Many students that take literature classes in high school and college are required to read The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I read this book in a college literature class, and I did not see the value until I got past the foreword and into the meat of the story. This historical fiction book shares the story of a woman named Hester Prynne who lived in Puritan Early America. She recently gave birth to a child that was conceived in adultery.
"The Scarlett Letter" describes her unimaginably harsh punishment and the stigmas their Puritan society upheld. Many students may wonder what they are supposed to gain from reading a book like this. The book has an antiquated vocabulary and the subject matter seems completely irrelevant to our modern lives. The short answer to this question is Hawthorne utilizes masterful symbolism, metaphors, and other literary devices. Teachers can use this book as an educational example for students learning about literary devices in a literature class. However, there is a more complex answer to why this book is important. The subject matter is increasingly relevant as we progress into an era of open sexuality and further female empowerment.
Our society still has an aversion to open sexuality. First, let me clarify, there is a difference between healthy open sexuality and open objectification. Our media is full of sexual references, but most references do not talk about sex in a healthy way. Women are conquests, missing someone refers to lusting after them, and sex is a tool to receive what you want. People are comfortable singing along to songs that purely focus on physicality, but people are uncomfortable talking about sex as a meaningful form of intimacy.
The Puritans punished Hester harshly for her adultery; however, our society is more accepting of adultery than the Puritans. The similarity between modern America and Puritan America arises in the reasoning for the harsh punishment. For the Puritans, sex was merely a means to an end, not a meaningful expression or source of pleasure. Adultery implies that sex is more than just a tool to procreate, which is why the Puritans harshly disciplined Hester. Our modern society still does this. We are more comfortable speaking about sex in a dirty way than in a healthy way.
Similar to American discomfort regarding talking about healthy sex, Americans have conflicting gender-based pressure. Men feel pressured to lose their virginity. The media pokes fun at boys who are still virgins; the word “virgin” is basically synonymous with “loser.” Almost every TV show dealing with this subject matter will perpetuate this stereotype because, generally, consumers will enjoy the humor.
Yet, the media portrays women who have sex for enjoyment as dirty. This stereotype is slightly looser than the stereotype of men, but the media still portrays women with many past sexual partners as undesirable, but men who have had many past sexual partners as experienced or successful. These two pressures are conflicting: men are supposed to lose it, but women are supposed to keep it.
The Puritans followed a similar pattern in "The Scarlett Letter." Legally, the accused man and woman were equal. At Hester’s hearing, the religious leaders desperately demanded her to reveal the father of her illegitimate child. Nevertheless, the townsfolk focused on Hester’s sin. Granted, Hester’s adulterous partner was not revealed for most of the book, but this does not account for the proportion of blame attributed to Hester.
The blame Hester experienced also relates to our modern issue of victim blaming. The media has begun to spread more awareness about this issue, and this awareness contributes to women gaining enough courage to accuse men that sexually abused them. Lately, the #MeToo movement and the hundreds of celebrities publishing their harrowing stories have empowered women who were abused and has begun to reveal the extent of sexual abuse in our society.
Hester’s unfair treatment is still relevant because men and women have accused victims coming forward with stories of abuse as hopping on the bandwagon. The sheer volume of stories seems unbelievable to some people, so rather than researching our modern culture, these people write off the entire movement as a trend. Although objective consideration is necessary in these cases, creating a blanket assumption undermines the female empowerment and adds to the existing victim blaming stigma.
This leads to the final, and most important, truth that Nathaniel Hawthorne expressed: when it comes to sex, our societal values are hypocritical. Generally, there are two takes on the matter: nonreligious views and religious views. Many nonreligious parents will be unsettled, if not angry when they discover their teen or young adult is having sex. Undeniably, this anger is justified if there are safety issues involved, but anger is involved even if the teens are practicing safe sex.
Religion aside, what is the issue in this situation? Many times, the issue is simply societal pressure to achieve certain standards and follow certain rules; consequently, premarital sex is treated like a secret that everyone knows but no one will talk about. It is time to question the origin of the societal rules; the issue should be safe sex, not sex in general.
Religious parents, on the other hand, do have standards and rules with credible origins. Nathaniel Hawthorne is not bashing religion, he is attempting to undermine the human additions to God’s Biblical rules. Nathaniel Hawthorne is criticising the punishment and the unfairness of Hester’s situation. No doubt every one of the judgemental townsfolk had experienced similar urges that Hester had, and, as it turns out, the father of Hester’s child was one of the religious leaders who interrogated her. Nathaniel clearly believes that if we all experience something in life, then we should be merciful to the next generation.
Overall, Nathaniel Hawthorne appears to be mocking the Puritan culture. He establishes Hester as the protagonist, so the Puritans are the logical enemy. Hawthorne’s irony and subtle dissent easily translate to modern American society because we still carry on similar stereotypes, rules, and stigmas. This book was relevant to the Puritans and it is relevant to modern America. As Nathaniel Hawthorne expressed, we need to stop discriminating against others and stop lying to ourselves.
