PURITANISM, ROMANTICISM, AND REASON AS REFLECTED IN THREE MAIN CHARACTERS OF NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE’S THE SCARLET LETTER (Puritanisme, Romantisme dan Alasan Yang Tercermin Dalam Tiga Karakter Utama Novel “The Scarlet Letter Karya Nathaniel Hawthorne”) Nasrum Marjuni Universitas Islam Negeri Alauddin Makassar [email protected] Abstract Tulisan inibertujuan untukmengetahui gambarandanbentukPuritanisme, Romantisme danAlasan pada novel The Scarlet Letter karya NathanielHawthorne.Metode yang digunakandalam tulisan ini adalah metode deskriptif kualitatif melalui studi kepustakaandengan teoristrukturalisme dinamik.Selain itu, hasil yang diharapkanadalah untukmengetahui gambaranPuritanisme, RomantismedanAlasanpada tigakarakter utama dalamThe Scarlet Letter.Puritanismedalam TheScarlet Letterditunjukkan dengankondisimasyarakat yang memilikihubungantransendentalmurni kepada Tuhan.Romantisme diungkapkan lewathubungan cinta, kebebasan individu, kegairahan dankebahagiaan yangberkaitan denganperasaan yang luar biasa.Alasan yang muncul di novel ini digambarkanolehperjuangantiga karakter utama dalam menggapai kebahagiaanmelaluitindakan beralasan yang menurut mereka sudah tepat dilakukan meskipun masyarakat belum mampu menerimanya. Kata kunci: Puritanisme, Romantisisme, Alasan, Huruf Merah Marun Abstract This writing is to identify the description and form of Puritanism, Romanticism and Reason found in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Method used in this research is descriptive qualitative through library research with dynamic structuralism. Furthermore, the result expected is to find out description through Puritanism, Romanticism and Reason analysis on the three characters in The Scarlet Letter. Puritanism in The Scarlet Letter is showed by the society condition where people have pure transcendental relationship to the God. Romanticism is revealed by love relationship, individual freedom, passionate and happiness that related to overwhelming feeling. Reason in The Scarlet Letter is depicted by the three characters’ struggle in pursuing happiness with their reasonable actions even thoughthe societyhas not beenable toaccept it. Keywords: Puritanism, Romanticism, Reason, Scarlet Letter 79 A. Introduction philosophies: Puritanism, Romanticism, and Reason seen from The Scarlet Letter attained an three main characters of The Scarlet immediate and lasting success because Letter focusing more on finding it addressed spiritual and moral issues freedom of human nature in terms of from a uniquely American standpoint. woman’s instincts underlying love In 1850, adultery was an extremely relationship between a man and a risqué subject, but because Hawthorne woman. In addition, for the scope of the had the support of the New England study, this paper focuses merely on the literary establishment, it passed easily suggestive meanings of the three main into the realm of appropriate reading. characters in order to put across those The Scarlet Letter represents the height ideas in relation to Puritan society and of Hawthorne's literary genius; dense ideas of exposed instincts as a form of with terse descriptions. freedom in human nature. Therefore, However, it is obvious that The this writing is aimed at identifying the Scarlet Letter is in depth a story for kinds of Puritanism, Romanticism and adults because of the suggestion of Reason represented by the three main allegory. It is a form of imaginative characters in The Scarlet Letter. literature or spoken utterance The approach applied here is constructed in such a way that its dynamic structuralism as proposed by readers or listeners are encouraged to Mukarovsky that placed great emphasis look for meanings hidden beneath the on the dynamic tension between literal of fiction (The New literature and society in the artistic Encyclopedia Britannica, 1974:132). product (Selden, 1986). Structuralism The Scarlet Letter presents three main also views literature as a dynamic characters representing three different system that changes and shifts from philosophies throughout the moral time to time. Therefore, this approach declining era of the seventeenth century can include biographical sketch of the New England as the background of the author and social setting as background story giving an idea of human tragedy. of knowledge. Library research is Hawthorne reveals his concern to this employed in this paper using the novel moral decline with a somber and The Scarlet Letter as a main book to ironical tone. discuss. Since The Scarlet Letter is an allegory which delivers meanings beneath the novel, the paper is then going to prove that this story suggests B. Biographical Sketch of Nathaniel treatment of guilt and the complexities Hawthorne of moral choices. Since the publication of The C. Social Background of The Story Scarlet Letter in 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne has been recognized as one One reason of Hawthorne’s of America’s most important writers, choosing the seventeenth century New both a “romancer” who probed inner England as the background of the story mysteries and a “realist” who assessed The Scarlet Letteris that this is an era of the American character and experience. moral decline which can be a suitable Born in Massachusetts on the Fourth of one for his masterpiece of a human July, 1804, he was the descendant of tragedy. Hawthorne reveals his concern Puritan worthies and the son of a ship’s to this moral decline in The Scarlet captain. Letter with a somber and ironic tone. From 1821 to 1825, Hawthorne While portraying the declining was a student at Bowdoin College, Puritan New England as the graduating in the middle of his class of background of The Scarlet Letter, thirty-eight. From the Scottish Hawthorne relieves the adultery of philosophers, he absorbed the concepts Hester and Arthur Dimmesdale and of faculty psychology which would shows his sympathy to them by recur in his fiction. rebuking the ill-conceived marriage and the severe persecution of the Like his heroine Hester, Puritan society. Hawthorne emerges from confrontation with a self-righteous society as an The Scarlet Letteris set in the individual of integrity, passion, and mid-1600s in Boston, which had been moral superiority. Hawthorne passed founded only about two decades earlier. away on May 19, 1864 in Plymouth, In 1630 hundreds of newly arrived New Hampshire after a long period of Puritans established a number of illness in which he suffered severe settlements in Massachusetts. The bouts of dementia. Emerson described Puritan movement began in the 1500s his life with the words "painful among people who believed that the solitude." Hawthorne maintained a Church of England was too much strong friendship with Franklin Pierce, influenced by the Crown and the but otherwise had few intimates and Catholic Church. As Protestants, the little engagement with any sort of social Puritans rejected the belief that divine life. His works remain notable for their authority is channeled through any one particular person, such as a pope. 81 Puritans believed that people had the Letter is an allegory, readers should power to receive spiritual therefore find meanings hidden enlightenment directly from the within the novel through those three teachings of the Bible. The kings and main characters that are as follows: queens of England did not always agree Hester Prynne: the main with the Puritans. When Charles I character of The Scarlet closed Parliament in 1629 and Letter. Hester is the mother of pressured Puritan members to conform, Pearl, and is the woman who some Puritans traveled to the American must wear the scarlet letter. She colonies to gain religious freedom and is the wife of Roger establish new lives. Chillingworth, but Arthur Dimmesdale is Pearl’s father. These residents of Boston in the Hester suffers the public mid-1600s were much as Hawthorne humiliation of having to wear depicts them—hard-working and the letter "A" on her chest. She devoted to their way of life. Their lives in Boston until her death. society had been carved out for them by Arthur Dimmesdale: an John Winthrop, the first governor of eminent minister in Boston and Massachusetts and a resident of Boston. also the father of Pearl. He is a As a leader of the first residents of the tortured man who constantly colony, he established a government places his hand over his heart based on a combination of religious and when agitated. His health is civil ideals. The colony was intended to quite bad, and it thanks to Roger be an ideal Christian community. Chillingworth's potions that he D. Puritanism, Romanticism, and is able to stay alive. Reason As Reflected in Three Dimmesdale admits to being Main Characters of The Scarlet Pearl’s father at the very end of Letter the novel, and reveals that he has a scarlet letter branded into Before analyzing of what his flesh (this is a symbolic philosophies discussed in The Scarlet moment; there is no proof that Letter, three main characters of The he actually has a scarlet letter Scarlet Letter are worth introducing branded onto his flesh). He dies as an important matter to give a upon the scaffold while holding better understanding toward what Hester's hand. actually each character stands for. Roger Chillingworth: Hester's For the reason that The Scarlet husband from the Netherlands. 82 Chillingworth arrives in Boston that Hester Prynne clasped her hands the day that Hester is publicly over her heart, dreading lest he should shamed and forced to wear the read the secret there at once”(SL, scarlet letter. He vows revenge