Name:- Hitaxi H Bhatt.
Roll No:- 03.
Enrolment No:- PG15101004
Year:- 2015-2017
Paper No:- 10 ( The American Literature.)
Topic:- Biblical allusion in ‘The Scarlet Letter’.
Submitted To:- Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University.
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Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘The Scarlet Letter’ takes place in
puritan New England in the 1600s in a backdrop of rigid rules and Christian
faith. In the setting Hawthorne provides ample Biblical allusion in order to
better explore sin, hypocrisy, and true salvation. Hawthorne himself comes from
a puritan heritage and was interested in the hypocrisies such rigidity could
produce. Allusions are references to popular events, places and people in a
work of literature. Most of this assignment will focus on Biblical allusions
and will provide a better understanding of how those allusions enhance the
story of ‘The Scarlet Letter’.
Let’s see the connection between Hawthorne’s ‘The Scarlet
Letter’ and John Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’.
As we compare the biblical reference of Adam and Eve and
here we connect it with the character of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale.
The style of writing of Hawthorne and John Milton is same they use artistically
ornamental language for their writing. In the novel we came to know about
choice of Hawthorne that his choice of diction and imagery that has some
connection with nature. And this choice brings importance in characters
characteristic. while going through the description the character and symbolic
imagery of the novel reminds us the story of Adam and Eve. In this biblical allusion specially we recall
the fall of Adam and Eve. Hawthorne also breaks away from the religious aspect
of world view of the time and most creates an importance on seeing everything
as a whole away from religious perspectives.
Chillingworth- Satan.
Adam and Eve- Dimmesdale and Hester.
Pearl – forbidden love, Apple.
·
Chillingworth and Satan.
In the novel, one of the main Characters, Roger
Chillingworth is often referred to as a
‘Black man’. Which is an allusion to the Biblical character of Satan. In the
Bible, Satan is a fallen angel that led a revolution against God. Many Christians
believe that he rules over the sinners in hell,
and tempts people to become sinners and to join him in the afterlife.
When Hester speaks to Chillingworth, she questions whether he is tempting her
to sin so that she will earn a place in hell, much like the puritans believed
Satan did. When Chillingworth finally discovers that his wife’s lover is indeed
reverend Dimmesdale,(the minister of puritan town) a man of the cloth, he is
overjoyed, like Satan, he seems to be exicted at the notion that a priest has
committed an egregious sin and has put his salvation at risk. Chillingworth is ecstatic over the idea that Dimmesdale is
in danger of losing his soul, much like Satan celebrates when a new person will
be coming to hell.
· Adam and Eve.
Nathaniel Hawthorne makes
several allusion to the biblical story of Adam and Eve in the Scarlet Letter.
In the Bible, God created Adam and Eve and provided them with a place to live
in the garden of Eden. He asked them to not eat the fruit from the tree of
knowledge. A serpent, which was satan in
disguise, tempts Eve to eat the fruit and she does. She also persuades Adam to
eat the fruit. God punishes them by giving them suffering and casts them out of
Eden.
The first allusion to this
story comes with our first glimpse of Hester Prynne. Hawthorne writes that, “she
would become the general symbol at which the preacher and moralist might point
that would hereafter be a woman at her who had once been innocent, as the
figure, the body, the reality of sin.” In this quotation, Hawthrone has alluded
to the story of Eve, Eve serves as a reminder of the frailty of women and she
is a poster child for the origin of sin. Hester is compared to her because she
was once innocent, but sinned because of her feminine qualities.
When Hawthorne describes
Hester’s daughter, Pearl he also alludes to the tale of Adam and Eve:
‘God, as a direct consequences of sin which
man thus punished.. the infant was worthy to have been brought forth in Eden..
after the world’s first parents were driven out’
When God punished Eve, he
told her that childbearing would be a painful burden. In the first line of this
allusion, Hawthorne references this. Hester has sinned and now she must
painfully bear the child; this is further illustrated by the reference to Eden.
Hawthorne also refers Dimmesdale and Hester as the world’s first parents; a
direct allusion to Adam and Eve whom Christian believe are the origin of human
species.
· Pearl
The
character of the novel Pearl who is the daughter of Hester. She creates
controversy in the novel. different
critics says that Pearl is an embodied angel from the skies and another one
says that a void of demon. But for me she is the symbol of nature. If we look
her from the perspective of Adam and Eve then we consider her as an symbol of
apple. That Adam and Eve ate from the biblical story that was the result that
Adam and Eve has to being forced from the garden of Eden. Same in the novel
just because of Pearl, Hester has to live in the scaffold. We know that the
apple is the symbol that Milton uses as the knowledge of both evil and good.
Pearl also represent that by asking the question of Hester about Dimmesdale and
her meeting in the forest. That we consider as knowledge and if we consider her
as a evil then just because of Hester and Dimmesdale’s sin pearl born. Pearl is described as having “wild, bright,
deeply black eyes” which can easily associated in religions with demon
possession or evil.
In the first scaffold
scene, where we find that Hester all alone stands with her daughter pearl. In
the story of Adam and Eve it is said to Eve that first eat the fruit and then
she convinced to eat the fruit to Adam. The law of society believes in that woman
are by nature sinful in the allusion to the biblical story. As we know that
Dimmesdale is hides himself from the sin that he has committed. Like Adam in
the garden of Eden. He hide himself after eating the forbidden fruit. But at
last he is found by God. He tells that Satan had told Eve to eat the fruit.
Dimmesdale, on the other hand reveals himself and comes clean to a different
sort of God. After seven years Dimmesdale reveals himself as the father of
pearl and stand next to Hester. Here Hawthorne tries his writing as an AXE on
the frozenness of society. That how society wished to hear his law based idea
that the society would represent him as a god. But the actual face of god is
revealed at last. Hawthorne gives Pearl effect of both the heaven and hell in
the religion.
In
the bible there is a talk about the forgiveness of God.
“For if you forgive other people when they sin
against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not
forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins”
Specially about the forgiveness of an offender that
states,
“ You ought to forgive and comfort him so that
he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. ”
These Bible versus the statement of offenders
of sin should be forgiven by society. And the society in the novel does not
forgive the sin which is committed by Dimmesdale and Hester. Whether he is in
the position of God or in the position of merely society. As the plot moves on
to the end we came to know that we can connect Chillingworth’s character with
Serpent from the fall of Adam and Eve.
If
we look the novel from the thematic concern then we know that there are some
connection in between the novel and John Milton’s Paradise Lost theme.
- · Sin, knowledge and human condition.
Sin, Knowledge and Human condition are also
one theme that has connection with the story of Adam and Eve. That the sin done
by Adam and Eve by eating apple. In the novel Hester and Dimmesdale committed
sin in the novel by their adultery sin. Apple symbolizes the knowledge and in the
novel Pearl symbolizes the knowledge. Human condition that we connects with the
Eve and Dimmesdale that human are supposed to err. And their sins makes them
realize the knowledge. And both done the sin that they committed is forbidden
by god or society.
- · The tongues of flame.
In
one of the dialogues of the novel that Hester tells to his daughter that,
“The
sunshine does not love you.” That Hester cannot speak the name of the father of
Pearl. Dimmesdale’s agony within the self makes us realize that he repents a
lot on his deed. In the story of Adam and Eve. Eve also repents a lot for
eating an apple. That just because of her Adam has to also suffers a lot.
- · Identity and Society.
Here in the novel Hester shows the romance
that one real woman can not undergoes that type of suffering. Here we can say
that it shows the identity or womanhood of woman. And Dimmesdale is also one
real man that he ask the name of the father of Pearl. Though he knows that who
is the real father of her but he gives a chance to reveal the name of actual
father of Pearl. And if we look on society that how law of society works
Chillingworth can’t accept his wife just because society gives her a mark that
she is committed. In the story of Adam and Eve there is one law that is made by
God and Eve goes against the law of nature and for that she and Adam has thrown
out of the garden of Eden.
In the
story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, the bible lacks a sense of a
complete story because the majority is describing the sin that they committed
and not the individual thoughts that went through the heads of Adam and Eve or
the serpent or God himself. So in this way Hawthorne uses this allusion that
helps the readers to understand it completely with the help of the character of
the novel. Hawthorne uses an axe to break off from the biblical allusion and
says to his readers that religion can’t solve problems or can’t explain
everything so that he concludes that religion is also not perfect.
Works Cited
Fulfer., Hayden Reid. Academic Writing.
Saturday April 2015.
<http://hreidacademic.blogspot.in/2015/04/the-scarlet-letter-and-garden-of-eden.html>.
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