The Importance Of Humanity In Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

Humanity in the Heart of Puritanical Boston

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter silhouettes the human experience as being intricately woven with equal parts loving bliss and guilty anguish. He describes, from different characters’ perspectives, that only through one does the other have meaning. That living is a sensation fully encountered exclusively from naked emotion which is tended toward, the liberty to articulate those truths, and solidarity. Pearl becomes the embodiment of the former, who is described from the very beginning as an unearthly “creature”, the second by Arthur Dimmesdale, slowly killed by his secret sin, and the latter by both as they discover the lawless triumph of pleasure and pain. Over the course of the novel’s

To his belief, “Herein is the sinful mother happier than the sinful father.” (p. 102) By this he means that Hester’s scarlet letter allows her more public freedom than him. Although condemned by society as a sinner and treated as a pariah incapable of raising her own child, she does not have the constant pressure of wearing a mask of a person that she is not, unlike Dimmesdale. His sentence of justice was one enacted not by law as his lover’s, but by societal pressure and internalized guilt. Dimmesdale reveals the depth of the indoctrination of his facade to Hester in their sole moment of private tenderness, “I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I seem and what I am!” (p. 167) He says, furthermore, in that same instance, “But, now, it is all falsehood!—all emptiness!—all death!” Together, the suggestion of these two lines is that the suppression of his identity and the resulting soul sickness has cost him his life. It is clear with the progression of the story that Dimmesdale, at least physically, indeed does suffer more than Hester. As his body decays, so too does his spirit and his vitality is only reignited upon returning from their encounter in the forest when, “…there appeared a glimpse of human affection and sympathy, a new life…” (p. 175) And finally when he exclaims, “Do I feel joy again?” (p.

He says, “It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates.” (p. 140) Additionally, he describes love as an infectious sentiment that spreads and cannot help but illuminate life. Dimmesdale and Pearl, for different reasons, are unable to experience all of these sensations for much of the story. Pearl because she has none to share, Dimmesdale because his public office and private shame prevent him from doing so. Pearl’s baptism into the sphere of passion serves as her introduction to life, too, as Hawthorne’s words promise that she would not, “…for ever do battle with the world, but be a woman in it.” (p. 222) Prior to this moment, Pearl would act aggressively toward the local towns children, throwing things at them and making foul noises when they looked at her. But with this she is granted a second birth, but this time without her duty as a “messenger of anguish.” (p. 222) Finally she is able to live. Dimmesdale finds himself questioning whether or not he will earn his daughter 's acceptance as he wonders aloud, “So thou thinkest the child will love me?” (p. 178) After seven years of suppression and knowing that he cannot, “…any longer live without her (Hester’s) companionship;” (p. 175), once Dimmesdale at last finds his relief, “…there came what seemed a