The Interpretation Of ‘A’ Found In The Scarlet Letter

THE INTERPRETATION OF ‘A’ FOUND IN THE SCARLET LETTER

A PAPER BY

HIFNA SUCI LESTARI SITEPU REG. NO. 112202053

DIPLOMA III ENGLISH STUDY PROGRAM FACULTY OF CULTURAL STUDIES

UNIVERSITY OF SUMATERA UTARA MEDAN

Approved by Supervisor,

Drs. Siamir Marulafau, M. Hum. NIP. 19580517198503 1 003

Submitted to Faculty of Cultural Studies, University of Sumatera Utara In partial fulfillment of the Requirements for Diploma IIIin English Study Program

Approved by

Head of English Diploma Study Program,

Dr. Matius C.A. Sembiring, M.A. NIP 19521126198112 1 001

Approved by the Diploma-III of English Study Program Faculty of Cultural Studies, University of Sumatera Utara As a Paper for the Diploma-III Examination

Accepted by the Board of Examiner in partial of the requirements for the D-III Examination of the Diploma-IIIof English Study Program, Faculty of Cultural Study, University of Sumatera Utara.

The Examination is held on July 2014

Faculty of Cultural Studies University of Sumatera Utara Dean,

Dr. Syahron Lubis, MA NIP : 19511013197603 1 001

Board of examiners : Signature

1. Dr. Matius C.A. Sembiring, M.A. (Head of ESP)____________________

2. Drs. Siamir Marulafau, M.Hum. (Supervisor) ____________________

AUTHOR’S DECLARATION

I am, HIFNA SUCI LESTARI SITEPU, declare that I am the sole of author of this paper. Except where reference is made in the text of this paper, this paper contains no material published elsewhere of extracted in whole or in part from a paper by which I have qualified for awarded another degree.

No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the main text of this paper. This paper has not been submitted for the award of another degree in any tertiary education.

Signed :

COPYRIGHT DECLARATION

Name : HIFNA SUCI LESTARI SITEPU

Title of Paper : The Interpretation of “A” Found in the Scarlet Letter Qualification : D-III/ Ahli Madya

Study Program : English

I am willing that my paper should be available for reproduction at the discretion of the Libertarian of the Diploma-III English Department Faculty of Letters USU on the Understanding that users are made aware of their obligation under law of the Republic of Indonesia.

Signed :

ABSTRACT

This paper which entitled The Interpretation of ‘A’ Found in The Scarlet Letter tells the story of a strong woman named Hester is on trial for his illicit deeds and also tells the story of Hester powerful figure and graceful that came from Boston who should receive punishment for acts forbidden because she is pregnant when her husband’s condition has reportedly died while on the way to America to be approached. And she’s willing to accept all the consequences of his actions by his self because she love the people who do not impregnate themselves that the other is pastor Dimmesdale. She was willing to use lifetime mark ‘A’ which means adulterers in his chest. Which means she’s willing to be teased, mocked, scorned and labeled adulterers lifetime. That she was willing to bear his own because she did not want to ruin the reputation of her lover. In working on his paper, the authors use research methods, such as library research and intrinsic approach.

ABSTRAK

Kertas karya yang berjudul The Interpretation of ‘A’ Found in the Scarlet Letter ini menceritakan tentang kisah seorang wanita kuat yang bernama Hester yang diadili karena perbuatan terlarangnya da juga menceritakan tentang sosok Hester yang kuat, anggun, cantik berasal dari Boston yang harus menerima hukumannya atas perbuatan terlarang karena hamil di saat kondisi suaminya telah dikabarkan meninggal saat dalam perjalanan akan ke Amerika untuk menghampirinya. Dan dia rela menerima semua konsekuensi atas perbuatannnya seorang diri karena cita dia terhadap orang yang menghamilinya yang tidak lain adalah pasturnya sendiri yaitu Dimmesdale. Dia rela menggunakan seumur hidup tanda ‘A’ yang berarti penzina di dadanya. Yang berarti dia rela diolok-olok, dicemooh, dicaci da dicap penzina seumur hidupnya. Hal itu ia rela tanggung sendiri karena ia tidak mau merusak reputasi kekasihnya itu. daam mengerjakan makalah ini, penulis menggunaka metode penelitian, seperti penelitian kepustakaan dan pendekatan intrinsik.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Bismillahirahmaanirrahim.

First of all, I would to thank Allah SWT, for blessing and give me opportunity, health, and ability to accomplish this paper as one of the requirements to get Diploma-III certificate from English Diploma Study Program, University of Sumatera Utara. Afterwards invocations and greetings I deliver to the last prophet Muhammad SAW who has brought us into the time of humanities.

• Special thanks go to both of my parents, Ilham Sitepu and Purnama Sari Sembiring Meliala, for supporting, loving, caring, prayiong and believing in me. None can repay both of you, and only God can do, I love you very much exceeded my own.

• My beloved siblings, Anike Chintya Sitepu and Felicia Laura Sitepu. They always pray and waiting me to finally this paper. I love you sist.

• Thank you to Dr. Syahron Lubis, M.A., as the Dean of Faculty of Culture.

• Thank you to Dr. Matius C.A. Sembiring, M.A., as the Head of English Diploma Study Program who gives me advices to finish this paper.

• Thank you to Drs. Siamir Marulafau, M. Hum., as my supervisor, who gives me corrections and advices to finish this paper.

• Thank you for all the lecturers in English Diploma Study Program for giving me knowledges.

• Thank you for my lovely friends in English Diploma III 2011 : Fitria Ramadhani (Rhe Boi), Ike Theresya Simanungkalit (iike), Nina Vivi Permata Barus (Ninong), Muhammad Sahuri (Uri), Wika Marisi Pasaribu (wekha), Nurmanna Dewi Hasibuan (dew),Nelly Octaviana (nanak) and Melda Sunita Zaluku (mezha). Thanks for your support and discussion, we can through all of this together. I’ll miss you all.

• Thank you for my partner in group band Twelve Fighter include Dwi Mas Angga (petak), Tito Pebriansyah (taitonium), Muhammad Ilham

Ramadhani Pulungan (memengno) and Denny Frans Sihotang (bang den). We’ll reach our dream together brother, stay metal!

• Thank you for my special friend Dwi Mas Angga (Dibo) that always gives me strength and passion to live this life with love and smile, I love you.

• Thank you for other my bestfriends include Widya Sari Sitepu, Khairunnisa Rao, Anggi Oktavia Sari, Asri Silvi, Eprytha, Della Kartika, Lya Juntak, Uly Basaria, Overlist Personnel and Manager, Yohana Reanita Gultom, Jeany Nathalia Simanjuntak, Eka Boim, Siska Sitepu, Rini, ESDE and all of my friend in whole world that I can’t said one by one. I love you and wish we’ll meet again soon because I miss all of you so much that I can’t say with words. Without all of my friends maybe I can’t live my life, believe that!

• Thank you for all my Diploma-III English 2011 friends.

And finally, I realize that this paper far from being perfect, I hope that those who read this paper may give critics and suggestions for making it better.

Medan, 2014 The writer

HIFNA S.L. SITEPU Reg. No. 112202053

TABLE OF CONTENT

AUTHOR’S DECLARATION ... i

COPY RIGHT DECLARATION ... ii

ABSTRACT ... iii

ABSTRAK ... iv

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ... v

TABLE OF CONTENT ... vii

1. INTRODUCTION ... 1

1.1 Background of the Study ... 1

1.2 Problem of Study……… ... … 2

1.3 Scope of Study ... 2

1.4 Purpose of Study ... 2

1.5 The Method of Researh... 2

1.6 Reason for Choosing The Topic……… ... 3

2. REVIEWS OF RELATED LITERATURE ... 4

3. REVIEWS OF HESTER PRYNNE LIFE ... 5

3.1 A Survivor and Strong ... 6

3.2 A Mirror Turned on Social Norms ... 7

4. THE INTERPRETATION OF “A” FOUND IN THE SCARLET LETTER ... 9

4.1 The Custom House : Introductory to The Scarlet Letter ... 9

4.1.1 Hester and Her Needle ... 12

4.1.2 Another View of Hester 15

4.2 Hester and Physician ... 17

4.2.1 The Governor’s Hall ... 19

4.2.2 The Interior of a Heart ... 21

4.3 The Pastor and His Parishioner ... 27

4.3.1 The Child at the Brookside ... 30

4.3.2 The Procession ... 32

4.3.3 The Revalation of The Scarlet Letter ... 35

4.4 The “A” Symbol ... 39

4.4.1. The Meaning of “A” Symbol ... 44

4.4.4.1 Different Meaningsof The Scarlet Letter…… ... 44

4.4.42 Adultery ... 44

4.4.4.3 Alone and Alienation……….……… ... 45

4.4.4.4 Able, Admirable, and Angel ... 46

4.4.2 The Bravery of Hester Prynne ... 47

1. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION ... 49

5.1 Conclusion ... 49

5.2 Suggestion ... 50

REFFERENCES ... 51

APPENDIX ... 52

ABSTRACT

This paper which entitled The Interpretation of ‘A’ Found in The Scarlet Letter tells the story of a strong woman named Hester is on trial for his illicit deeds and also tells the story of Hester powerful figure and graceful that came from Boston who should receive punishment for acts forbidden because she is pregnant when her husband’s condition has reportedly died while on the way to America to be approached. And she’s willing to accept all the consequences of his actions by his self because she love the people who do not impregnate themselves that the other is pastor Dimmesdale. She was willing to use lifetime mark ‘A’ which means adulterers in his chest. Which means she’s willing to be teased, mocked, scorned and labeled adulterers lifetime. That she was willing to bear his own because she did not want to ruin the reputation of her lover. In working on his paper, the authors use research methods, such as library research and intrinsic approach.

1.

INTRODUCTIONS

1.1 Background of the Study

The arts represent a outlet of human expression, usually influenced by culture, and driven by human creative impulse. Major constituents of the arts include literature. Literature is a kind of art, usually written offer pleasure and illumination. Literature is also composition that tells us stories, dramatize situations, express idea, emotions, and analyze advocate ideas, (including poetry, novels and short stories, and epics; performing arts – among them music, dance, opera, theatre and film; and visual arts – including drawing, painting, and sculpting). Some arts forms combine a visual performance (e.g. film) and the written word. (e.g. comics)

Warson (1979 : 158) says, “Novel is a fictional prose narrative of length, usually of claim to describe the real.” Novel is a picture of real life and manners of the time in which it was written, the novel has the intrinsic elements. The intrinsic elements are truly seen from the novel. There are some intrinsic elements, such as theme, plot, character, setting, point of view and style.

The Scarlett Letter is an 1850 romantic work of fiction historical setting, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is considered to be his magnum opus. Set in 17th Century Puritan Boston, Massachusetts during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an adulterous affair and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. Throughout the book, Hawthorne explores themes of legalism, sin, and guilt. Hawthorne’s novel is

concerned with the effects of the affair rather than the affair itself, using Hester’s public shaming as a springboard to explore the lingering taboos of Puritan New England in contemporary society.

1.2 Problem of Study

The problem of study is as follow : 1. What is the Meaning of ‘A’? 2. The Bravery Of Hester’s Prynne.

1.3 Scope of Study

The writer will analyze through the element of the novel, such as plot, character, setting and theme to analyze the novel.

1.4 Purpose of Study

The purpose of writer in making this paper is :

• The writer wants to interprate the ‘A’ that found in The Scarlet Letter novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s.

1.5 The Method of Research

The writer uses the method of ‘library research’ in writing this paper. The first stage that the writer read the whole story in this novel to understand the story. After understanding the whole story of novel, the writer read and searched data in library to get information about the plot. The second stage is in sort the data that

has been collected. The final stage is to analyze such data, retrieve data only from the text, such as read the text carefully, sort information of plot, character, theme, background, action and make summary and conclusion.

1.6 Reason for Choosing the Topic

The writer has chosen Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlett Letter as the subject of this paper because the story tells about Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an adulterous affair and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. Throughout the book, Hawthorne explores themes of legalism, sin and guilt.

2.

REVIEWS OF RELATED LITERATURE

Peck and Coyle (1984 : 102) in their book Literary Terms in Criticism states that the novel reflects a move away from an essentially religious view of life towards a new interest of the complexities of everyday experience. Most novels are concerned with ordinary people and their problems in the societies in which they find themselves.

Eagleton (1983 : 1) says “ there have been various attempts to define literature. You can define it, for example as imaginative writing in the sense of fiction-writing which is not really true. But even the briefest reflection on what people commonly include under the heading of literature suggests that this will do.” Literature as imaginative writing is reflected from people thought, that is not really true. Fananie (2001 : 93) said that the plot is the construction which made to read on of a sequence of events that are logically and chronologically related and caused or experienced by actors. In the most general explanation, the plot or the groove is often interpreted as an entire series of events contained the story.

Peck and Coyle (1986 : 105) says, “ The people in the novel are referred to as a characters. We asses them on the basis of what author tell us about them and on the basis of what they do and say.” William Whitla (2010 : 10) also says, “character in the novel is conventionally discussed in terms of exposition and dialog.” Characters can also be either flat or on-dimensional, having a simple fuction, or round, with complexity built up through multiple players of description and action.

2.

REVIEWS OF RELATED LITERATURE

Peck and Coyle (1984 : 102) in their book Literary Terms in Criticism states that the novel reflects a move away from an essentially religious view of life towards a new interest of the complexities of everyday experience. Most novels are concerned with ordinary people and their problems in the societies in which they find themselves.

Eagleton (1983 : 1) says “ there have been various attempts to define literature. You can define it, for example as imaginative writing in the sense of fiction-writing which is not really true. But even the briefest reflection on what people commonly include under the heading of literature suggests that this will do.” Literature as imaginative writing is reflected from people thought, that is not really true. Fananie (2001 : 93) said that the plot is the construction which made to read on of a sequence of events that are logically and chronologically related and caused or experienced by actors. In the most general explanation, the plot or the groove is often interpreted as an entire series of events contained the story.

Peck and Coyle (1986 : 105) says, “ The people in the novel are referred to as a characters. We asses them on the basis of what author tell us about them and on the basis of what they do and say.” William Whitla (2010 : 10) also says, “character in the novel is conventionally discussed in terms of exposition and dialog.” Characters can also be either flat or on-dimensional, having a simple fuction, or round, with complexity built up through multiple players of description and action.

3.

REVIEWS OF HESTER PRYNNE LIFE

In conducting a research, theories are needed in avoiding ministerpretation to analyze the problems in this study. The writer write a review of Hester Prynne life at the first of the second chapter in this paper.

Hester Prynne, protagonist of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s masterwork The Scarlet Letter, is among the first and most important female protagonists in American literature. She’s the embodiment of deep contradictions: bad and beautiful, holy and and sinful, conventional and radical.

At first glance, Hester may seem more victim than heroine. The adultery she committed when her husband was thought lost at sea leads Boston’s Puritan authorities to brand her with the bright red “A” of the title. She’s forced to stand in shame before the mass of Puritan citizens, enduring their stares, their whispers and their contempt. In the self-righteous eyes of the townspeople, she is the ultimate example of sin. Hester Prynne is also the object of a cruel and shadowy love triangle between herself, her minister lover, Arthur Dimmesdale, and her husband, now called Roger Chillingworth.

“The drama is really the drama of patriarchial society’s need to control female sexuality in the most basic way,” says Evan Carton, literature professor at the University of Texas, Austin. “This classic male anxiety : How do you know for sure whether your baby is yours? If you don’t know if your woman and your child are actually yours, then you have no control over property, no control over

social order, no control over anything – and that’s the deep radical challenge that Hester presents to this society.”

America was in the midst of growing feminist movement when Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter. Professor Jamie Barlowe, of the University of Toledo, says that Hawthorne – living in Salem, Boston and later Concord, Mass. – “was very, very aware of the growing feminist insurgence. Women’s rights were a part of cultural conversation.

The first women’s-rights convention at Seneca Falls, N.Y., was held in 1848, two years before The Scarlett Letter was published. Strong women like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were gathering other women to talk about science, politics and ideas. For the first time in America, women were challenging the firmly established male patriarchy. Hester Prynne can be seen as Hawthorne’s literary contemplation of what happens when women break cultural bounds and personal power.

3.1 A Survivor, and Strong

In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne may seem a victim and an object, but she also shows great personal strength. She survives.

Hester builds a small business doing embroidery-work. She raises her daughter, Pearl, by herself, fighting to keep her when the authorities try try to take the child away. Over the years, Hester gains the respect of other women in Boston, becoming something of quiet confidant for them.

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist John Updike says the book still makes him cry. He describe a scene where Hester meets Dimmesdale in the forest and implores him to run away with her. First, she throws away the scarlet letter,” Updike recalls. “Then, quote, ‘By another impulse, she took off the formal cap that her hair; and down it fell upon her shoulders, dark and rich, with once a shadow ad light in its abundance and imparting the charm of softness to her features.’

“How wonderful, the power of the hair,” Updike says.

Updike wrote three novels of his own based on the characters of The Scarlet Letter; they’re often called Updike’s Hawthorne Trilogy. The final one, titled simply S., is the story of a 20th century version of Hester Prynne. Updike says Hester is “fun to write about, because she was so irrepressible.”

“She’s such an arresting and slightly ambiguous figure,” he says. “She’s a funny mix of a truly liberated, defiantly sexual woman, but in the end a woman who accepts the penance that society imposed on her. And I don’t know, I suppose she’s an epitome of female predicaments.” Professor Barlowe says that how a reader feels about Hester Prynne “will have something to do with how that individual person sees woman functioning, or ways they should function.”

3.2 A Mirror Turned on Social Norms

So, just as Hester is a vessel for the feelings and actions of the men who surround her in the book, she’s also a mirror, revealing the true feelings of the reader about the role of women in society.

At the end of her life, Hester Prynne chooses to live I Boston and to continue to wear that red letter “A” on her breast, long after she has fulfilled her punishment.

“Never afterwards did it quit her bosom,” Hawthorne writes. “But, in the lapse of the toilsome, thoughtful, and self-devoted years that made up Hester’s life, the scarlet letter ceased to be stigma which attracted the world’s scorn and bitterness, and became a type of something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon with awe, yet with reverence too.”

It becomes a symbol, in other words, that throughout her life she wore her sin bravely, out in the open, on her chest.

All the contradictions of Hester Prynne – guilt and honesty, sin and holiness, sex and chastity – make her an enduring heroine of American literature. She is flawed, complex, and above all fertile.

The idea of Hester Prynne, the good woman gone bad, is cultural meme that recurs again – perhaps because we as a culture are still trying to figure out who Hester really is and how we feel about her. In John Updike’s words, “She is a mythic version of every woman’s attempt to integrate her sexuality with social demands.”

3.

REVIEWS OF HESTER PRYNNE LIFE

In conducting a research, theories are needed in avoiding ministerpretation to analyze the problems in this study. The writer write a review of Hester Prynne life at the first of the second chapter in this paper.

Hester Prynne, protagonist of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s masterwork The Scarlet Letter, is among the first and most important female protagonists in American literature. She’s the embodiment of deep contradictions: bad and beautiful, holy and and sinful, conventional and radical.

At first glance, Hester may seem more victim than heroine. The adultery she committed when her husband was thought lost at sea leads Boston’s Puritan authorities to brand her with the bright red “A” of the title. She’s forced to stand in shame before the mass of Puritan citizens, enduring their stares, their whispers and their contempt. In the self-righteous eyes of the townspeople, she is the ultimate example of sin. Hester Prynne is also the object of a cruel and shadowy love triangle between herself, her minister lover, Arthur Dimmesdale, and her husband, now called Roger Chillingworth.

“The drama is really the drama of patriarchial society’s need to control female sexuality in the most basic way,” says Evan Carton, literature professor at the University of Texas, Austin. “This classic male anxiety : How do you know for sure whether your baby is yours? If you don’t know if your woman and your child are actually yours, then you have no control over property, no control over

social order, no control over anything – and that’s the deep radical challenge that Hester presents to this society.”

America was in the midst of growing feminist movement when Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter. Professor Jamie Barlowe, of the University of Toledo, says that Hawthorne – living in Salem, Boston and later Concord, Mass. – “was very, very aware of the growing feminist insurgence. Women’s rights were a part of cultural conversation.

The first women’s-rights convention at Seneca Falls, N.Y., was held in 1848, two years before The Scarlett Letter was published. Strong women like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were gathering other women to talk about science, politics and ideas. For the first time in America, women were challenging the firmly established male patriarchy. Hester Prynne can be seen as Hawthorne’s literary contemplation of what happens when women break cultural bounds and personal power.

3.1 A Survivor, and Strong

In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne may seem a victim and an object, but she also shows great personal strength. She survives.

Hester builds a small business doing embroidery-work. She raises her daughter, Pearl, by herself, fighting to keep her when the authorities try try to take the child away. Over the years, Hester gains the respect of other women in Boston, becoming something of quiet confidant for them.

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist John Updike says the book still makes him cry. He describe a scene where Hester meets Dimmesdale in the forest and implores him to run away with her. First, she throws away the scarlet letter,” Updike recalls. “Then, quote, ‘By another impulse, she took off the formal cap that her hair; and down it fell upon her shoulders, dark and rich, with once a shadow ad light in its abundance and imparting the charm of softness to her features.’

“How wonderful, the power of the hair,” Updike says.

Updike wrote three novels of his own based on the characters of The Scarlet Letter; they’re often called Updike’s Hawthorne Trilogy. The final one, titled simply S., is the story of a 20th century version of Hester Prynne. Updike says Hester is “fun to write about, because she was so irrepressible.”

“She’s such an arresting and slightly ambiguous figure,” he says. “She’s a funny mix of a truly liberated, defiantly sexual woman, but in the end a woman who accepts the penance that society imposed on her. And I don’t know, I suppose she’s an epitome of female predicaments.” Professor Barlowe says that how a reader feels about Hester Prynne “will have something to do with how that individual person sees woman functioning, or ways they should function.”

3.2 A Mirror Turned on Social Norms

So, just as Hester is a vessel for the feelings and actions of the men who surround her in the book, she’s also a mirror, revealing the true feelings of the reader about the role of women in society.

At the end of her life, Hester Prynne chooses to live I Boston and to continue to wear that red letter “A” on her breast, long after she has fulfilled her punishment.

“Never afterwards did it quit her bosom,” Hawthorne writes. “But, in the lapse of the toilsome, thoughtful, and self-devoted years that made up Hester’s life, the scarlet letter ceased to be stigma which attracted the world’s scorn and bitterness, and became a type of something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon with awe, yet with reverence too.”

It becomes a symbol, in other words, that throughout her life she wore her sin bravely, out in the open, on her chest.

All the contradictions of Hester Prynne – guilt and honesty, sin and holiness, sex and chastity – make her an enduring heroine of American literature. She is flawed, complex, and above all fertile.

The idea of Hester Prynne, the good woman gone bad, is cultural meme that recurs again – perhaps because we as a culture are still trying to figure out who Hester really is and how we feel about her. In John Updike’s words, “She is a mythic version of every woman’s attempt to integrate her sexuality with social demands.”

4.

THE INTERPRETATION OF “A” IN THE SCARLET

LETTER

This study focuses its attention in “A” symbol in The Scarlet Letter. It was conducted by using descriptive method. According to Best (1982 : 106) descriptive method is non-experimental, since it deals with the relationship between non-mainpilated variables in a nature.

This research is done in two ways they are Library and field study. Library research is applied to get information in solving a problem, to fulfill an academic assignment or for our own purpose. This method is used to find a certain data by collecting some books that are relevant to topic discussed. In addition, for the field study the writer will give questionnaires to the respondents and get some data by getting involved in using book and internet.

4.1 The Custom House : Introductory to The Scarlet Letter Summary

Hawthorne begins The Scarlet Letter with a long introductory essay that generally functions as preface but, more specially, accomplishes four significant goals: outlines autobiographical information about the author, describes the conflict between the artistic impulse and the commercial environment, defines the romance novel (which Hawthorne is credited with refining and mastering), and authenticates the basis of the novel by explaining that he had discovered in the

Salem Custom House the faded scarlet A and the parchment sheets contained the historical manuscript on which the novel is based.

Analysis

The preface sets the atmosphere of the story and connects the presents with the past. Hawthorne description of the Salem port of the 1800s is directly related to the past history of the area. The Puritans who first settled in Massachusetts in the 1600s founded a colony that concentrate on.

God’s teaching and their mission to live by His word. But this philosophy was eventually swallowed up by the commercialism and financial interest of the 1700s. The clashing of the past and present is further explored in the character of the old General. The old General’s heroic qualities include a distinguished name, perseverance, integrity, compassion and moral inner strength. He is “the soul and spirit of New England hardihood.” Now put out pasture, he sometimes presides over the Custom House run by corrupt public servants, who skip work to sleep, allow or overlook smuggling, and are supervised by an inspector with “no power of thought, nor depth of feeling, no troublesome sensibilities,” who is honest enough but without a spiritual compass.

A further connection to the past is his discussion of his ancestors. Hawthorne has ambivalent feelings about their role in his klife. In his autobiographical sketch, Hawthorne describes his ancestors as “dim and dusky,” “grave, bearded, sable-cloacked, and steel crowned,” “bitter persecutors” whose “better deeds” will be diminished by their bad ones. There can be little doubt of

Hawthorne’s disdain for the stern morality and rigidity of the Puritans, and he imagines his predecessors’ disdainful view of him: unsuccessful in their eyes, worthless and disgraceful. “A writer of story books!” but even as he disagrees with his ancestor’s viewpoint, he also feels an instinctual connection to them and, more importantly, a “sense of place” in Salem. Their blood remains in his veins, but their intolerance and lack of humanity becomes the subject of his novel.

This ambivalence in his thoughts about his ancestors and his hometown is paralleled by his struggle with the need to exercise his artistic talent and the reality of supporting a family. Hawthorne wrote to his sister Elizabeth in 1820, “No man can be a Poet and a Bookkeeper at the same time.” Hawthorne’s references to Emerson, Thoreau, Channing, and other romantic author’s describe an intellectual life he longs to regain. His job at Custom House stifles his creativity ad imagination. The Scarlet letter touches his soul (he actually feels heat radiate from it), ad while “the reader may smile,” Hawthorne feels a tugging that haunts him like his ancestors.

In this preface, Hawthorne also shares his definition of the romance novel as he attempts to imagine Hester Prynne’s story beyond Pue’s manuscript account. A careful reading of this section explains the author’s use of light (chiaroscuro) and setting as romance techniques in developing his themes. Hawthorne explains that, in a certain light and time and place, objects “… seem to lose their actual substance, and become things of intellect.” He asserts that, at the right time with the right scene before him, the romance writer ca “dream strange things and make them look like truth.”

Finally, the preface serves as means of authenticating the novel by explaining that Hawthorne had discovered in the Salem Custom House the faded scarlet A and the parchment sheets that contained the historical manuscript on which the novel is based. However, we know of no serious, scholarly work that suggests Hawthorne was ever actually in possession of the letter of the manuscript. This technique, typical of narrative conventions of his time, serves as a way of giving his story an air of historic truth. Furthermore, Hawthorne, in his story, “Endicott and the Red Cross,” published nine years before he took his Custom House position, described the incident of a woman who, like Hester Prynne, was forced to wear a letter A on her breast.

4.1.1 Hester and Her Needle Summary

Her term of improvement over, Hester is now free to go anywhere in the world yet she does not leave Boston; instead, she chooses to move into a small, seaside cottage on the outskirts of town. She supports herself and Pearl through her skills as a seamstress. Her work is in great demand for clothing worn at official ceremonies and among the fashionable women the town – for every occasion except a wedding.

Despite the popularity of her sewing, however, Hester is social outcast. The target of vicious abuse the community, she endures the abuse patiently. Ironically, she begins to believe that the scarlet A allows her to sense sinful and immoral feelings in the other people.

Analysis

Chapter 5 serves the purpose of filling in background information about Hester and Pearl and beginning the development of Hester and the Scarlet as two of the major symbols of the romance. By positioning Hester’s cottage between the town and wilderness, physically isolated from the community, the author confirms and builds the image of her that was portrayed in the first scaffold scene – that of an outcast of society being punished for her sin/crime and as a product of nature. Society views her “… as the figure, the body, the reality of sin.”

Despite Hester’s apparent humility and her refusal to strike back at the community, she resents and inwardly rebels against the viciousness of her Puritan persecutors. She becomes a living symbol of sin to the townspeople, who view her not as an individual but as the embodiment of evil in the world. Twice in this chapter, Hawthorne alludes to the community’s using Hester’s errant behavior as a testament of immorality. For moralists, she is often the subject of the preacher’s sermon.

Banished by society to live her life forever as an outcast, Hester’s skill in needlework is nevertheless in great demand. Hawthorne derisively condemns Boston’s Puritan citizens throughout the novel, but here in Chapter 5 his criticism is especially sharp. The very community members most appalled by Hester’s past conduct favor her sewing skills, but they deem their demand for her work almost as charity, as if they are doing her the favor in having her sew garments for them. Their small-minded and contemptuous attitudes are best exemplified in their

refusal to allow Hester to sew garments for weddings, as if she would contaminate the sacredness of marriage were she to do so.

The irony between the townspeople’s condemnation of Hester and her providing garments for them in even greater when we learn that Hester is not overly proud of her work. Although Hester has what Hawthorne terms “a taste for the gorgeously beautiful,” she rejects ornamentation as a sin. We must remember that Hester, no matter how much she inwardly rebels against the hypocrisy of Puritan society, still conforms to the moral strictness associated with Puritanism.

The theme of public and private disclosure that so greatly marked Dimmesdale’s speech in Chapter 3 is again present in this chapter, but this time the scarlet A on Hester’s clothing is associated with the theme. Whereas publicly the letter inflicts scorn on Hester, it also endows her with a new, private sense of others own sinful thoughts and behavior; she gains a “sympathetic knowledge of the hidden sin in other hearts.” The Scarlet letter – what it represents – separates Hester from society, but it enables her to recognize sin in the very same society that banishes her. Hawthorne uses this dichotomy to point out hypocritical nature of Puritanism: Those who condemn Hester’s are themselves condemnable according to their own set of values. Similar to Hester’s becoming a living symbol of immoral behavior, the scarlet A becomes and object with a life seemingly its own: Whenever Hester is in the presence of a person who is making a personal sin, “the red infamy upon her breast would give a sympathetic throb.” In the Custom House preface, Howthorne describes his penchant for mixing fantasy with fact, and this technique is evident in his treatment of the scarlet A. I

physical term, this emblem is only so much fabric and thread. But Howthorne’s use of the symbol at various points in the story adds a dimension of fantasy to factual description. In the Custom House, Hawthorne claims to have “experienced a sensation . . . as if the letter were not of red cloth, but red-hot iron.” Similarly, here in Chapter 5, he suggests that, at least according to some towns people, the scarlet A literally sears Hester’s chest and that, “red-hot with infernal fire,” it glows in the dark at night. These accounts create doubt in the reader’s mind regarding the true nature and fuction of the symbol. Hawthornes’ imbuing the scarlet A with characteristics that are both fantastical and symbolic is evident throughout the novel – particularly when Chillingworth sees a scarlet A

emblazoned on Dimmesdale’s bare chest and when townspeople see a giant scarlet A in the sky – and is a technique common to the romance genre

4.1.2 Another View of Hester Summary

Following her conversation with Dimmesdale on the scaffold , Hesters is shocked by the changes in him. While he seems to have retained his intelligence, his nerve is good. He is morally weak, and she ca only conclude that “a terrible machinery brought to bear, and was still operating on mister Dimmesdale’s well-being and repose.” Hester decides she has an obligation to help this man.

Four years have gone by, and Hester’s position in the community has changed: she has been given credit for bearing her shame with courage, and her life has been one of purity since Pearl’s birth. While Dimmesdale’s sermon have

become more humane and praised because of his suffering, Hester’s position has risen because of her charity. Her scarlet A now stands for “Able”. But this has come with a price: no friends, no passion, no love or affection.

True adversity, Hester has forget a new place for herself on the edge of Puritan society. In contrast, Dimmesdale’s mental balance has suffered greatly. Now she must help the man who seems to be on “the verge of lunacy”. In fact, she feels ithas been an error on her part not to step forward before. Si she resolves to speak with her husband.

Analysis

It is important to note the chapter title: “Another View of Hester.” This chapter is a discussion of Hester’s personality, character, and intellect as well as a summary and an update of her past four years (Pearl is now seven). This “other view” refers to both the changing perception of the Puritan community toward Hester and the narrator’s telling description of her.

Hester’s position in the eyes of the Puritan community has changed considerably due to her grace and her charity. She has borne her shame and sorrow with great dignity. The town describes her now as one “who is so kind to the poor, helpful to the sick so comfortable to the afflicted!” Now the Scarlet Letter has magical qualities, and myths are growing around its power.

But this new definition of Hester Prynne is not without a price. Her luxuriant beauty and the warmth, charm, the passion that she wants showed have been replaced by coldness, severity, and drabness. There is no affection, love, or

passion in her life. Her humanity has been stripped from her by the severity of her punishment And her charity and benevolence seem mechanical. No one crosses the threshold of her cottage in friendship. To add to this burden her daughter seems to have been “born amiss”.

Another view of Hester identified in the chapter title is that of the narrator, not the Puritan community. Her life, having “changed from passion and feeling to thought…see assumed a freedom of speculation…which [the Puritans], had they known it would have held to be a deadlier crime then that stigmatized by the Scarlet Letter.” The narator speculates that, had it not been for her responsibilities to little Pearl, Hester “might have come down to us in history, hand in hand with Anne Hutchinson, as the founders of religious sect” and quite probably would have been executed for “attempting to undermine the foundation of the Puritan establishment.” Tellingly, the narrator remarks, “The Scarlett Letter had not done its office.”

This chapter also describes Hester’s motive in speaking with Chillingworth, a conversation that will take place in the next chapter having seen the terrible toll Chillingworth is taking on Dimmesdale, she decides that she is partly to blame. Now she must do something to redeem her error in not identifying him to her former lover.

4.2 Hester and Physician Summary

While walking on the peninsula with Pearl, Hester sees Chillingworth and sends Pearl down to play by the seashore while she speaks with her husband. She is surprised at the changes in Chillingworth just as she was shocked by Dimmesdale’s spiritual ailment and aging. Realizing Chillingworth is in the grip of the devil, she feels responsible for “another ruin”. According to Hester, her promise has caused Chillingworth to do evil minister, but Chillingworth denies his role at first. Then he admits that, although he used to be kind gentle and affectionate, he now allows evil to used him the physician believes it his fate to become a friend. He releases Hester from her promise of silence.

Analysis

During this long seven years Chillingworth has become obsessed with revenge and this deadly sin has changes him considerably. He pities Hester because he feels she is not really sinful, and any breach with God’s law has been paid many times over by her wearing of the scarlet letter. He further feels that if she had “met earlier with a better love than mine this evil had not been”. On the other hand, he also says it is fate to changes from a “kind, true, just” man to a friend who does the devil’s work.

By placing these to characters together in this chapter without her Pearl, Howthorne shows what the years have done to Chillingworth. We see a side of

the old scholar that makes us pity him despite his treatment of Dimmesdale, and we feel that of them all, Hester has paid her dues and the serves our respect

4.2.1 The Governoors’s Hall Summary

Hesters has herd that certain ionfluential citizen feel Pearl should be taken from her alarmed, Hester set out with Pearl for Governoor Bellingham’s mansion to deliver gloves that he ordered. More important however Hester plans to plead for the right to keep her daughter.

Pearl has been especially dressed for the occasion in an elaborate scarlet dress, embroidered with gold thread. On the way to the Governoor’s mansion, Hester and Pearl are accosted by a group Puritan children when they taunt Pearl, she shows a temper as fiery as her appearance driving the children off with her screams and threats.

Reaching the Governoor’s large, elaborate, stucco frame dueling Hester and Pearl are admitted by a bondsmen. Inside a heavy oak hall, Hester and Pearl stand before Governoor Bellingham’s suit of armor. In its curved, polished breastplate, both Hester’s scarlet A and Pearl are distorted. Meanwhile, as Hester contemplates her daughter’s changed image , a small group of man approaches. Pearl become quite out of curriousity about the man who are coming down the path.

Analysis

In Additon to preparing the way for dramatic and crucial interview to come between Hester and the Governor, this chapter this plays Hawthorne’s imagination in developing Pearl’s strange nature and the scarlet symbol. Like a symphony with variation, the assorted scarlet references in this chapter add to the reachness of the letter’s meaning.

Hester comes to Governor Bellingham’s house because she has heard that people-particularly the Governor-want to deprive her of Pearl. Once again Hawthorne shows his disdain for the smug attitudes of the Puritans. They reason that their “christian interest” requires them to remove Pearl – the product of sin – from her mother’s influence. If Peark is “capable of moral and religious growth” and perhaps even salvation, they see it as their “duty” to move her to a more trustworthy Christian influence. Hawthorne cides these self-righteous Puritan and likes their concern to a dispute in Puritan courts involving the right property in a pig.

Hawthorne also design this chapter to advace the reader’s knowledge of Pearl. Both in appearance ad actions. She is constant motion with “ reach and luxurian beauty”. Her actions are fuill of fire and passion. When the Puritan fling mud at Pearl she scares them off. She is an “angel of judgement”, and “Infant” pestilence wants her fire is pent, she returns quietly to her mother and smiles. Her action seem to be preter natural behavior in such a young child. Her scarlet dress a product of Hester’s imagination and needle, seems to intencify her “fire and

passion”. Pearl’s scarlet appearance is closely associated with the scarlet letter Hester’s bosom, and Hawthorne continues this relationship as the novel unfolds.

When Hester is told the Governoor see her imidiately, she firmly tells the servant she will wait. Her determined manner indicates to the servant how strongly she feels about the issue of Pearl’s guardianship. Because the servant is new in the community, he has not heard the story of the scarlet letter. The beautifully embroidered emblame on her dress and her determination cause him to think she is a person of some influence. Hawthorne emphasizes the servant’s recent arrival to impress upon the reader the well-known nature of the scarlet letter story. Bellingham’s house is described as a mansion of fantasy: cheery, gleaming, sunny, and having “never known that”. It comes to life as the only interior describtion in the novel. Bellingham’s house is a mixture of stern Puritan portraits and old world comfort. Is it any wonder that the polished mirror of the breastplate Bellingham’s armor plays tricks on the eyes? Here in this fortress of Puritan rules where man will decide her fate, Hester’s virtually vanishes behind the scarlet A in the breastplate’s reflection. Even Pearl’naughtiness and impish qualities are exaggerated – at least in Hester’s mind – as if to defy the stifling, moralistic atmosphere of this place. The Governoor and his cronies arrieve, and Pearl lets out and eerie scream. Their future approaches.

4.2.2 The Interior of a Heart Summary

During her first three years, Pearl, who is so named because she came “of great price”, grows into a physically beautiful, vigorous, and graceful little girl. She is radiant in the rich and elaborate dresses that Hester sews for her. Inwardly, however, Pearl possesses a complex character. She shows an unusual depth of mind, coupled with a fiery passion that Hester is incapable of controlling either with kindness or threats. Pearl shows a love of mischief and a disrespect for authority, which frequently reminds Hester of her own sin of passion.

Because both Hester and Pearl are excluded from society, they are constant companions. When Pearl is on walks with her mother she occasionally finds her self surrounded by the curious children of the village. Rather than attempt to make friends with them she pelts them with stones and violent word.

Pearl’s only companion in her playtime is her imagination. Significantly in her games of make - believe , she never creates friends : she creates only enemies – Puritans whom she pretends destroy. But the object that most captures her imagination is scarlet letter A on her mother’s clothing. Hester worries that Pearl posseses by a friend, and impression strengthened when Pearl denies having a Heavenly Father and then laughingly demands that Hester tell her where came from.

Analysis

This chapter developes Pearl both as a character and as a symbol. Pearl is a mischiefous and almost unworldly child, whose uncontrollable nature reflex the sinful passion that led to her birth. Her’s character is closely tied to her birth, which justifiece and makes the “other worldliness” about her very important. She is a product and a symbol of the act of adultery, an act of love, and act of passion, a sin, and a crime. Hawthorne, the narrator, states [“Pearl”] was worthy to have been brought forth in Eden worthy to have been leavt there, to be the plaything of the angel … “ However , she “lacked reference and adaptation to the world in to which she was born”.

The Puritan community believed extramarital sex to be inherently evil and influence by the devil, and, because Pearl is a product of her mother’s extramarital sex, Hawthorne raises the issue of Pearl’s nature can something good come from something evil ? is Pearl inherently evil because she was born from what the Puritan conceifed to be an immoral, sinful union? Perhaps thinks Hester, who is fearful at least of such a predetermined out come. Our modern sensibilities, however, shudder at the implication that an immoral act between adults necessarily means that a childs born from the sexual affair will be inherently evil.

Hawthorne’s condenations of Puritanizem continuous in this chapter his strongest rebuttal of the society’s self – serving, false piety occours when he ironically contrasts the Puritan community’s treatment of Hester and God’s

treatment of her. He notes of Hester’s fellows citizens, “Men had marked this women’s sin by a Scarlet Letter, whish had such potent and disastrous efficacy that knoe human sympathy could reach her, save it were sinful like herself “ ironically justaposted against the Purintan’s sentence that Hester wear the Scarlet Letter A is “God, [who] as a direct consequence of the sin which man this punished, had given her a lovely child,… to be finally a blessed soul in heaven!” the comparison between the community’s (Puritan’s) and God’s responses to Hester’s extramarital affair is dramatic.

4.2.3 The Minister’s Vigil Summary

After living the house, Dimmesdale walks to the scaffold where seven years earlier, Heaster Prynne stood waering hen sign of shame and holding Pearl. Now in the damp, cool air of the cloudy May night, Dimmesdale mounts the steps while the town sleeps. Realizing the mockery of his being able to stand there now, safe and unseen, where he should have stood seven years ago before the townspeople, Dimmesdale is overcome by a self-hatred so terrible that it causes him to cry aloud into the night.

Hester and Pearl, who are returning from Governor Winthrop’s deathbed, mount the scaffold, and the three of them stand hand-in-hand, Hester and Dimmesdale linked by Pearl. Twice, Pearl ask Dimmesdale if he will stand there with them at noon the next day : the minister says he will stan there with them on “the great jugdement.” As he speaks, a strange light in the sky illuminates the

scaffold and its surroundings. Looking up Dimmesdale seems to see in the sky a dull red light in the shape of immense letter A. At the same istant, Dimmesdale is aware that Pearl is pointing toward Roger Chillingworth who stands nearby, grimly smiling up at the three people on the scaffold. Over come with terror, Dimmesdale ask Hester about the true identity of Chillingworth. Remembering her promise to Chillingworth, Hester remains silent.

After next morning’s sermon, the sexton starlet the minister by returning one of his gloves, which was found on the scaffold. (“Satan dropped it there,I take it, intending a scurrilous jest against your reference.”) the sexton also ask about the great red letter A that appeared in the sky the past night.

Analysis

This chapter , the second of three crucial scaffold scenes, appears exactly in the middle of the novel. Again, Hawthorne gathers all of his major characters in one place – this time in a chapter so foreboding, so convincing in its psychology, and so rich in its symbolism that it is unquestionably one of the most powerful in the novel.

In his description of Dimmesdale’s action while alone on the scaffold, Hawthorne demonstrates his mastery of psychological realism. The sudden changes in moodthat take placein the minister’s tired mind, the self – condemnation for his cowardice, the near – insanity of his scream, and his impulse to speak to Mr.Wilson all are developed convincingly. The first scaffold scene took place during the noon hours and concerntrated on Hester’s guild and

punishment. This second scene, occurring at the midnight hour, puts both “sinners” o the scaffold and concentrates on Dimmesdale’s guild and punishment. All the major characters of the first scene are again present . The town, although, sleeps or is other wise unaware of the action.

Previously we have seen Dimmesdale’s conscious mind attempting to reason through the problem of his concealed guild. In contrast, in this chapter, we see the tortured workings of his sbusconcious mind, which is the real source of his algony. When Dimmesdale is forced by Pearl’s repeated question to bring the issue in to the open his fear of confession still dominates his subcioncous desire to confess. Just as the town was a sleep earlier and there was “no peril of discovery” , now he backs off once again. His to refusals to publicly acknowledge his relationship with Hesterand Pearl suggest, perhaps, Pieter’s first to denials of Christ.

Hawthorne’s flair for gothic details is demonstrated I the appearance of a spectacular, weird like and the startling reflation of the diabolical Roger Chillingworth, who is standing near the scaffold. However although about have the effect of supernatural occurances. Hawthorne is careful to give a natural explanation for each them. The light, Hawthorne says , “was doubtlesscaused by one of those meteors , which denied – whatcher may so often observe burning out to waste.

Of course , the meteors seemed to those who saw it ”nothing was more commond in those days then to interprate all meteoric appearances … as so many revelation from a supernatural source” and the question of wheter the ominous red A

appeared at all is ambiguous although sexton refers to the letter, Hawthorne suggest that the A may have appeared only in Dimmesdale’s imagination: “We impute it … solely to the disease in his own eyes and heart, that the minister, looking upward to the zenith, beheld there the appearance of an immense letter” Hawthorne also indicates that the meaning is in the mind of an be holder. The sexton sees it as an A for angel because Governoor Winthroph had recently become an angel similarly Chillingworth appearance although a suggest his knowledge of Dimmesdale where the books is logically explained by his having attended the dying Governor Winthrop.

As in the first scaffold seems this chapter abounds in both major and minor symbols: the scaffold it self : Dimmesdale standing on it : the three potential observers representing Church, State and the World of Evil : the “electric chain “ of Hester , Pearl, and Dimmesdale : Pearl’s appeal to Dimmesdale : the revealing light from the heaven : and the variation on the letter A.

4.3 The Pastor and His Parishioner Summary

As Dimmesdale walks in the wilderness, returning from a visit with Apostle Eliot, he hears Hester’s voice and is surprised by her presence. At first, he cannot tell whether she is a human or a ghost. In Fact they are both ghosts of their former selves, and their chill hand and hesitant words reveal the strangeness of this meeting.

Both Hester and Dimmesdale talk with each other about the past seven years , and Dimmesdale confesses his misery and unhappiness. While Hester console him and mention people’s reference for him, the minister feels his guilt and hypocrisy even more. He compares his silence with her public confession and realizes how his hidden guilt is tormenting him.

Hester, realizing how deeply her silence has permitted Dimmesdale to be tortured by her husband, seizes the moment to reveal Chillingworth’s secret. This torture has led to insanity and “that eternal alienation from the good and true , of which madness is perhaps the earthly type”. Hester also relizes that she still loves Dimmesdale, and she begs his forgiveness for his silence.

The minister reacts to this revelation with anger at first , blaming her fot his torture and realizing why he intuitively recoiled from Chillingworth on their first encounter. Hester, who has silently borney disdain and scorn of the community and who has lived these seven years without human sympathy, cannot bear Dimmesdale’s condemnation, and she falls beside him and cries, “Thou shalt forgive me! Let God punish ! Thou shalt forgive! “ she hugs him with great tenderness and feels such a compassion for his sorrow that her seven years of punishment seem to fall away.

Dimmesdale, for his part, forgives her and ask God to forgive them both. He believe that Chillingworth is the worst sinner of them all because he “ violated , in cold blood, the sancetity of the human heart,” unlike he and she, who “ never did so”. They are reluctant to leave this place in the forest because here they find a peace and harmony that they cannot feel in the Puritan community. Dimmesdale

fears Chillingworth’s course now that he , no doubt , knows “her purpose to reveal his true character”, and he ask Hester to give him courage.

Hester’s plans is for Dimmesdale to go deeper in to the wilderness and live in natural freedom away the eyes of Puritan society or to return to Europe, where he will be free of “these iron man and their opinions”. But Dimmesdale feels he has not the streght to do either. While he falters, Hester encourages him, claiming that he can lead a powerful life for good and still fulfill his mission on earth. When the minister says, he cannot do this alone, she tells him she will go with him.

Analysis

This chapter is pivotal in many respects : it advances the plot and characters by revealing Hester ad Dimmesdale’s feelings of the past seven years and the reawakening of their dormant love. Also in this chapter Hawthorne reveals his philosophy on punishment and forgiveness: that deliberat, calculated acts of malice are far worce than sins of passions. In this way, Chillingworth is the worst of the three sinners. Finally, the author provides hope that his character will find an escape, away out of their earthly torment. He explores the conflict between natural law and Puritan in their escape plans.

During the past seven years Dimmesdale has been continually tormented by the dichotomy between what he is and what people believe him to be. His parishioners are “hungry for the truth “ and listen to his words as if “a tongue of Pentecost were speaking! But as often as he has confessed his guilt to God, he

has not told it to any other human being. He bears his shame alone. Hawthorne contrasts this with Hester’s vicible sign of her guilt, confession, and hope for redemption. While Hester tries to console the minister and persuade him that he has repented and left his sin behind, Dimmesdale knows that he can go no plays without carrying his hidden guilt along.

Hester realizes that she still loves Dimmesdale, and she courageously tells him this, even as she reveals her silence concerning Chillingworth. Hawthorne contrast their love – “which had concecreation of its own” – and Chillingworth revenge and ask the reader which sin is worst. Who has filleted God’s law with sure and certain knowledge? And whose place is it to provide redemption and forgiveness? While Hester believe they can outrun “these iron men” with they rules, guilt, and punishment, Dimmesdale is not so sure. Two froms of moral laws are work here – the laws of God and nature and the laws interpreted and written by “these iron men” in the long run can escaping the rules of man enable them also to do God’s will?

Dimmesdale is reductant to leave because he believes God has given him a post which he must not desert. This wilderness of God’s world is in need of his gifts. Hester assures him that he can do God’s will another place – Europe – and it is only the Puritan laws that hold him in bondage. He can “preach! Write! Act!” and live a true life in europe instead of dying, as he seems to be doing here in the wilderness, with fear and shame by his side. Hawthorne shows the relative strength of hia character in this argument. Hester reaches within her self and uses the strength and inner courage she has a relied on over her seven long and lonely

years. In fact for Hester “ the whole seven years of out law and ignominy had been little other than preparation for this very hour. “ deep inside she knows they can leave the Puritan colony and still have a life of spiritual richness. They have paid for their sin and can still respect and uphold God’s law. Dimmesdale , on the other hand, lacks this persfective and Hester’s courage and several times he calls on her for strenght.

4.3.1 The Child at The Brookside Summary

Hester decides the times has come for Dimmesdale to make Pearl. Hester and Dimmesdale are joined spiritually and genetically to this childs and “in her was visible the tie that united that. While Dimmesdale confesses that he has always been afraid someone would recognize his features in Pearl, Hester simply speaks of Pearl’s beauty and sees her as “living hieroglyphic”. Dimmesdale remembers Pearl being kind to him, yet he also feels ill at eas arrounds children and is not very confident about this meeting. Hester’s however assures him that Pearl will love him and that he should be careful not to overwhelm her with emotion.

Pearl moves very slowly toward them, trying to this term her parents relationship. Dimmesdale sences her hesitation and puts his hand once again over his heart. Seeing the scarlet letter on the ground and her mother’s hair sensuously falling about her shoulders, Pearl point her finger, stamps her foot, shrieks, and “bursts in to a fit of passion”.

Hester’s and Dimmesdale’s reactions to Pearl’s behavior vary. Hester relizes that Pearl recognizes the changes in her “ the letter is gone from her bosom and her hair is no longer hidden under a cap”. And she hurries to fasten the hated badge to her dress and to draw her cap over her hair. She acscusses Pearl’s by saying children cannot abide changes easily. Dimmesdale, on the other hand, begs Hester to do whatever will stop this fit pacify Pearl. As soon as Hester changes her appearance Pearl willingly comes to her and mockingly kisses the scarlet letter.

Pearl desires the minister to acknowledge her in public.While Hester assures her that this admission will happen in the future, Dimmesdale kisses Pearl’s forehead in an attempt to mollify her. Pearl immediately goes to the brook and washes off the kiss. There she remains apart from the adults, and the brook babbles cheerlessly on.

Analysis

Pearl is the one who moves the action in this chapter, and her response to Dimmesdale and Hester together does not forshadow a happy ending. In fact, more than ever, Pearl is a symbol of the passionate act of her parents. She is a constant reminder of Hester’s sin and, if Hester tries momentarily to forget the past, Pearl certainly disapproves. Pearl, throughout the novel, has shown herself to be unnamanable to human rules and laws and seems to lack human symphaty.

Pearl interpreted on one level, acts like a child who has syuddenly realized that her world maybe changing. On another level, Pearl is one with nature in the

wilderness. Her image is reflected perfectly in the brook, with separaties her from Hester and the minister, and as she burtsts into a fit of passion at the absence of Hester’s scarlet letter,”… it’s seemed as if a hidden multitude were lending her their symphaty an encouregment”.

4.3.2 The Procession Summary

While Hester ponders Chillingworth’ smile, the Election Day procession begins. First music adds a “higher and more heroic air.” Then comes a company of gentlemen soldiers, brilliantly garbed. Next are the political dignitaries stagble dignified, and drawing a reverent reaction from the crowd. Finally comes the minister, Dimmesdale, whose intellectual prowess is mentioned by Hawthorne. He has changed, shoeing great energy and an air of purpose in his walk and demeanor. His strength, his spiritual, and he has an abstracted air as though he hears things not of this earth.

The focus now goes to Hester and her reaction to Dimmesdale. How far away he seems and remote from the man she met only three days ago in the forest! She realizes what a great gulv that is between them, and she can scarcely forgive him for him remoteness. Even Pearl does not recognize him because he has changed so completely.

Meanwhile, Mistress Hibbins appears end speak with Hester and Pearl. As Pearl questions, Mistress Hibbins about what the minister hides, the witch tells Hester that she knows the minister also has a hidden sin comparable to Hester’s

scarlet token. When presset about house she knows this, Mistress Hibbins explains that intuitively recognizing a fellow sinner is not difficult. She leaves having said that soon, the world will know Dimmesdale’s sins.

Now Hester hars the voice of Dimmesdale givibg his sermon while she cannot hear the word. She does hear sympathy, emotion, and compassion mixed with a “love expression of anguish.” He may not be telling the world his sin, but Hester hears the sadness and despair his tone because she is so in sympathy with his heart. Then Pearl scampers of through the crowd in her bright red dress and sees the shipmaster, who gives her a message for her mother: Chillingworth has secured passage for himself and Dimmesdale on the ship. When Hester hears this, she glances around the crowd and sees the same faces that were at the first scaffold scene. The chapter ends with the lines “The sainted minister in the church! The woman of the scarlet letter in the marketplace!” who would believe “ that the same scorching stigma was on them both/”

Analysis

In this chapter, Hawthorne interrupts the plot to comment on the stage of the politicians in his time. He describes the early politician of the colony as lacking mental brilliance but full of “ ponderous sobriety “. They had great fortitude and inner strength, and in an emergency,they met wise decisions and stoods up to any attack on the colony. Hawthorne even feels they would have peers in the old world who wold she in them the same authority as English statement. The people refere them in the Puritan colony, but by Hawthorne’s time,

that is teem had diminished. He writes that the people of the 1600s had a “ quality of reverence: which in their descendants, if its survive at all, exists in smaller proportion, and with a vastly diminished force, in the selection and estimate of public man.

After the pleasant sojourne into seventeenth century politics, Hawthorne turns the focus on Hester. When Hawthorne describes Hester’s reaction to Dimmesdale’s remoteness he virtually eliminate the possibility that they have a future together. In her mind, Hester compares.

Dimmesdale as he appears at the celebration “ he seem so remote from her own sphre, and utterly beyond her rich”. With how he was just three days earlier in the forest ( how deeply had thay known each other then!”. She begins to think she must have dreamed that meeting in the forest because now Demmidale seems wholly unsympathetic and removed to his Puritan world. While she can still feel his emotion, she also can hardly forgive him for with drawing from her and their plans to share their leaves.

Hawthorne uses Mistrees Hibbins to foreshadows the ending and emphasize the intuitive understanding of human hearts. The old which reveals that the minstrees’s sin will soon be public knowledge and when pressed by Hester to explain herself, says that the forest leaves it mark on everyone : even without tell – tale signs , suches leaves or twigs in a persons hair, the effidence is in his demeanor when Pearl ask about sinful secret, the witch warns the chils that she will she the work of devil “ one time or another “

In this passage, Hawthorne not only describes his ideas about sin, temptation and human frailty, but he also explains the intuitive nature of human knowledge. Dimmesdale may have removed himself from Hester’s emotional, sphere on this day but she has certainly not lost her intuitive connection with him. In his voice, she hears and recognized the voices of his heart and also the “low expression anguish”. She may not be able to hear his words distinctly, but she ca feel his sorrow – laden and guilt heart. In the tone of voice is pleasant for forgiveness.

Somehow, the two sinners must come together. To move towards the climax, Hawthorne has cut off escape with Chillingworth’s action, and he ends the chapter by describing desain end the sinner side by side. Although the world remain unaware, the principal character are moving closer and closer to this revelation.

4.3.3 The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter Summary

At the end of Dimmesdale’s election day sermons, the crowd emerges from the church inpirate by powerfull words they have just heard from a man whom they feel is soon to die. This moment is the most brilliant and triumphant in Dimmesdale’s public life. As the procession of dignitaries marches to a banquet at the townhall, the feelings of the crowd are expressed in the spontaneous shout of tribute to Dimmesdale.” Never, on new England soil, has stood the manso honored by his mortal brethren as the preacher!” but the shout dies to a mur-mur

as the people see Dimmesdale totter feebly and nervously in the procession. His face has taken on a deadly pallor, and he can scarcely walk. Several people attempt to help him, but the minister repels them until he comes to the scaffold where Hester stands holding Pearl by the hand. There Dimmesdale pauses.

As the minister turns to the scaffold he calls Hester and Pearl to his side. Suddenly, Choillingworth appears and attempts to stold Dimmesdale, but the minister scorn the old physician and cries out too.

Hester to help him get up to the scaffold. The crowed watches in astonishment as the minister, lining on Hester and holdings Pearl’s hand, ascents the scaffold steps. Chillingworth’s face darkens as he realizes that now here else but on the scaffold can Dimmesdale escape him.

The minister tells Hester that he is dying and must acknowledge his shame. Then hi turns to the crowd and cries out his guilt. His steps in front of Hester and Pearl and declares that on his breast the sign of his sin. He tears the ministerial band from his breast and for a moment, stands flues had with thriumph before the horrified crowd. Then he sing down upon the scaffold.

Hester lifts Dimmesdale’s head and cradles it against her bosom. Chillingworth, meanwhile, kniles down and, in a tone of defeat, repeats, offer and offer, “thou has escaped me!” the minister ask God’s forgiveness for Chillingwort’s sins : then he turn to Pearl and ask for the kiss. Pearl kisses him and weeps.

Dimmesdale, obviously dying now, tells Hester farewell. She asked whether they will spend eternity together. In answer, he recalls their sin and says

he fears that eternal happiness is note a state for a which they can hope. The minister leaves the matter to God, whose mercy he has seen in the afflection leading to his public confession. His dying words are “Praise be his name! his will be done! Farewell!”

Analysis

Hawthorne brings all the principals character together at a third cscaffold scene in this chapter, which begins with the thriumph of Dimmesdale’s sermon and end with hie death.

Dimmesdale’s sermon is a personal thriumph. In fact, Hawthorne ironically compares him to an angel who had “shaken his bright wings over the people” and “sheed down a shower of golden truth upon them” this final irony between his public and private lives revealed when he confesses his sins on the scaffold to all of the people who think of him as a saint. He gives up everything : his child, his love, his life, and his honor. The relationship to God that he has been preaching about cannot be based on a lie. God sees everything, and Dimmesdale no matter how hard he has tried, cannot outrun the truth that his conscience and his mind believe. Sailing to Europe will not bring hbim beyond the reach of God’s knowledge.

Not only dodes Dimmesdale confess but he must do so alone although Hester helps him to the scaffold where she was punish seven years before, she cannot help him, make his peace with God. The church, in the form of Mr. Wilson and the state, simbolyzed by GGovernor Bellingham both try to hold Dimmesdale

up as he approaches the scaffold be he repels them and goes on alone. He does turn to Hester prior to his death and ask for the strength, guided by God. Having escaped the clutches of Chillingworth, it turns to Hester with “an expression of doubt and anxiety in his eyes.”

Before actually confessing, he ask her, “is this not better that what we dreamed of in the forests?” He is asking Hester to confirm the righterousness of this act and explains to her: “for thee and Pearl, be it as God shall order…let me now do the will which he hath made plan before my sight.” Although Dimmesdale may still doubt his choice and requires Hester’s strength, in the end, he leaves his fate to God, trusting that his mercy will be more certain in death than Chillingworth’s relentless thorment is in life.

Give that he is dying, Dimmesdale ask Hester whether confession is better than fleeing. She has lived for seven long years with the torment of her neighbor and the shame of her scarlet letter. She hurriedly answers him that perhaps the three of them dying together would be preferable, but if Dimmesdale dies alone what will she have? She will have no love, no live, other than the loneliness she has already has, and a daughter who will have no father.

Pearl is given the most wonderful give: a life that is filled with love and happiness. When her father finally publishly acknowledges her, she kisses him and weeps an actual tears. As Houton says, “the spell is broken.” There is hope that Pearl will grow up be able to interract with other humans beings, find love, and live along and happy life.

Chillingworth loses his victory in two way. First, he no longer has Dimmesdale to torment, and second, he receive Dimmesdale’s blessing. Even as he is dying the minister manages to retain his reverence and his kindness by asking God’s forgiveness for Chillingworth. As Hester noted in her husband’s changed appearance earlier, revenge is never a positive motive and generally consume it possessor.

4.4 The “A” Symbol

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter includes many profound and important symbol. This device is symbolism is potried well I the novel, especially through the scarlet letter “A”. The “A” is the best example because of the changes in the meaning throughout the novel. In the beginning of the novel, the scarlet letter “A” is viewed as a symbol of sin. The middle of the novel is a trasision period, where the scarlet letter “A” is viewed differently.

In the commencement of the novel , the letter is taken as a label of punishment and sin. Hester Prynne bears the label of the letter upon her chest. She stands as a lebel of and outcast in front of society. She is wearing the symbol to burden her with punishment throughout her life. She stands on a plank where her punishment is given, “thus she will be a living sermon against sin, until the ignominious letter be and graved upon her thumbstone” (59) . society places its blames upon this women. It is because of this one letter than Hester’s life is changes. The letter’s meaning in hurritan society baniches her from her normal life. The Puritan’s view this letter of the devil. The letter also put Hester through

torture : “ of an impulse and passionate nature. She had fortified herself to encounter the stings and fenomous steps of public contumely wreaking it self in every variety of isult but there was a quality so much more terrible in the solem mood of popular mind, that she longed rather to behold all those rigid countenances contorted with scornful merriment and herself the object” (54)

This implies that Hester’s sin of bearing a child without the presence of husband will always be remembered. In the middle of the novel, is the transition period where the letter “A” is viewed differently than before. In this section of the novel, Hester’s appearance is altered to where she is no longer seen as a person of sin. The letter changes from a symbol of sin to amore vague symbol. Society now sees Hester as a person who is strong yet bears a symbol which divers herself. At this point, Hester has learned to deal with the letter. She has grown stronger from it. She is able to with stand the pressures of society. As she grow stronger, her personality becomes more opposed to being seen as a sinner. The letter’s meaning has changes, hatred, buy a gradual and quite process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change by impeded by a continually irritation of the original feeling of hostility” (147). This foreshadows the future even of the novel.

Another view of the letter is that it for treys guilt. It for treys the guilt of Dimmesdale, the father of Hester’s child. Hester has learned to deal with her punishment and grow stronger from it, but Dimmesdale, who went unpunished and is a respectable man in the Puritan society, must now live with the guilt of having a child “illegally”. This guilt help him to become weaker as novel continuish “Mr. Dimmesdale was overcome with a great horror of mine, as if the

universe were gazing at a scarlet token of his naked breast, cry over his heart. On the spot, in very truth there was, and there long had been the gnawing and poisonous tooth of bodily pain” (136).

After seven years of torture caused by scarlet letter , Hester tosses the letter aside for an hour. The return of this letter however, is beneficial to Hester. The letter’s refusal to be sweep away, Pearl’s refusal to join an unlettered Hester and Dimmesdale insistence that Hester do whatever it takes to quite Pearl, force Hester to reaccept the symbol of the sin she had wrongly diforced, and therefore allow Dimmesdale and Hester to share a mutual public shame. When Hester tosses her sin aside in the forest scene she is not successful in living her si forever. “the mystic token a lighted on the hitherd verge of the sterams. With a hand’s breath further fly it would have fallen into the water, and have given the little grove another to carry onward…” (pg. 185) the brook does not carry off Hester’s letter and therefore, the disgrace of her sin is still close by.

When Hawthorne says that Hester’s new thought “have taught her much amiss” (pg183) he also gives Hester one last chance to reaccept the sin that she has commited in Puritan code which she has so strongly rejected. By keeping the letter close at hand, Hester may still return to her rightful place in shame. Very much in tune with this letter is Pearl. Pearl immediately recognizes that the letter has been cast aside, and recognizes that in away she has been cast aside too. Pearl has always been another symbol of the sin between Hester and Dimmesdale, as much , or may be morethan the scarlet letter itself.

neighbours (pg.110) “Hester’s pride however, allows her neither option. She stays in Boston faces the punishment for her sin, and works to improve her life.

Without her bravery, she might have lost both Pearl and her own self – respect. Her bravery , shines through when she is patronize in front of the town. “With almost a serene deportment, therefore , Hester Pryne passed through this portion of ordeal, and came to assort of scaffold (pg.60) She uses much of her bravery to protect her daughter Pearl. This bravery is tested when Governoor Bellingham, following public option, tries to declare Hester as an unfit mother. Using false accusations, he tries to manipulate Pearl into denouncing false beliefs. It is only when Hester speaks the truth, that he withdraws his claims.

REFERENCES

Peck, John and Martin Coyle. 1986. Literary Terms and Criticism. Great Britain : Camelot Press Ltd .

Fananie, Zainuddin . 2001 .Telaah Sastra .Surakarta : Muhammadiyah University Press.

Eagleton, Terry. 1983. Literary Theory. Hongkong : SNP Best-set Type setter Ltd. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. 1992. The Scarlet Letter. London : Ticknor, Reed &

Fields.

Whitla, William. 2010. The English Hanbook ; A Guide to Literary Studies. Willey-Blackweel.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. 2008. The Scarlet Letter. The Pennsylvania State University.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. 2007. The Scarlet Letter. Diterjemahkan oleh Olenka Munif. Penerbit Narasi.

APPENDIX

The Biography of Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on july 4, 1804, in Salem, Massacutetts, a descendant of a long line of Puritan ancestor including John Hawthorne, a presiding magistrate in the Salem witch trials, Hawthorne added the “w” to his last name while in his early 20s. also among his ancestors was William Harthorne, one of the first Puritan settlers who arrived in New England in 1630.

After his father, a ship captain, died of yellow fever at sea when Nathaniel was only four, his mother become overly protected and pushed him toward relative isolated pursuits. Hawthorne’s childhood left him shy and bookish, which molded his life as a writer.

Hawthorne turned in to writing after his graduation from Bowdoin College. His first novel, Fanshawe was an successful and Hawthorne himself letters disavoid the work as amateurist. He wrote several successful short stories, however including “My Kinsman, Major Molineux”, “Roger Malvin’s Burial”, and “Young Goodman Brown” – arguably Hawthorne’s most famous short story.

Despite the critical acclaim it has receive since, Hawthorne twice rejected diswork when asked to select a compilation of short stories for publication.

He insufficient earning has a writer forced Hawthorne to enter a career as a Boston Custom House measurer 1839. After three years Hawthorne was dismissed from his job with the Salem Custom House. By 1842, his writing finally provided him income sufficient enough to marry Shopia Peabody and move to The Manse in Concord, which was the center of the Transcendental movement.

The couple had three children. Una, the eldest, was born in 1844 and named in reference to Sir Edmund Spencer’s epicpoem The Faerie Queene . Their second child, a son they called Julian, was born in 1846. The third chil, Rose, was born in 1851 and referred to by Hawthorne as his “autumnal flower”.

Hawthorne returned to Salem in 1845, where he was appointed surveyor of the Boston Custom House by President James Polk, but he was dismissed from this post when Zachary Taylor became President. Hawthorne then devoted himself to his most famous novel, The Scarlet Latter. He jealously worked on the novel with a determination he had not known before. His intense suffering infused the novel with imaginative energy , leading him to describe it as a “hell-fired story”. On February 3, 1850, Hawthorne read the final pages to his wife. He wrote, “It broke her heart and sent her to bed with a grievous headache, which I look as a triumphant success.”

The Scarlet Letter was a immediate success that allowed Hawthorne to devote himself completely to his writing. He left Salem for a temporary residence. In Lenox, a small town the Berkshires, where he completed the romance The House of the Seven Gables in 1851. While in Lenox, Hawthorne met with Herman Melville and became a major proponent of Melville’s work, but their friendship

later became strained. Hawthorne’s subsequent novels, The Blithedale Romance – based on his year of communal living at Brook Farm – and the romance The Marble Faun were both considered disappointments. Hawthorne supported himself through another political post, the consulship in Liverpool, which he was given for writing a campaign biography for Franklin Pierce.

In 1852, after the publication of The Blithedale Romance, Hawthorne returned to Concord and bought a house called Hillside, owned by Louisa May Alcott’s family. Hawthorne renamed in The Wayside. He went on to travel and live in France and Italy for a spell, but he returned to The Wayside just before the Civil War began. He published an article entitled “Chiefly About War Matters” for the Atlantic Monthly just before he fell ill, detailing the account of his travels to the Virginia battlefields of Manassas and Harpers Ferry and White House.

Hawthorne passed away on May 19, 1864, Plymouth, New Hampshire, after a long period of illness during which he suffered severe bouts of dementia. By this time, he had completed several chapters of what was to be a romance, and this work was published posthumously as “The Dolliver Romance”.

Hawthorne was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts. Transcendentalist poet and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, a neighbor of Hawthorne’s, described that life of his acquaintance as one of “painful solitude.”

Hawthorne had maintained a strong friendship with Franklin Pierce, but otherwise he had few intimates and little engagement with any sort of social life. A number of his unfinished works were published posthumously. His works

remain notable for their treatment of New England Puritanism, personal guil, and the complexities of moral choices. Though his life, he remains lauded as one of the greatest American writers.