The Scarlet Letter

Minister Arthur Dimmesdale is partner with Hester Prynne in the sin of adultery.  While her guilt is made public because she is with child, Arthur's participation remains hidden.  For seven years, Hester has openly borne the mark of their sin and she has endured contempt, whispers and scorn from her community of fellow Christians.  Arthur, on the other hand, continues to be adored as an icon of holiness by his congregation - the same community - a torturous burden from which he longs to be freed.  It seems to me that discussion about The Scarlet Letter tends to focus on Hester's humiliation and the community's judgmental nature, while Arthur's journey of agonizing secrecy seems to be ignored, yet is at least as compelling as the story's other aspects. 

Following is Hawthorne's account of their first conversation since their sin, in which Hester and Arthur decide to make the truth known:

"Hast thou found peace?" she asked.

"None! - nothing but despair!" he answered.  "What else could I look for, being what I am, and leading such a life as mine?  Were I an athiest, - a man devoid of conscience, - a wretch with coarse and brutal instincts, - I might have found peace, long ere now.  Nay, I never should have lost it!  But, as matters stand with my soul, whatever of good capacity there originally was in me, all of God's gifts that were the choicest have become the ministers  of spiritual torment.  Hester, I am most miserable!"

"The people reverence thee," said Hester.  "And surely thou workest good among them!  Doth this bring thee no comfort?"

"More misery, Hester! - only the more misery!" answered the clergyman with a bitter smile.  "As concerns the good which I may appear to do, I have no faith in it.  It must needs be a delusion.  What can a ruined soul, like mine, effect towards the redemption of other souls? - or a polluted soul, towards their purification?  And as for the people's reverence, would that it were turned to scorn and hatred!  Canst thou deem it, Hester, a consolation, that I must stand up in my pulpit, and meet so many eyes turned upward to my face, as if the light of heaven were beaming from it! - must see my flock hungry for the truth, and listening to my words as if a tongue of Pentecost were speaking! - and then look inward, and discern the black reality of what they idolize?  I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I seem and what I am!  And Satan laughs at it!"

"You wrong yourself in this," said Hester, gently.  "You have deeply and sorely repented.  Your sin is left behind you, in the days long past.  Your present life is not less holy, in very truth, than it seems in people's eyes.  Is there no reality in the penitence thus sealed and witnessed by good works?  And wherefore should it not bring you peace?"

"No, Hester, no!"  replied the clergyman.  "There is no substance in it!  It is cold and dead, and can do nothing for me!  Of penance, I have had enough!  Of penitence, there has been none!  Else, I should long ago have thrown off these garments of mock holiness, and have shown myself to mankind as they will see me at the judgment-seat.  Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly upon your bosom!  Mine burns in secret!  Thou little knowest what a relief it is, after the torment of a seven years' cheat, to look into an eye that recognizes me for what I am!  Had I one friend, - or were it my worst enemy! - to whom, when sickened with the praises of all other men, I could daily betake myself, and be known as the vilest of all sinners, methinks my soul might keep itself alive thereby.  Even thus much of truth would save me!  But, now, it is all falsehood! - all emptiness! - all death!"

Hester Prynne looked into his face..."Such a friend as thou hast even now wished for," said she, "with whom to weep over thy sin, thou hast in me, the partner of it!"  The sufferer's conscience had been kept this long while in an irritated state, the tendency of which was, not to cure by wholesome pain, but to disorganize and corrupt his spiritual being.  Its result, on earth, could hardly fail to be insanity...

Such was the ruin to which she had brought the man, once, - nay, why should we not speak it? - still so passionately loved!  Hester felt that the sacrifice of the clergyman's good name, and death itself, would have been infinitely preferable to the alternative which she had taken upon herself to choose.  And now, rather than have had this grievous wrong to confess, she would gladly have lain down on the forest-leaves, and died there, at Arthur Dimmesdale's feet.

"O Arthur," cried she, "forgive me!  In all things else, I have striven to be true!  Truth was the one virtue which I might have held fast, and did hold fast, through all extremity; save when thy good, - thy life, - thy fame, - were put in question!  Then I consented to a deception.  But a lie is never good, even though death threaten on the other side!"

No golden light had ever been so precious as the gloom of this dark forest.  Here, seen only by his eyes, the scarlet letter need not burn into the bosom of the fallen woman!  Here, seen only by her eyes, Arthur Dimmesdale, false to God and man, might be, for one moment, true!

"Do I feel joy again?" cried he.  "Methought the germ of it was dead in me!  O Hester, I seem to have flung myself - sick, sin-stained, and sorrow-blackened - down upon these forest leaves, and to have risen up all made anew, and with powers to glorify Him that hath been merciful!  This is already the better life!  Why did we not find it sooner?" 

"Let us not look back," answered Hester Prynne.  "The past is gone!  Wherefore should we linger upon it now?  See!  With this symbol, I undo it all, and make it as it had never been!"

So speaking, she undid the clasp that fastened the scarlet letter, and taking if from her bosom, threw it to a distance among the withered leaves.

The stigma gone, Hester heaved a long, deep sigh, in which the burden of shame and anguish departed from her spirit.  O exquisite relief!  She had not known the weight, until she felt the freedom!  A crimson flush was glowing on her cheek, that had been so long pale.  All at once, as with a sudden smile of heaven, forth burst the sunshine, pouring a very flood into the obscure forest, gladdening each green leaf, transmuting the yellow fallen ones to gold...the course of the little brook might be traced by its merry gleam afar into the wood's heart of mystery, which had become a mystery of joy.

I'll say no more for the sake of those who have not yet read the book!  This was my second time through it, and both times I found Hawthorne's depiction of the Christian community uncharitable and discomforting,  but I fear he may have been more accurate than we'd like to believe.  Anyway...it's a moving story of sin, guilt and redemption.

Let me warn you away from the motion picture version with Demi Moore and Gary Oldham!  The particulars of the adulterous relationship, which are absent from the book, are the focus, while Hester is depicted as a rebellious women's liberator who is, in some measure, proud of stepping outside the bounds of The Church and refuses to be judged by them, which is not the case in Hawthorne's book.  Stick with the book and ignore the movie!