Transcript Scarlet Letter Chapters 5 to 8

Scarlet Letter Chapters 5 to 8
Areas of Concern giving rise to Conflict
• The private self versus public role
Hester’s identity is her inner life (Her ‘inmost Me’)
• The Matriarchal versus the Patriarchal
• Passion versus Reason
• Tolerant Morality, and Puritan morality
• Signs; the Problem of Interpretation / Polysemy
Note re Symbolism
• Abstract concepts as well as concrete objects function
as symbols carry great emotional power working on
more than one level
Note
Hester, the central character
• The narrator allies himself with her
• Despite occasional adverse judgments
the Narrator devotes himself to her cause
• And compels the reader to accept Hester’s
reading of her scarlet letter as a badge of
honour,
not as an emblem of disgrace.
Overview
• With the ordeal upon the scaffold and time in
prison over
(Her silence is symbolical of her repression)
• Hester is free to leave the Puritan settlement and
return to her birthplace, or to any other
European land; ‘Hester Prynne’s term of
confinement…
• But decides to remain, taking up residence in an
abandoned cottage
• To support herself and her child Pearl, she
becomes a seamstress
Narrator and Method
• The narrator is introduced in The CustomHouse (a separate figure from Hawthorne)
• Characterized throughout the novel by his
method of 1) Intrusive Commentary
• By his methods of 2) Narration and
3) Description 4) Anachronistic Dialogue
• And 5) his distinctive language of
Ambiguous Symbolism rather than
straightforward, direct declarative statements
Narrative Method
• Refuses to reduce complex reality into simple binary
oppositions between absolute terms such as
• Good and Evil; Light and Darkness
• He follows the Puritans in seeing some deep meaning
behind the physical world;
But not so certain what that might be;
• Hence he foregrounds contradictory points of view, and
• adopts an equivocating, shifting, speculative,
suggestive, uncertain mode of narration, implying an
element of mystery about human motives;
• In surrendering his narrative authority, we as readers
are allowed to choose from a variety of interpretations
Symbolism
• Flowers and Weeds
• Light and Colour
• Sunshine and Shadows; Sun and Moon
• Noon and Midnight
• Nighttime a symbol of concealment
Colours
• Colour of Red;
• of Grey and Black
Chapter 5
• Chapter 5, the first among other chapters,
in which Hawthorne’s narrator focuses on a single
character, and relationships
• Using Commentary; no dialogue
• It provides Backstory / Background about Hester
and Pearl ‘All other scenes of earth—even that
village of rural England, where happy infancy and
stainless maidenhood…were foreign to her’
• Does not significantly advance the plot;
• But to quicken the pace of the narrative, the first
three years of Hester’s life are summarized
Chapter 5 p71
Develops further various symbolic meanings
associated with that of the scarlet letter
• Her prison-door was thrown open, and she
came forth into the sun-shine, which, falling
on all alike, seemed, to her sick and morbid
heart, as if meant for no other purpose than
to reveal the scarlet letter on her breast.
• The narrator describes the sun as shining on
all alike at the time of Hester’s release
• But she is unable to feel the joy of its
brightness and warmth;
• For her, it seems the sun’s sole goal is to form
a spotlight on the scarlet letter
• This is part of the spirit of Romance fiction
where there is an element of imaginative
projection on to external reality
Why stay when she can leave?
Concealment and Exposure
It may seem marvellous, that with the world before
her,—kept by no restrictive clause of her
condemnation within the limits of the Puritan
settlement, so remote and so obscure,—free to
return to her birthplace, or to any European land,
and there hide her character and identity under a
new identity…the wildness of her nature
might assimilate itself with a people alien from the
law that had condemned her,—
it may seem marvellous, that this woman should
still call that place her home
• The narrator presents Hester’s conflicted nature;
• He wonders why does she not leave the town of
Boston;
• He speculatively reflects on the possibility that
the wildness of her nature would fit in more
closely with that of the Native American Indians
living beyond the boundaries of Puritan law;
• Through especially the Modal Verb forms of
‘May’ and ‘Might’ used to express possibility:
‘may seem marvellous’ ‘might assimilate’
Why does she remain
through commentary
• The narrator suggests several POSSIBLE reasons
• Because she may feel fatalistically and irresistibly
compelled to remain in the place where a
significant event has marked her life; ‘The chain
that bound her here was of iron links, and galling
to her inmost soul , but could never be broken’
• Because she loves and will be closer to Arthur
Dimmesdale, the man who is father of her child?
• Feels that here, had been the scene of her guilt,
and “. . . here should be the place of her earthly
punishment” thus to remain will purify her soul?
En Passant
Character and Plot
• We get a sense ‘Scarlet Letter’—
less concerned with plot development
• And more concerned with exploring character
and the mysterious workings of the human
heart
• It documents expositionally and dramatizes
the various trials, tribulations, and
humiliations Hester faces
as she re-enters the Puritan community
That refuses to forget her sin
Note pages 76, p77
P76
Hester’s character through exposition
With her native energy of character, and rare capacity, it
could not entirely cast her off, although it had set a mark
upon her, more intolerable to a woman’s heart than that
which branded the brow of Cain. In all her intercourse
with society, however, there was nothing that made her
feel as if she belonged to it. Every gesture, every word,
and even the silence of those with whom she came into
contact, implied and often expressed, that she was
banished, and as much alone as if she inhabited another
sphere, or communicated with the common nature by
other organs and senses than the rest of human kind.
p77
If she entered a church, trusting to share the Sabbath
smile of the Universal Father, it was often her mishap,
to find herself the text of the discourse. She grew to have
a dread of children, for they had imbibed from their
parents a vague idea of something horrible in this dreary
woman, gliding silently through the town, with never any
companion but one only child.
When strangers looked curiously at the scarlet letter,—
and none ever failed to do so,—they branded it afresh
into Hester’s soul; so that, oftentimes, she could scarcely
refrain, yet always did refrain, from covering the symbol
with her hand.
Techniques
• Dramatized Information;
• Through multi-viewpoint third person perspective
– describes internal POV characters from the
outside and the inside; enumeration, antithesis
and emotionally charged diction –
‘more intolerable to a woman’s heart’; ‘that she
was banished’ she grew to have a dread of
children
• Cadence
• Offers fresh perspectives
Layered, ambiguous, rich view of life
• Offers conflicting viewpoints on the same event;
Hester sees her act one way; society another
• Through these vignette’s an enormous amount of
characterization is gained
• Hester’s character comes across all the more
plausibly because of these internal conflicts
• We see her strength from the narrator’s
presentation of her struggles as manifested in her
inner conflicting emotional responses
Chapter 6
Little Pearl, elf-child; demon offspring
‘We have as yet hardly spoken of the infant; that
little creature, whose innocent life had sprung,
by the inscrutable decree of Providence, a lovely
and immortal flower, out of the rank luxuriance of a
guilty passion.’
• The narrator shifts his attention to focus on Pearl
and the first three years of her life, with a
description of her contradictory nature
• “She is a lovely and immortal flower” but
one that has grown out of “rank luxuriance” and
“guilty passion”
• The Narrator continues to use floral symbolism
• beginning in Chapter 1 with his symbolical
description of the black flower and the wild
rosebush;
• Pearl’s name ironically does reflect white, calm,
beauty;
• Hester has surrendered everything valuable to
her – her reputation, status, and social
acceptability and contact for this one treasure
Pearl: Character or Symbol
Conflicting Representations
• She is the symbol of the scarlet letter itself;
• When we first see Pearl as her mother steps out of
prison Hester tries to use the baby to cover the scarlet
letter on her breast;
• She is associated with images of darkness and wildness
throughout the novel
• Also images of Light – Pearl as God’s blessing on
Hester; while Man has marked her with the heinous
scarlet letter, God has sent her a lovely child;
• But for the Puritans — a symbol of Sin; a child of the
devil;
• Pearl: No single meaning of her significance
Chapter 7
From the Narrator we learn
• some of Boston’s most influential inhabitants
want to take Pearl away from her;
• Hester and Pearl for a brief spell leave their
secluded cottage;
• To visit the Governor Bellingham’s home to
plead for her child
Chapter 7
Reasons of the Puritan Community:
• Pearl from the Point of View of the Puritans is a
demon-child, and thus should be treated
differently;
• Hester is not someone to be accorded moral
responsibility given her fallen woman status;
• We see Pearl dressed in scarlet, representing the
scarlet letter in form and spirit;
• Hester shows strength and determination as she
faces
• The Narrator in presenting the inhabitants’
arguments /reasons,
• offers additional insight into their beliefs,
• Revealing once again the limitations of their
reasoning;
• To illustrate their pettiness the narrator tells us
the inhabitants recently disputed “the right of
property in a pig” giving rise to an argument that
caused a “fierce and bitter” fight in the legislature
Counterfactual Contexts p89
• It may appear singular, and, indeed, not a little
ludicrous, that that an affair of this kind, which, in
later days, would have been referred to no higher
jurisdiction than that of the selectmen of the
town, should then have been a question publicly
discussed, and on which statesmen of eminence
took sides. At that epoch of pristine simplicity,
however, matters of even slighter public interest,
and of far less intrinsic weight than the welfare of
Hester and her child, were strangely mixed up
with the deliberations of legislators and acts of
state.
• The narrator ‘point-of-views’ and through
DESCRIPTION we come to see the lush
furnishings of Governor Bellingham’s mansion.
• This is in ANTITHESIS to the sparse, sombre
lifestyle demanded and expected of the
Puritans;
Chapter 8
• Continues the Narrator’s account of Hester’s
visit to the Governor’s house begun in
Chapter 7
• The actual meeting with the Governor ensues
in this chapter;
• Governor Bellingham is accompanied by
Puritan church ministers –
Rev John Wilson and Rev Arthur Dimmesdale,
• Also present, Dr Roger Chillingworth
Changes
• This chapter highlights the changes in these characters
since their first meeting on the Scaffold;
• Hester is stunned by how much Chillingworth has
changed in appearance—uglier, darker and even more
misshapen;
• His physical change symbolize a darker change from
within; his ‘inmost Me’
• Ugliness, darkness, and deformities are seen by the
Puritans as symbolizing moral degeneration;
• We notice Dimmesdale weakened condition and
nervousness showing us how he has been suffering
from his concealed guilt
Significant Scenes p97
• Rev Wilson’s examination of Pearl’s knowledge
of Christian teachings;
• “Art thou a Christian child? Dost know thy
catechism? Or art thou one of those naughty
elfs or fairies whom we thought to have left
behind us, with other relics of Papistry, in
merry old England?”
• Pearl: “I am my mother’s child,” answered the
scarlet vision, “and my name is Pearl”
p98, 99
• Through the Narrator’s exposition and description
Pearl’s natural dislike of authority is made evident to
the reader;
• ‘Looking like a wild, tropical bird, of rich plumage,
ready to take flight into the air.’
• In dialogue through her replies in the course of Rev
Wilson’s religious interrogation
• “Canst thou tell me, my child, who made thee?”
• The narrator tells us, ‘the child finally announced that
she had not been made at all, but had been plucked by
her mother off the bush with wild roses…’
Meeting with the Powers that Be
• Hester’s pleas to the Magistrates fall on deaf ears
because of her marginal status;
• She turns to Dimmesdale
“Thou wast my pastor, and hadst charge of my soul, and
knowest me better than these men can. I will not lose the
child! Speak for me! Thou knowest, – for thou hast
sympathies which these men lack! – thou knowest what
is in my heart, and what are a mother’s rights, and how
much the stronger they are; when that mother has but
her child and the scarlet letter! Look thou to it! I will not
lose the child! Look to it!” Chapter 8 p100
• Dimmesdale: “There is a truth in what she says.”
Encounter with Mistress Hibbins
• The narrator wonders whether this conversation
with Mistress Hibbins really took place
• Through questioning the truthfulness of it ever
occurring
Either way
• It subtly confirms Dimmesdale’s argument
Pearl will keep Hester from the power of
darkness
• Symbolically, presence of Mistress Hibbins
suggestive of the many dark powers and
threatening forces surrounding Hester
Conclusion
We see in the course of Chapters 5 to 8
• The challenges and difficulties confronting
Hester following her entry in to the Puritan
community;
• We see how that individual identity is
negotiated between individuals and society,
• And not so easily changed according to the
individual’s desire;