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Nathaniel Hawthorne’s as a Reflection of Moral Guilt and Sin, Purwarno.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE’S THE SCARLET LETTER AS A REFLECTION OF MORAL GUILT AND SIN

Purwarno Faculty of Literature Islamic University of North Sumatra, Medan email: [email protected]

Abstract

The Scarlet Letter which appeared in 1850 deals with a moral theme. It is first of all concerned with moral guilt and sin. Hawthorne is not so concerned with the causes of sin as with the consequences of sin. A man usually feels a sense of guilt when he feels that he has sinned against God, natural law, the moral code of society, or one’s own moral standards. In this article, the reflection of moral guilt and sin is vividly found in the characters of and . In this article, it is shown that Hester Prynne regards her sin as merely a respond to a natural urge in her. She thinks that no law of society can take precedence over law between a man and a woman and convinces that through an Inner Light her way is not a violation of God’s law. She also thinks that she has not sinned against society, against her husband or God. She suffers the sense of guilt merely in case of feeling sin Arthur Dimmesdale as she thinks that she has been the instrument of Dimmesdale’s having committed a horrible sin against God. On the contrary Dimmesdale is wholly conscious that he has sinned against God, against social morality, and against his own integrity as an individual and as a priest. He also realizes that he is doubly a sinner in so far as he continues to conceal his sin; therefore, his sense of sin not only weighs, but preys upon his mind ceaselessly.

Keywords: moral guilt, sin, puritan, tongue of flame, Deuteronomy, social morality

I. INTRODUCTION

Hawthorne was unquestionably a Puritan. Although he was very critical of the bigotry, intolerance, and cruelty of the old , yet his stories usually seem to take the Puritan Side. It can be seen in The Scarlet Letter that the adulterous lovers are

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not allowed to escape some other lands and are thus not permitted to attain any kind of happiness. In The Scarlet Letter we find a tension or conflict between the Puritan and the romantic tendencies. Hawthorne is certainly responsive to the romantic temper, according to which the individual has the right to be happy, even if the individual in the pursuit of happiness violates the conventional moral code; yet Hawthorne leans heavily in the Puritan direction. Here Hester is the spokesman for the romantic view, and her argument carries weight with most readers. But surely Hawthorne does not fully approve of this view because it carries individualism a bit too far, and it seeks to make the individual a law unto himself. Thus, The Scarlet Letter is a criticism of as well as of Puritanism. Austin Warren says that Hawthorne was a Puritan that he believed in sin and pre-destination and did not find these concepts incompatible. Sin, he writes, may be forgiven by God; softened by penitence; still its stains persist; and its permanent effect is not educative but warping. Hawthorne, he says rejects Hester’s romantic assertion that “what we did had a consecration of its own” by describing the moral wilderness in which she had wandered, taught much amiss by , despair and solitude. Whether the sin be of passion sets the mind apart and adrift, whereas the sin of pride dries up the well of brotherhood. Hawthorne is a moralist and the story of The Scarlet Letter is an exploration of human morality. But he is a good deal more than simply a moralist. He is also a student of human psychology, a romantic of some kind, a septic, and a determinist to some extent. The Scarlet Letter is a remarkable blend of these various interests and outlooks.

II. DISCUSSION 2.1 Moral Guilt From the puritanical view prevalent those days in New Hester’s guilt is absolute, it is total and unquestionable—morality is absolute. Hester’s guilt is complete and unredeemable. She is an adulteress. According to the Puritan ethic, this is the correct position in Hester’s case.

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She has sinned against the seventh of the Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy, 5, 18)—Neither shall thou commit adultery. Hester has sinned against the commandment of God and lost His favour forever. Since she has violated the commandment of the Bible; since she has committed a heinous sin and has betrayed her husband and violated her chastity, therefore, she must suffer. In the eyes of a rigid Puritan, Hester has sinned unredeemably. She can be made to do penance by making her wear badge of shame (the scarlet letter), which will remind her of her guilt. On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter “A”. (Hawthorne, 1959:60)

Hester’s punishment is double, as it is not only the scarlet letter but also Pearl’s presence that continually reminds her of her sin. The Puritan society asserts its authority over the individual conscience by forcing Hester to accept her punishment. Of course, Hester could avoid this punishment by running away alone. What she compelled herself to believe—what, finally, she reasoned upon as her motive for continuing a resident of —was half a truth, and half a self-delusion. Here she said to herself, had been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment; and so, perchance, the torture of her daily shame would at length purge her soul and work out another purity that that which she had lost; more saintlike, because the result of martyrdom. Hester Prynne, therefore, did not flee. (Hawthorne, 1959:84)

or with Dimmesdale: “Then there is the broad pathway of the seal” continued Hester. “It brought thee hither. If thou so choose, it will bear thee back again. In our native land, whether in some remote rural village or in vast London-or surely, in Germany, in , in pleasant Italy—thou wouldst be beyond his power and knowledge! And what hast thou to do with all these iron men, and their opinions? They have kept thy better part in bondage too long already!”

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“It cannot be!” answered the minister, listening as if he were called upon to realize a dream. “I am powerless to go! (Hawthorne, 1959: 188)

“Thou wilt go!” said Hester, calmly, as he met her glance. The decision once made, a glow of strange enjoyment threw its flickering brightness over the trouble of his breast. It was the exhilarating effect—upon a just escaped from the dungeon of his own heart—of breathing the wild, free atmosphere of an unredeemed, unchristianized, lawless region. His spirit rose, as it were, with a bound, and attained a nearer prospect of the sky than throughout all the misery which had kept him grovelling on the earth. Of a deeply religious temperament, there was inevitably a tinge of the devotional in his mood. “Do I feel joy again!” cried he, wondering at himself. “Methought the germ of it was dead in me! O Hester, thou art, my better angel! 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 new powers to glorify Him that hat been merciful! This is already the better life! Why did we not find it sooner?” (Hawthorne, 1959: 191-192)

Neither Hester nor Dimmesdale manages to run away because their own minds will not allow them to run away. Actually, Hester triumphs over her circumstance by her vocation (needle work) and her implicit acceptance of her punishment: Dimmesdale by his confession and public acknowledgement of sin. Yet, the dust of Hester and Dimmesdale is not allowed to mingle even after the death of these two. Society may have forgiven them, but their ultimate redemption lies in the hands of God. Therefore, society can only separate them even in death. The puritan ethic is perfectly carried out in the book in this respect. In The Scarlet Letter, it is shown that Dimmesdale is a hypocrite and a coward, and a secret sinner in the early part of the book. Chillingworth is guilty of probing improperly into the depths of the human heart. As Dimmesdale puts it, Chillingworth has violated, in cold blood, the sanctity of human heart. We are not, Hester, the worst sinners in the world. There is one worse that even the polluted priest! That old man’s

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revenge has been blacker than my sin. He has violated, in cold blood, the sanctity of a human heart. Thou and I, Hester, never did so!” (Hawthorne, 1959: 185-186).

Governor Bellingham wears rich dresses and is proud of the house and estate, while his sister, Mistress Hibbins, is a witch. Hester’s private morality is correct and the social morality is wrong, or it is no more in the right than Hester’s morality. Hester may have offended a social code; but also have others, like Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, Bellingham and other unnamed people. Therefore, if a whole society is corrupt or sinful, the individual whose conscience makes him do his penance is sensitive to morality of whole society. When Chillingworth tells Hester that the Puritans are planning to ask Hester not to wear the scarlet letter any longer, Hester says that it is not the community to decide when to abate her punishment, which is as mental and psychological as it is social. “With all my heart! Why, Mistress, I hear good tidings of you, on all hands! No longer ago than yester-eve, a magistrate, a wise and godly man, was discoursing of your affairs, Mistress Hester, and whispered me that there had been question concerning you in the council. It was debated whether or no, with safety to the common weal, yonder scarlet letter might be taken off your bossom. On my life, Hester, I made my entreaty to the worshipful magistrate that it might be done forthwith!” “It lies not in the pleasure of the magistrates to take off this badge,” calmly replied Hester. “Were I worthy to be quit of it, it would fall away of its own nature, or be transformed into something that should speak a different purport.” (Hawthorne, 1959: 162-163)

In chapter XVII, she says to Dimmesdale, “What we did had a consecration of its own” (Hawthorne, 1959: 186). Also, she may still wear the letter “A”, but the meaning of the word has now changed from “Adulterous” to “Able” or “Angel”. With her patience, courage and humility, allied to good deeds, Hester proves that she is as good a Puritan as anybody else. She has been true to her own self-ordained punishment. She feels her sin both through the scarlet letter and the child Pearl, but she never tortures herself as Dimmesdale does.

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2.2 Sin The Scarlet Letter is a book dealing with the effect of sin of a group of people. The principle sinners in The Scarlet Letter are Hester Prynne and the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale—their sin being adultery. Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale have committed adultery. They are 17th century Puritans in New England, North America. Their attitude to sin is typically Puritan. To them, their conscience is important, and each of them suffers because of their “conscience”. Yet, there is basic difference in the two persons. Dimmesdale suffers in secret and becomes weak, Hester suffers publicly and she is an activist. Dimmesdale is broken by his awareness of sin; Hester stands firm. “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!” (Hawthorne, 1959:182)

Dimmesdale is fully conscious of the sin that he has committed. He knows that he has sinned against God, against social morality, and against his own integrity as an individual and as a priest. He knows also that he is doubly a sinner in so far as he continues to conceal his sin. His sense of sin not only weighs, but preys upon his mind ceaselessly. His sin inwardly isolates him from the community, and the deliberate concealment of his sin deepens that isolation. There is no substance in it! It is cold and dead, and can do nothing for me! OF penance, I have had enough! Of

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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 judgement 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!” (Hawthorne, 1959: 183)

The secrecy which he maintains, the sense of isolation from his professional brethren and from the community in general, drives him almost mad. Apart from his keen awareness of adultery as a sin, he knows that he is a hypocrite and a moral coward. The sense of sin in him is thus heightened and intensified, and allows him no peace of mind. He wants to confess his sin; he uses very strong words to condemn himself, he calls himself a pastor. Yet the people go on revering him. So tormented is Dimmesdale by his sense of sin that he begins to impose upon himself the severest possible penance. He observes rigid fasts with the object of purifying his body. He keeps vigils night after night in order to purify himself. He lashes himself with a scourge till he begins to bleed. One night he mounts the scaffold as another act of penance. It was an obscure night of early May. An unvaried pall of cloud muffled the whole expanse of sky from zenith to horizon. If the same multitude which had stood as eyewitnesses while Hester Prynne sustained her punishment could now have been summoned forth, they would have discerned no face above the platform, nor hardly the outline of a human shape, in the dark gray of the midnight. But the town was all asleep. There was no peril of discovery. The minister might stand there, if it so pleased him, until morning should redden in the east, without other risk than that the dank and chill night air would creep into his frame and stiffen his joints with rheumatism and clog his throat with catarrh and cough,

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thereby defrauding the expectant audience of tomorrow’s prayer and sermon. No eye could see him, save that ever- wakeful one which had seen him in his closet wielding the bloody scourge. (Hawthorne, 1959:143-144)

However, he fails to gain his bravery to reveal his long hidden secret. When he is on the scaffold, he is overcome with a great horror of mind, as if the universe were gazing at a scarlet token on his naked breast, right over his heart. Ultimately, his moral sense wins and he confess his sin publicly like a true penitent. “People of New England!” cried he, with a voice that rose over them, high, solemn, and majestic—yet had always a tremor through it, and sometimes a shriek, struggling up out of a fathomless depth of remorse and woe—“ye, that have loved me!—ye, that have deemed me holy!—behold me here, the one sinner of the world! At last!—at last!—I stand upon the spot where, seven years since, I should have stood; here, with this woman, whose arm, more than the little strength wherewith I have crept hitherward, sustains me, at this dreadful moment, from grovelling down upon my face! Lo, the scarlet letter which Hester wears! Ye have all shuddered at it! Wherever her walk hath been—wherever, so miserably burdened, she may have hoped to find repose—it hath cast a lurid gleam of awe and horrible repugnance round about her. But there stood one in the midst of you, at whose brand of sin and infamy ye have not shuddered!” (Hawthorne, 1959:237)

Hester’s attitude to the sin of adultery is different from Dimmesdale’s, her lover. In the first place, she does not feel that she has sinned against God. God has never been a real presence in her life and so she does not experience any sense of alienation from God as result of her adultery. She would even like to go to church if she could be sure that she would not become the subject of a sermon. Besides, God has given her a beautiful child, and this means that God has not looked upon her deed as wicked. Nor does Hester feel that she has violated any law of her own nature. She is by nature passionate, even sensual. Her love relationship with Dimmesdale must have been a consequence of her own nature, not a violation of it. It is her devotion to Dimmesdale which makes her stay on in even after having been branded a

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Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter as a Reflection of Moral Guilt and Sin, Purwarno. sinner, although her decision to stay on there is strengthened by the belief that her remaining there would bring about a purification of her soul. She speaks of her adultery as having a “consecration of its own”, and this shows that her deed was in harmony with her own nature. When an opportunity presents itself, she suggests to her lover a plan of flight so that she may establish a permanent relationship with him, immoral and illicit though such a relationship would seem to be. Hester does not feel that she has sinned against the community. She does submit a public exposure of her disgrace on the scaffold, and she submits also to the wearing or the scarlet letter, but in her heart there is no repentance for what she has done. In fact, as the author tells us that the scarlet letter had not done its office, meaning that though she wore the scarlet letter for several years, it did not give rise to any sense of her guilt or any feeling repentance. The bright and fanciful embroidery of the scarlet letter shows her rebelliousness against the imposition of this particular punishment. Her clothing Pearl in such a way as to make the child look like a human embodiment of the scarlet letter shows her rebellion against the moral laws rather than her acceptance of them. Her mother, with a morbid purpose that may be better understood hereafter, had bought the richest tissues that could be procured, and allowed her imaginative faculty its full play in the arrangement and decoration of the dresses which the child wore before the public eye. (Hawthorne, 1959: 92)

She believes that she has not sinned against the community and the community had no right to punish her. Yet, keeping in view the self-inflicted sorrows of Dimmesdale, and having consideration for her marriage, she is pained. She tells Chillingworth in the , “I have greatly wronged the community”. Pearl’s waywardness and unpredictable behaviour also remind her of her own guilt. Hester feels that she has broken a great law, the law of order. God, as a direct consequence of the sin which man thus punished, had given her a lovely child, whose place was on that same dishonoured bosom, to connect her parent forever with the race and descent of mortals, and to be finally a blessed soul in heaven! Yet these thoughts affected Hester Prynne less with hope than apprehension.

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She knew that her deed had been evil; she could have no faith, therefore, that its result would be good. Day after day, she looked fearfully into the child’s expanding nature; ever dreading to detect some dark and wild peculiarity, that she would correspond with the guiltiness to which she owed her being. (Hawthorne, 1959:92)

The difference of Hester’s awareness of her sin and Dimmesdale’s awareness of his sin is due to the fact that Hester is a woman, she is firm and courageous, while Dimmesdale is a man, and he is timid and weak-willed. Perhaps Dimmesdale’s mortified awareness of sin is either due to his position as a religious minister or due to his intellectual superiority over Hester. Hester, on the other hand is a common woman—proud, dignified, sensitive, but bold. Then, her public censure at the beginning has perhaps lessened her strong and morbid feeling of guilt that a secret sinner like Dimmesdale might have. Also, her public acceptance of sin is not without benefits—people permit her to move about much freely than they would an ordinary Puritan woman. The tendency of her fate and fortunes had been to set her free. The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. (Hawthorne, 1959:190)

Pearl’s presence also saves her from a drastic course of rebellion against her society. She does suffer from people’s stares and the exposure that the scarlet letter and Pearl enforce on her, as also from the Puritan children’s jeer. Yet, she manages to find a way out of her suffering and to convert it into a kind of triumph by her ability and skill in needle-work and her good deeds and humanity. We remember Hester is constantly moving about, doing things or serving people. Work is her salvation and she achieves a kind of peace out of her suffering. Lonely as was Hester’s situation, and without a friend on earth who dared to show himself, she, however, incurred even in a land that afforded comparatively little scope for its exercise, to supply food for her thriving infat and herself. It was the art—then, as now, almost the only one within a woman’s grasp—of needle-work...... By degrees, nor very slowly, her handiwork became what would now be termed the fashion. Whether from

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Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter as a Reflection of Moral Guilt and Sin, Purwarno.

commiseration for a woman of so miserable a destiny; or from morbid curiosity that gives a fictitious value even to common or worthless things; or by whatever other intangible circumstance was then, as now, sufficient to bestow on some persons what others might seek in vain; or because Hester really filled a gap which must otherwise have remained vacant; it is certain that she had ready and fairly requited employment for as many hours as she saw fit to occupy with her needle. (Hawthorne, 1959:85-86)

On the other hand, Dimmesdale is constantly found as shut up in his room or surrounded by congregation, so that he is a passive as opposed to Hester’s active life. He troubles and tortures himself because he hates himself for his secret sin. He makes half-hearted attempts to confess his sin, but without much success. No doubt, his suffering brings him his tongue of flame. It makes a direct appeal to the hearts of other sinners at the time of his sermons. Yet, he is frail and tremulous, that is, he has a feminine quality which is just the opposite of Hester’s activism, which is masculine in character. While thus suffering under bodily disease and gnawed and tortured by some black trouble of the soul, and given over to the machinations of his deadliest enemy, the Reverend MR. Dimmesdale had achieved a brilliant popularity in his sacred office. He won it, indeed, in great part, by his sorrows. His intellectual gifts, his moral perceptions, his power of experiencing and communicating emotion, were kept in a state of preternatural activity by the prick and anguish of his daily life...... All that they lacked was the gift that descended upon the chosen disciples at Pentecost, in tongues of flame; symbolizing, it would seem, not the power of speech in foreign and unknown languages, but that of addressing the whole human brotherhood in the heart’s native language. These fathers, otherwise so apostolic, lacked Heaven’s last and rarest attestation of their office, the Tongue of Flame. (Hawthorne, 1959: 138)

Dimmesdale is also feminine in his vanity—he wants to leave the settlement only after he has delivered his Election Sermon, that is, in a blaze glory. Whereas Hester’s activism only leads to her improving status in the community. Dimmesdale,

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who is a hypocrite and a coward, achieves salvation with his dying confession and changed behaviour. His greater sensitiveness to sin brings a spiritual triumph for him, as Hester’s greater resilience brings her an improving status in society. Both find their own “regeneration” out of common sin—Hester as a heroine figure, Dimmesdale as a religious figure, Hester through her endurance and suffering, while Dimmesdale through his repentance and self-torture. Hester, as the heroine figure, does not look upon her moral lapse as a sin either against God nor against herself, though she certainly realizes and considers it to be a serious violation of the social order. On the other hand, Dimmesdale regards his moral lapse as a sin against God, against himself and a sin against society. “What else could I look for being what I am, and leading such a life as mine? Were I an atheist—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 God’s gifts that were the choicest have become the ministers of spiritual torment. Hester, I am most miserable!” (Hawthorne, 1959:182)

Instead of suffering from an oppressive sense of guilt and sin, Hester Prynne thinks that she has sinned merely responded to a natural urge in her. What to talk of feeling guilty, Hester Prynne thinks that no law of society can take precedence over law between a man and a woman. She is convinced that through an Inner Light her way is not a violation of God’s law. Hester, in her view, has not sinned against society, against her husband or God, but she has sinned against Arthur Dimmesdale. According to her, the “A” she wears is the initial of her lover’s name. Though she has committed no evil in terms of her own morality, she has been the instrument of Dimmesdale’s having committed a horrible sin against God. It is she who has caused the physical and spiritual destruction of her lover and for this she suffers her sense of guilt. However, Hester does not withdraw from life, for that is not her nature. She is penitent but not regretful, and when she sees the chance to escape with Dimmesdale to a better life, she tries to grasp it. It is fitting that with the emotional release to throwing away the scarlet letter, she regains much

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Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter as a Reflection of Moral Guilt and Sin, Purwarno. her physical beauty. She has no angel on earth, no pious recluse lost in religious introspection but a rigorous figure living this life in an honest role. So speaking, she undid the clasp that fastened the scarlet letter, and, taking it from her bosom, threw it to a distance among the withered leaves...... By another impulse, she took off the formal cap that confined her hair; and down it fell upon her shoulders, dark and rich, with at once a shadow and a light in its abundance, and imparting the charm of softness to her features. There played around her mouth and beamed out of her eyes a radiant and tender smile, that seemed gushing from the very heart of womanhood. A crimson flush was glowing on her cheek, that had been long so pale. Her sex, her youth, and the whole richness of her beauty, came back from what men call the irrevocable past, and clustered themselves, with her maiden hope and a happiness before unknown, within the magic circle of this hour. (Hawthorne, 1959:192)

Instead of running away from Boston, Hester Prynne decides to stay on in Boston so that she can serve the community. In this decision, there is a step towards moral improvement. As days pass by, Hester begins to make herself more and more useful to the community around her. She offers help to the poor and the needy, even though she gets no thanks from them. She is a social outcast and yet at the time of general and individual sorrow she proves herself to be a Sister of Mercy so that the letter “A” comes to be interpreted as “Able” rather than as “Adulterous”. Elsewhere the token of sin, it was the taper of the sick- chamber. It had even thrown its gleam, in the sufferer’s hard extremity, across the verge of time. It had shown him where to set his food, while the light of earth was fast becoming dim, and ere the light of futurity could reach him. In such emergencies, Hester’s nature showed itself warm and rich; a wellspring of human tenderness, unfailing to every real demand, and inexhaustible by the largest. Her breast, with its badge of shame, was but the softer pillow for the head that needed one. She was self- ordained a Sister of Mercy; or, we may rather say, the world’s heavy hand had so ordained her, when neither the world nor she looked forward to this result. The letter was the symbol of her calling. Such helpfulness was found in

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her—so many power to do and power to sympathize—that many people refused to interpret the scarlet “A” by its original signification. They said that it meant “Able” (Hawthorne, 1959:156)

She keeps vigils by the bedside of people suffering from disease or people about to die. Her general helpfulness becomes a byword in Boston. Individuals in private life, meanwhile, had quite forgiven Hester Prynne for her frailty; nay, more, they had begun to look upon the scarlet letter as the token, not of that one sin, for which she had borne so long and dreary a penance, but of her many good deeds since. “Do you see that woman with the embroidered badge?” they would say to strangers. “It is our Hester—the town’s own Hester—who is so kind to the poor, so helpful to the sick, so comforting to the afflicted!” (Hawthorne, 1959:157)

Even though the people cannot forgive her completely, her numerous acts of service, performed spontaneously and sincerely, raise her in their estimation to the level of an angel or sister of mercy.

III. CONCLUSION

The sense of guilt is bound to bring with it a sense of isolation from what one has sinned against. Thus Dimmesdale feels isolated from God because he believes that he has sinned against God. Furthermore, the effects of sin, according to Hawthorne, may not always be disastrous. Sin may produce a feeling isolation, but it may also produce understanding. It may cause suffering, but it may also give rise to compassion. It separates people, but it may also bind them together. Hester’s sin makes her a far more useful person in the community that she would ever have been if she had not committed adultery. The consequences of guilt in The Scarlet Letter are mainly psychological in nature. A sense of guilt gives rise to a feeling of loneliness, and Hawthorne shows how painful and bitter Hester’s loneliness is. This loneliness also leads in Hester’s case to defiance and rebellion. Hawthorne shows further that hidden sin is far more destructive for the individual that the sin which is openly acknowledged. Dimmesdale’s suffering is far greater than Hester’s. Dimmesdale

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Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter as a Reflection of Moral Guilt and Sin, Purwarno. refuses not only to admit his adulterous act before the public, but also to admit himself that his sin was due to his own lust rather than to the working of Satan.

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