Nathaniel Hawthorne: Symbolic Relations

Thesis Statement: Nathaniel Hawthorne used symbolism to bring meaning into his book

I. Symbolism

II. Symbolism in characters

III. Symbolism in objects

 IV. Symbolic relations between characters and objects

Nathaniel Hawthorne used symbolism to bring meaning into his book "The Scarlet Letter." Generally speaking, a symbol is something which is used to stand for something else. In literature, it is most often a concrete object which is used to represent something more abstract and broader in scope and meaning. Symbols can range from the most obvious substitution of one thing for another to creations as massive, complex, and perplexing as Melville’s white whale in Moby Dick ( Dibble, p. 77 ). In The Scarlet Letter the symbols and the ingredients of the story come together "in a seamless unity in which each manifestation of the letter illuminates an aspect of the characters’ or the community’s evolving experience ( Brodhead, p. 159 ) .

In Hawthorne’s use of symbols in The Scarlet Letter, we observe the author making one of his most distinctive and significant contributions to the growth of American fiction. Indeed this novel is usually regarded as the first symbolic novel to be published in the United States ( Dibble, p. 77 ) . Hawthorne attempts to spread a revelation into imagined characters and scenes, to transfer the realization of the symbols into a warmth that will animate the entire story. The author creates by transforming fact into symbol, that is, into meaningful fact.

Facts that he cannot see as meaningful fact may be

disregarded. He is at liberty to manipulate his

materials, to shape them freely into meaningful

patterns, so long as he does not violate the truth

of the human heart ( Waggoner p. 69 ) .

It is in the four major characters that Hawthorne’s powers as a symbolist are brought into fullest play. Each of his major characters symbolizes a certain view of sin and its effects on the human heart ( Dibble p. 80 ) . Hester Prynne is warm, alive, human - so much so that it is difficult to determine just where Hawthorne’s sympathies lie. She is a queenly figure who may have gotten her name from the biblical Esther. "Queen Esther is a woman of courage, beauty, dignity, selflessness. Hester Prynne has all these qualities ( Bloom, p. 121 ) ." She seems a virtual saint, a woman who walks in humility and patience but to others she is an unbending woman of pride, who glories in her sin. This glorifying of her sin is expressed the symbol she is forced to wear. Hester practices the art of symbolic overlay by which her community gives meaning and distinction to experience, and she suffers from the symbolism that she herself purveys ( Bloom, p. 130). After several years Hester, the "woman taken in adultery," rises to saintliness as she becomes an "angel of mercy" to the community but her dreams of a new order of society can find no expression in her life and resignation is all she has to take the place of happiness ( Waggoner, p. 73 ) .

More cynically and guiltily than Hester does, Dimmesdale exploits the difference between his "individuality" and his role as a "general symbol," knowing that his confessions will be interpreted as performances of a symbolic kind ( Bloom, p. 135 ) . Making his confession was difficult but had to be done. Dimmesdale is afflicted with a devious pride. He cannot surrender an identity which brings him the adulation of his parishioners, the respect and praise of his peers. His contortions in the guise of humility only add to the public admiration which, in turn, feeds an ego fundamentally intent on itself ( Martin, p. 115 ) . Dimmesdale is constantly reaching for his heart. The heart is a chamber, in which the minister keeps his vigils in utter darkness; when Chillingworth enters the chamber, he is violating the heart ( Waggoner, p. 143 ) .

Chillingworth, the Satan in this Garden of Eden - Hawthorne labels him literally as such and associates him both with snakes and savage Indians, is motivated only by revenge ( Bloom, p. 112 ) . Hawthorne is not alone in seeing Chillingworth as Satan Hester, Pearl, and Dimmesdale all associate him with the Black Man. When Chillingworth meets Hester at the seaside "there came a glare of red light out of his eyes; as if his soul were on fire." He also appears as the arch-fiend in the last two scaffold scenes ( Brodhead, p. 171 ) . Chillingworth is also associated with the snake in that he is evil in intent. The snake-like convulsion that expressed his feelings has been pushed deep into his being where it remains as the source of monomania and revenge ( Martin, p. 114 ). Therefore the man who probed into the hearts of those who have wronged him becomes the greatest sinner of them all. This power of reading the human soul leaves Chillingworth open to degradation, step by step, from a man into a fiend ( Matthiessen, p. 82 ) . He tortures Dimmesdale every day possible. He pries into his heart until Dimmesdale can no longer bear the guilt in his heart. The heart where this devil has left his mark. When at last Dimmesdale is removed of all his guilt and dies when Chillingworth’s evil work was done "he positively withered up, shriveled away...like an uprooted weed that lies wilting in the sun." ( Waggoner, p. 139 )

Pearl is seen as purely symbolic:

Pearl is a pure symbol, the living emblem of the

sin, a human embodiment of the Scarlet Letter.

Her mission is to keep Hester’s adultery always

before her eyes, to prevent her from attempting to

escape its moral consequences ( Fogle, p. 142 ) .

Pearl is thus the "emblem and product of sin," now serving an allegorical office of embodying the complex traits that the letter stand for or reminding others of the power of the symbol when they try to ignore it (Brodhead, p. 167 ) . Pearl in speech and in action never strays from the control of her symbolic function. She "enforces its double authorization, identifies it as the product of intercourse, and reveals the limits of Hester’s freedom and power ( Bloom, p. 128 ) ." Even her dress and her looks are related to the scarlet letter. Being the product of sin Pearl acquires some odd characteristics. This "infant worthy to have been brought forth in Eden" is part preternaturally wise child and part "elfin spirit ( Bloom, p. 112 ) ." A spirit thought to be void of human feeling and therefore difficult to control. Pearl is made human by Dimmesdale’s confession and death: "The great scene of grief, in which the wild infant bore a part, had developed all her sympathies...( Fogle, pp. 136-137 ) ."

With the scarlet letter Hawthorne converts an isolated symbol into a badge fashioned by a historical community. The A is the Puritan’s A through which they impose their judgment on a violator of their communal values ( Brodhead, p. 159 ) . The A they impose on her is the symbolic badge of her office, Adulteress, to symbolize her virtue and sin.

Hester converts the spectacle of "iniquity dragged

forth" into an act proceeding from her own free

choice. She accepts the designation of adulteress,

but on her own terms; her embroidery of the

scarlet letter turns into a more complex symbol,

one that does justice to the inseparable conjunction

of something guilty and something vital and fertile

in her passionate nature ( Brodhead, p. 155 ) .

This personalized letter is an act of self-expression through which she converts her badge of shame into a symbol of triumph and defiance ( Bloom, p. 119 ) .

Hawthorne centers each section of the book on one great dramatic scene in a symbolic setting in three sections of The Scarlet Letter this is the scaffold where sinners are exhibited and shamed ( Clendenning, p. 115 ) . The scaffold is a symbol that like the scarlet letter stands for shame as well as elevation. It is not only the symbol of the stern Puritan code, but it also becomes a symbol for the open acknowledgment of personal sin. The scaffold develops into "the place to which Dimmesdale knows he must go for atonement, the only place where he can escape the grasp of Roger Chillingworth ( Dibble, p. 78 ) ."

The forest is symbolic in two ways or in two worlds: one of darkness and evil and one of a natural world governed by natural laws. The evil and dark world is that is actually only of imagination. It is a world where witches gather and where souls are signed away to the devil. The natural world governed by natural laws is a place where the sinners can feel free. It is a world where Pearl can run and play freely, Hester can throw away her A, let her hair down and through this feel like a woman once again ( Dibble, p. 79 ) . The brook in the forest is a stream of separation that fails to carry away with it the token of Hester’s miserable past that she tried in vain to fling from her ( Matthiessen, p. 85 ) . It is also symbolic of Pearl because of its unknown source and because it travels through gloom. It has a history of sorrow to which one more story is added. When Pearl refuses to cross the brook to join Hester and Dimmesdale it becomes a boundary between two worlds ( Dibble, p. 79 ) .

The scarlet effects all the main characters of the book.

Invented by the community to serve as an unequivocal

emblem of penance, the letter has frozen Hester into a

posture of haughty agony, has brought Dimmesdale to

a death of "triumphant ignominy" on the scaffold, has

victimized the victimizer - Chillingworth. Hawthorne

begins and ends with the letter, which encompasses

and transcends all its individual meanings, which

signifies, totally and finally, The Scarlet Letter itself

( Martin, p. 127 ) .

The A is a badge for individuals, a token of their act of adultery and the passions that led to the act, and a mark as well of the complex system of guilt and responsibility that ensues from that act. In this aspect the A becomes a part of all the characters life ( Brodhead, p. 159 ) . Originally the A stood for adultery but the meaning of the A is different for every character. To the Puritans it meant punishment for the sin of adultery. To Hester it meant an unjust humiliation which she was forced to bear everyday. To Dimmesdale the A is a piercing reminder of his own guilt. For Chillingworth the A was the spur to the quest for revenge. To Pearl the A was a bright and mysterious curiosity ( Dibble, p. 78 ) .

The Scarlet Letter’s plot is built around the three scenes on the scaffold. First Hester endures her public shaming with baby Pearl in her arms on the scaffold. Second it is where the minister, who has been driven almost crazy by his guilt but has lacked the resolution to confess it, ascends for self-torture. Last the scaffold is where Dimmesdale confesses his sin, dies in Hester’s arms, and Pearl finally shows human emotions ( Matthiessen, p. 57 ) .

The most splendid image for the wild, untamed aspect of Hester’s nature is her "elf" child, Pearl. In her dress, her looks, and her behavior she is a part of wild nature ( Bloom, p. 118 ) . This is why Pearl can run and play so freely in the forest. Pearl herself is a creature of nature, most at home in the wild forest: "... the mother-forest, and these wild things which it nourished, all recognized a kindred wildness in the human child ( Fogle, p. 136 ) ." The forest accepted Pearl as a part of itself because it could sense the wildness that swelters within her. Even the wild forest animals approached her as one of their own, with no hesitation, with no fear.

With every person that reads "The Scarlet Letter" a new understanding of Hawthorne’s effective use symbolism will be brought to life. "Hawthorne’s masterpiece has aroused many different reactions in its readers and inspired many interpretations ( Waggoner, p. 126 ) ." This continued variety of response testifies of course to its richness as a work of art. This richness is of course flourished with symbolism. With this symbolism instead of telling the story Hawthorne is showing us the story. He lets these images produced from the symbols do the work of telling the story for him ( Waggoner, p. 127 ) .

Bibliography

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