism was “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.” The Scarlet Letter bears witness, as even children’s play involves games of persecuting Quakers or attending church. Some leading elders assume that Hester’s daughter, Pearl, unable to answer a single question from the catechism at age three, may therefore be Satan’s handmaid. She is ungovernable, it’s true, and has a mean streak that pains her long-suffering mother. But she’s also a happy child, and nobody knows what to make of this.

Crucial too is how Hester wears her A, skillfully embroidered, perhaps pushing the bounds of everyday Puritan taste (though not of formal wear, curiously enough, especially among the rich and powerful). Consequently, the adulteress hides nothing, though she largely keeps to herself, because her every public appearance challenges her judges as to their righteousness and pretended sobriety of custom.

But, in Hawthorne’s world, sin must be spoken of, or else it eats away at everyone. The Scarlet Letter pays heed to the spiritual and emotional as though they were the same. To feel whole, the sinner must confess, so as to breathe freely; conversely, so as not to overstep the bounds of humility, the hearer must listen and withhold judgment. Desires are human, not particular to individuals. To Hawthorne’s seventeenth-century Boston, this idea was revolutionary — and in some ways, it still is, not in what American society says, but what it does.

Hawthorne’s style can take getting used to, even for readers accustomed to nineteenth-century literature. Not only does he tell, tell, tell, explaining damn near everything, he imbues the smallest moments with hard-working metaphorical swoop:

The mother’s impassioned state had been the medium through which were transmitted to the unborn infant the rays of its moral life; and, however white and clear originally, they had taken the deep stains of crimson and gold, the fiery lustre, the black shadow, and the untempered light, of the intervening substance. Above all, the warfare of Hester’s spirit, at that epoch, was perpetuated in Pearl. She could recognize her wild, desperate, defiant mood, the flightiness of her temper, and even some of the very cloud-shapes of gloom and despondency that had brooded in her heart. They were now illuminated by the morning radiance of a young child’s disposition, but, later in the day of earthly existence, might be prolific of the storm and whirlwind.

That style deserves consideration in its context, however. Hawthorne was countering the point of view that all wisdom and truth comes from God; he argues that humans can find truth anywhere if they look hard enough, particularly within themselves. The Scarlet Letter, published nine years before The Origin of Species, feels like kin to Darwin, though it has nothing to do with biology: Both works deal with the power of observation and its overriding importance. Hawthorne wants you to see his abstractions, as though the spiritual world inhabits the physical. Often, he succeeds.

Strange, but I had avoided reading The Scarlet Letter, and I’m not the type to shun the classics. As a high school sophomore, I transferred out of an English class, no mean trick, led by a teacher with whom I knew I’d quarrel, and who’d just begun discussing this novel. The teacher whose class I transferred into turned out to be a mentor, so I got the better deal–and swapped Hawthorne for Dostoyevsky, Huxley, Orwell, and Zamiatin besides. But I still didn’t let Hawthorne off the hook—there’s a Puritan in me too—and more than fifty years passed before I found out what Hester’s story has to offer.

Don’t make the mistake I made. At least take a look at The Scarlet Letter.

Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.

Not So Puritanical As That: The House of Hawthorne

26 Monday Sep 2016

Posted by Novelhistorian in Reviews and Columns

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book review, Civil War, education, Emerson, Erika Robuck, feminism, historical fiction, literary fiction, Massachusetts, Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, nineteenth century, slavery, Sophie Peabody, Thoreau, Transcendentalists, women's roles

Review: The House of Hawthorne, by Erika Robuck
New American Library, 2015 402 pp. $26

Sophia Peabody has received a most unconventional upbringing for an early nineteenth-century woman, even for one born into Massachusetts intellectual circles. Her poor health has much to do with this. Sophia gets crippling migraines from random noises, commotion, or even by expending effort to concentrate–a pity, because she’s a gifted artist. Yet, on certain days, attempting to draw or paint bring on attacks that leave her bed-ridden. Her mother assumes that Sophy must give up all thought of marrying, because, if childbirth didn’t kill her, the work of keeping home and husband would. Consequently, she must devote her life to art and avoid any excitement other than what may be found in her sketchpad and books–only the appropriate sort, of course.

Fat chance. Sent to the reputedly healthful climate of Cuba with her sister, Mary, also of frail health, Sophy finds heat of more than one kind. Nature feels unleashed, more vividly savage, and the colors and marvels of the landscape stir her sensibilities as an artist and a person beginning to realize that she’d like to widen her experience. Living among the plantation gentry, the family entertains neighbors of their social class, who impress Sophy with their manners and bearing. But the slavery that supports these people and, by extension, her sister and herself, is always close at hand, and the revulsion Sophy feels for it, and the sympathy for the slaves, tells her that Cuba is no place for her. In a way, this comes as a wrench, because she’s formed an attraction for a plantation owner’s son, a shy, modest young man who seems to hate the system as much as she does. Nevertheless, the Peabody sisters return to Massachusetts.

Matthew Brady's photograph of Nathaniel Hawthorne, taken during the 1860s, not long before the author's death (Courtesy Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons)

Matthew Brady’s photograph of Nathaniel Hawthorne, taken during the 1860s, not long before the author’s death (Courtesy Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons)

Enter Nathaniel Hawthorne; talk about a thunderclap. They first meet in the company of Sophy’s sister, Elizabeth, who wants him for herself:

When I enter, Hawthorne’s eyes meet mine, and he rises. By the holy angels, I feel my soul at once aflame and reaching through my breast toward him. I falter, and he is at my arm, leading me to the sofa. I try to ignore the heat–the fire of our first joining–and lean back once I am seated. I tear my eyes from his to look at Elizabeth, and I see a pain in her face that makes me wish I had stayed in my room.

Thus begins a lengthy courtship of two people burning for one another, and I mean, they can’t wait to tear each other’s clothes off–except that they do wait, and for years. The House of Hawthorne is a charming novel, and this section is my favorite. Sophy must outwit her jealous sister and prod her intended to tell his family they’re engaged, something he’s extremely loath to do–and he has his reasons. Nathaniel and she must struggle to restrain passions that are positively transcendental. The future author of The Scarlet Letter tries hard not to be a Puritan and succeeds to a larger extent than his reputation might suggest.

I like the writing, which is simple and direct, much like the narrative itself. Notable characters from the Hawthornes’ literary circles, both in Massachusetts and abroad, play roles–Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, and the British poets Browning, for example. But none come fully alive, perhaps because Robuck never grants any more than a thumbnail sketch, generally a familiar one. Emerson is cold and pompous. Thoreau prefers his own company to that of society. Melville is a needy pain in the neck.

As with these characters, Robuck fails to make full use of the themes she introduces. Sophy’s artistic life before and after marriage makes the point, echoed by two characters and the woman herself, that she’s sacrificed to Hawthorne and his career what she might have achieved. It’s not that he discourages her art–far from it–it’s that she doesn’t have the time. But there sits the feminist argument, mentioned and mulled over a little but unfortunately not developed. Likewise, though the Hawthornes discuss slavery and feel deeply about it, especially Sophy, they take no stand, because they oppose war as the means to end it. But this resolution seems unsatisfying, particularly since their siblings, abolitionists all, were mad at them for it, as were, no doubt, their famous friends. I’d have also wanted more thoughtfulness about death, which strikes frequently during the narrative and causes the Hawthornes much grief. Again, they mention it, consider it, and utter a notion or two, but they don’t get down and grapple with it. They save the grappling for each other.

That’s not bad, just less than it could have been. The House of Hawthorne is a nice book, only lighter in impact than it could be.

Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.

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