ASSIGNMENT: American Literature

 

Name :- Dharti Makwana 

Batch :- 2019-2021

Roll No. :- 5

Semester :- M.A. Sem-3 

Enrollment No. :- 2069108420200024 

Submitted  :- Smt. S.B. Gardi Department of English, M.K.Bhavnagar University 

Email :- dharteemakwana789@gmail.com 

Paper No. :- American Literature 

Topic :- 

Transcendentalism and Anti - Transcendentalism in The Scarlet Letter 

Introduction 

This transcendentalist movement was inspired by the publication of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essays, “Nature” in 1836 and “Self-Reliance” in 1841. Stemming from the larger 19th-century European romanticism, New England transcendentalists (Goodman, 2017; Habich and Nowatzki, 2010) reject Calvinism, or the doctrine of predestination practiced by the Puritans, by asserting that human nature is innately good and that truth can be acquired from intuition and nature, not from reason and logic. 

As such, authority or society-imposed formal institutions such as government and religion may prevent people from using their intuition and cause them to become corrupt. In contrast with transcendentalism, anti-transcendentalism (better known as dark romanticism) is based on the belief that evil and sin are inherent characteristics in human beings. 

Therefore, an optimistic outlook on humanity is naïve because people must struggle to obtain goodness and avoid evil, which can exist even in a physical form in society. As an American novelist during this interesting time of contrasting intellectual and literary philosophies, Nathaniel Hawthorne weaves both transcendentalism and anti-transcendentalism thread into his immediately successful novel The Scarlet Letter to give readers a chance to evaluate different beliefs and different aspects of the early American life at the New England settlement in the seventeenth century.

TRANSCENDENTALIST ASPECTS OF THE SCARLET LETTER

The Scarlet Letter contains both transcendentalist and anti- transcendentalist views and ways of life organizing around the central theme of sin. The basic premises of transcendentalism depicted in the novel include beliefs in self-confidence and self-reliance, in transforming or changing for the better, in individual worth and dignity of manual labor, in innate goodness of people, in the benefits of living close to nature, and in the fact that truth is acquired through intuition, not reason nor logic. 

Self-confident, Self-reliant, and Dignity of Manual Labor. 

In The Scarlet Letter, it is initially determined by the local government that the typical penalty of death for adultery is mercifully reduced due to the fact that Hester’s husband may already be “at the bottom of the sea” (deceased) and she can be effectively considered a widow (Hawthorne, 1850, p. 60). As a result, Hester is condemned to stand on the scaffold for three hours at mid-day for public humiliation and wear the scarlet letter A on her chest for the remainder of her life. Although Hester is initially filled with grief and shame for being subject to ridicule and harsh judgment by the townspeople, she chooses to be self-confident and self-reliant. She walks with dignity and displays her own free will, 

“…he placed his right upon the shoulder of a young woman, whom he thus drew forward; until, on the threshold of the 

prison-door, she repelled him, by an action marked with natural dignity and force of character, and stepped into the open air, as if by her own free-will.” 

This image shows that when the town beadle tried to force Hester to move forward from the prison door, the dignified and proud Hester rejected his force. She would not let authorities of her society push her around and make her feel weak and vulnerable. Hester even embroiders the condemned scarlet letter A with luxurious red velvet and gold thread on her chest,

“…was that SCARLET LETTER, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of a 

spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and including her in a sphere by itself” (Hawthorne, 1850, p. 52). 

This sentence depicts Hester’s strong will to turn her life around, despite her adversity. Instead of letting the scarlet A letter be a symbol of her shame, she selects the finest red cloth and embroiders the letter A with illuminated gold thread to celebrate her unique life, away from the relation with her fellow Puritan society. Perhaps, instead of wearing the typical scarlet letter A as a symbol of shame (Adultery), she proudly wears hers as a token love for Dimmesdale (the initial letter of Arthur, Reverend Dimmesdale’s first name) and continues to live a life undisturbed by the harsh judgment of others around her.

To support her infant child Pearl, Hester settles on the outskirts of town, in an abandoned cottage that is next to the seashore and surrounded by the forest to the west (Hawthorne, 1850, p. 78). Alone, she utilizes her skills in needlework to make a living and raise Pearl. She does not leave town, perhaps with a dream to reunite with her lover again someday. 

Transformation and Innate Human Goodness 

During the early years of her seclusion from society, Hester experiences some transforming or changing in herself, 

“to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility” (Hawthorne, 1850, p. 156). 

This transformation in Hester, from anger or resentment to love, is a clear display of transcendentalism. She can experience the beauty of love due to good human nature, reflecting transcendentalist ideology. Because of her transformation and her innately good character, Hester never stops helping those who are destitute or sick around her, 

“Except for that small expenditure in the decoration of her infant, Hester bestowed all her superfluous means in charity, on wretches less miserable than herself, and who not unfrequently insulted the hand that fed them…she employed in making coarse garments for the poor…” (Hawthorne, 1850, p. 80). 

Living Close to Nature

Living on the outskirts of town with Pearl, surrounded by nature - the sea and the woods, Hester also starts to learn about herself, 

“She had wandered, without rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness…Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places…For years past she had looked from this estranged point of view at human institutions…The tendency of her fate and fortune had been to set her free” (Hawthorne, 1850, p. 196). 

Because of her acquired freedom of thought or of speculation, she can comfortably advise her lover, Reverend Dimmesdale, of the various actions he can take to reduce his guilt and sufferings after she discloses to him that Chillingworth is the assumed entity of her long-lost husband (Hawthorne, 1850, p. 193).It is in the forest, or nature, where Hester and Dimmesdale reconnect their feelings for each other - and nature responds with a burst of sunshine to celebrate “the bliss of the two spirits! Love…” (Hawthorne, 1850, p. 199). Here in the deep forest, Hester and Dimmesdale can put down their guard, reclaim their deep love toward each other, and agree to escape together to England to begin their life a new, 

“Do I feel joy again…O Hester, thou art my better angel!...This is already a better life! Why did we not find it sooner?” (Hawthorne, 1850, p. 198). 

This special moment shows that society-imposed formal institutions such as government and religion collapse in the heart of this couple deeply in love. Seven long years of immense guilt and harsh punishment imposed by society cannot change them and cannot deter them from committing their “sin” again, out of love.

Acquiring Truth through Intuition

In addition, Pearl becomes an observant child full of intuition because she somehow feels and guesses that Dimmesdale is her father without him admitting it or without her mother telling it to her. As a three-month old infant, Pearl instinctively responds to Dimmesdale’s voice at the first scaffold scene (Hawthorne, 1850, p. 65). As a three-year old child, she tenderly caresses Dimmesdale’s hand when the minister argues on her mother’s behalf to keep her (Hawthorne, 1850, p. 112). 

ANTI-TRANSCENDENTALIST ASPECTS OF THE SCARLET LETTER

As discussed above, in addition to transcendentalist aspects shown primarily in Hester and Pearl, anti-transcendentalist elements are also presented in Hawthorne’s famed novel. These elements include moral corruption, guilt, hatred, revenge, etc. that are expressed prominently in the characters of Dimmesdale and Chillingworth.

Human Sin and Its Psychological Effects Dimmesdale’s decision to keep his sin a secret burdens him from the very beginning of the novel, at the first scaffold scene. He is found to have “an air about him, an apprehensive, a startled, a half-frightened look – as of a being who felt himself quite astray and at a loss in the pathway of human existence…” (Hawthorne, 1850, p. 64). Dimmesdale’s straying from the path of human existence exemplifies the fear of his own sin, which makes up his dark moral corruption.

Revenge as Dark Human Emotion and Conviction

Another character with dominant anti-transcendentalist qualities in the novel is Chillingworth, the assumed entity of Hester’s long-lost husband. Chillingworth is a highly learned man, and his sin is of different nature from Dimmesdale and Hester. His sin resides in his persistent vindictiveness toward Dimmesdale, which turns him into a devil because he absolutely refuses to forgive his wife’s lover. On the first day coming back to civilization after being kept by the native “Indians” for two years and upon learning of his wife’s betrayal and shame, Chillingworth decides to hide his true entity from the Puritan town because he does not want to be known as the husband of a shameful woman (Hawthorne, 1850, p. 74).

However, he thinks that his wife’s secret lover wrongs both of them, perhaps because Hester’s lover’s unconfessed sin denies her infant a father. Chillingworth then takes on a new mission “to look into the mystery” and find the hiding transgressor as he declares, “It irks me, nevertheless, that the partner of her iniquity should not, at least, stand on the scaffold by her side. But he will be known!” and “I shall seek this man as I have sought truth in books, as I have sought gold in alchemy. 

The anti-transcendentalist characteristic in Chillingworth manifests fully during the seven years after that fateful scaffold day, as Chillingworth relentlessly pursues his revenge, “He had begun an investigation, as he imagined, with the severe and equal integrity of a judge, desirous only of truth...He now dug into the poor clergyman’s heart like a miner searching for gold; or rather, like a sexton delving into a grave” (Hawthorne, 1850, p. 125). 

Devil in Physical Form

During this time, another anti-transcendental characteristic is seen in Chillingworth - that is he literally becomes a devil in physical form, “At first his expression had been calm, meditative, scholar-like. Now there was something ugly and evil in his face” (Hawthorne, 1850, p. 124). Eventually Chillingworth’s evil becomes so invasive that the Puritan village and little Pearl could see the devil of the Black Man in him. Ironically, even Chillingworth notices that he himself has changed from a kind, trustworthy man with “constant if not warm affections” to a devil, as he admits it to Hester: 

“A mortal man, once with a human heart, has become a fiend for his especial torment!” (Hawthorne, 1850, p.168-169). 

Although Chillingworth recognizes his own transformation, he refuses to change for the better and forgive Dimmesdale. As the minister Dimmesdale dies of his weakness and moral corruption, the devil Chillingworth dies within a year of Dimmesdale because he lacks the subject of his revenge.

CONCLUSIONS

As addressed above, there are both transcendentalism and anti-transcendentalism aspects presented in this novel.Although the elements of “sin” and “evil” are pervasive in the story, this book ends on an optimistic note about human nature - highlighting the basis of transcendentalism. It is interesting to find out in the conclusion of this story that although Chillingworth harbors immense hatred and relentlessly pursues torturous revenge toward Reverend Dimmesdale, he has enough empathy and tender feelings for the little innocent Pearl to leave all his great fortune in New England and Great Britain to help the child of his eternal enemy.

Citations 

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Goodman, R. (2017). Transcendentalism. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta 

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