A Study Of Human Frailty And Courage In Nathaniel Hawthrone S The Scarlet Letter

IRJMSH Vol 7 Issue 9 [Year 2016] ISSN 2277 – 9809 (0nline) 2348–9359 (Print)
International Research Journal of Management Sociology & Humanity ( IRJMSH ) Page 121
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A Study of Human Frailty and Courage in Nathaniel Hawthrone’s
The Scarlet Letter
Vanisha Pandia
Abstract
The research intends to study human frailty and the protagonist, Hester Prynne‘s her courage to
overcome it, her resolute will and perseverance against the tyrannical and confining Puritan
society.
Nathaniel Hawthorne‘s Hester Prynne is one of the most coveted female character in the history
of English Literature. She endures emotional and psychological distress, brutal maltreatment and
irredeemable torment. Social estrangement is made obligatory for her; she is exploited,
maligned, and made an outcast, but the most remarkable aspect that abounds in this classic
heroine is her strength of character, indomitable spirit, patience and compassion even in the face
of such oddities.
Despite being objectified, judged and ostracized by the society and the church, she tightly
embraces her noble virtues. Hawthrone has constructed a very powerful character in his novel;
one who is vulnerable yet strong, meek yet proud, tainted yet virtuous.
The research tries to explore the psychological estrangement of the ill-fated heroine, along with
her long drawn-out physical marginalization. How viciously a non-co operative society eats into
the vitals of its victims, especially when they are female –how the protagonist becomes the locus
of arbitrary identity construction and how women are rendered subjects to patriarchy are major
areas this paper tries to focus on.
Introduction
Puritanism was part of the Protestant Reformation in England. No specific date or event marks
its conception. It first assumed the form of an organized movement in the 1560‗s under the reign
of Queen Elizabeth. But when the traits of that movement are identified, it can be seen that its
roots reach back into the first half of the century.
Puritanism began with the establishment of the Elizabethan Settlement within the Church of
England early during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. That compromise drew together ―Reformed‖
or Calvinist doctrine and the continuation of the Catholic form of worship. But the Puritans were
impatient with this halting of Reformation and said that the English Church remained but half
reformed. The conscious act of rejecting a forced religious view gave them the name, Puritans
since they desired to ―purify the Church of England from its corruption.

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Some Puritans also believed that the churches should be composed of visible saints, that is, those
who had been reborn and whose lives proclaimed that they were living without sin. This group of
Puritans, as they believe, could express a religious outlook in an ignorant world or the factor that
they formed an educated group. Most of them at one time or another earned degrees at either
Oxford or Cambridge. Their ministers knew the Word of God intimately. They did not just study
it; rather, it became part of them. The Puritan preachers were not in it for the money at all, rather,
they desired godliness, and glorification of Christ. For them, nothing could be more important
than bringing the Word of God.
The Puritans continued to unite their journals and narratives. They persist in writing for
themselves a central role in the sacred drama God had designed for man to enact on the
American stage, the stage of true history. In this recurrent conflict between their writings and
their true life, between the ideal and the real, the Utopia and the actual, the intentional and the
accidental, the mythic and the diurnal, can be read an essential legacy of the Puritan imagination
to the American mind.
In ‗The Scarlet Letter‘, Hawthorne used the repressive, authoritarian Puritan society as an
analogue for humankind in general. The Puritan setting also enabled him to portray the human
soul under extreme pressure. Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth, while unquestionable part
of the Puritan society in which they live, also reflect universal experiences. Hawthorne speaks
specially to American issues, but he circumvents the aesthetic and thematic limitations that might
accompany such focus. His university and his dramatic flair have ensured his place in the literary
canon.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, (born July 4, 1804, Salem, Mass., U.S.; died May 19, 1864, Plymouth,
N.H.) was the greatest American novelist whose works made the American Literature gradually
develop; his novels and short stories are still considered as the best that America has produced
(Bode, 1981).Hawthorne writes about various subjects and various themes, but his favourite
theme is alienation. He has a strong feeling for the Puritan past of the seventeenth century New
England, and this is the setting of his masterpiece The scarlet Letter (1850) (High, 1986).
The story of The Scarlet Letter (1850) is about a woman whose husband sends her before him to
Boston, the Puritan settlement in New England while he remains two years in Amsterdam
looking after some necessary affairs.
While living alone in Boston, Hester Prynne falls in love and commits adultery with a religious
man who is the Puritan minister called Arthur Dimmesdale. Hester gets pregnant with a
daughter, her illegitimate child, whom she names Pearl. Everyone recognizes that she is
separated from her husband for two years, and the baby cannot be his, and no one knows who her
lover is.
Because of Hester‘s sin of adultery, the village magistrates imprisoned her for this sin, and she is
publicly punished and obliged to stand upon the scaffold (a public stage) and wears a scarlet ―A‖
on the bodice of her dress, carrying her child and exposed to public humiliation in order to
everyone knows that she is an adulterous; but the minister does not confess his sin of adultery.

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When her husband Chillingworth joins her in Boston, he accidently witnesses the scene of her
public punishment and consequently decides to take revenge for his wife. After seven years,
Dimmesdale calls Hester and her child to join him on the scaffold and suddenly he confesses his
sin and opens his skirt. The scarlet ―A‖ that is carved on his chest reveals to the townspeople,
and he dies. Years after when Hester also died, she is buried near the minister, they share the
same grave stone, and the scarlet ―A‖ marked on the head stone.
Human Frailty
The Scarlet Letter reflects patriarchal values, it can be proved using Kate Millett‘s Sexual
Politics as a framework. Millett starts off by explaining that the term ―sexual politics‖ refers to
―power-structured relationships [...] whereby one group of persons is controlled by another‖ (23).
Consequently she conceives of patriarchy as the political institution by which the female is
subjected to the male.
It is obvious from the start that the political structure of the Massachusetts colony is patriarchal
one. Those who assume authority may have been elected, but these ―fathers and founders of the
commonwealth, the statesman, the priest, and the soldier‖ are essentially male (Hawthorne, 201).
The female sex remains entirely unrepresented and the powerful hold of patriarchy is maintained
by the exclusively male government. Furthermore, Hawthorne implies that the female sex would
not necessarily benefit from the opposite state of affairs:
―Goodwives,‖ said a hard-featured dame of fifty, ―I‘ll tell ye a piece of my mind.
It would be greatly for the public behoof, if we women, being of mature age and
church members in good repute, should have the handling of such malefactresses
as this Hester Prynne. What think ye, gossips? If the hussy stood up for judgment
before us five, that are now in a knot together, would she come off with such a
sentence as the worshipful magistrates have awarded? Marry, I think not!‖ (48)
The men who are effectively leading the New England society are possibly more merciful, but
certainly not more benevolent as they look down on Hester from their superior ―position of rigid
righteousness‖ and point out her sin for all to see (Schwartz, 199). The mere presence of the
Governor and his counselors is sufficient to create a leaden, solemn atmosphere, as they witness
the scene from their elevated positions on the balcony.
The influence of the magistrates in charge is further strengthened by the fact that their laws are
derived from both the statute-book and Scripture. It has been already established that religion
and law strongly coincide in the Puritan theocracy. Therefore, the office of the leaders is a sacred
one, making resistance even more problematical. Elizabeth Hoffman traces this conception back
to the Puritan belief that the community ―holds a covenant with God‖ and ―therefore the laws
that govern them hold a relation with the law‖ (17). Hawthorne himself describes these eminent
characters as belonging to a ―period when the forms of authority were felt to possess the
sacredness of divine institutions‖ (59). But even though the leaders and their trusting community
are convinced of their divinely inspired authority, Hawthorne seems to undermine their solid
position:

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They were doubtless, good men, just and sage. But out of the whole human
family, it would not have been easy to select the same number of wise and
virtuous persons, who should be less capable of sitting in judgement on an erring
woman‘s heart, and disentangling its mesh of good and evil, than the sages of
rigid aspect towards whom Hester Prynne now turned her face. (60)
The man who passes judgement on Hester does not seem to know what they are talking about.
Even John Wilson, the eldest clergyman of Boston and a great scholar is referred to as
unaccustomed to real life and incompetent to perform his task.
There he stood [...] while his gray eyes accustomed to the shaded light of his
study, were winking, like those of Hester‘s infant, in the unadulterated sunshine.
He looked like the darkly engraved portraits which we see prefixed to old
volumes of sermons; and had no more right than one of those portraits would
have, to step forth, as he now did, and meddle with a question of human guilt,
passion and anguish‖ (Hawthorne 60).
Hester apparently refuses to be intimidated by the frowning looks of both eminent and ordinary
Puritans, but she does not remain completely unaffected because, ―as she lifted her eyes towards
the balcony, the unhappy woman grew pale and trembled‖ (60). The fact that her secret partner
in crime is one of the esteemed community members surrounding the Governor certainly
influences her anguish, but it seems clear that the knowledge that she must not expect any
warmth or sympathy from her male judges causes her the most fear.
It is definitely ironic that Hester‘s secret accomplice is a minister, one of the leading members of
the community, whom others came to for moral support.
His was the profession, at that era, in which intellectual ability displayed itself far
more than in political life […] it offered inducements powerful enough, in the
almost worshipping respect of the community, to win the most aspiring ambition
into its service. Even political power […] was within the grasp of a successful
priest (207).
Hawthorne subtly criticizes the Puritan system by undermining Dimmesdale‘s credibility and
moral authority. In displaying the hypocrisy of his moral standards, the implied author ensures
that the self-deluding minister loses all respect and sympathy on the part of the reader. However,
this does not automatically lessen the presence or influence of patriarchy in The Scarlet Letter.
To be more precise, Hawthorne‘s disapproval focuses rather on the cruel severity of the founding
fathers, not on their male supremacy, which is treated as a natural situation.
Hester’s Courage and Individuality against the Social and Conventional Order
In the novel, the two sides of Hawthorne‘s attitude towards Hester can be realized. While he
expresses kindly his understanding of Hester‘s deeds, he shows his worries about her as she
represents a woman who turns away far from society‗s laws and lives out of its influences. When
Hester returns to New England, she accepts the community‗s influence on the individual will.
Hawthorne comments on Hester‘s independence of thought and separation from social norms:

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But Hester Prynne . . . for so long a period not merely estranged, but outlawed,
from society, had habituated herself to such latitude of speculation as was
altogether foreign to the clergyman. The scarlet letter, though causing her to be
ostracized by society, ―was her passport into regions where other women dared
not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers — stern and
wild ones — and they had made her strong. (Ref.)
To protect herself from the revenge she might face as an independent thinker, Hester hides her
rebellious desires beneath a calm and even colourless exterior. This introduces to the reader of
The Scarlet Letter the conflict between the private self and the public self. Hester becomes two
persons: an inner and an outer person. Outwardly, she acts as if she is defiant and that nothing
can get in the way of her pride, but on the inside, she begins to feel a great deal of admission to
her sins. What is more, Hester has taken new steps to redeem herself in the eyes of God and man.
She has become a self-ordained Sister of Mercy.
Hester insists on determining her own identity instead of letting others determine it for her. This
is why she stays in Boston even after the townspeople publicly shame her and force her to wear a
badge of humiliation. If she removes the scarlet letter, Hester will prove the Puritans‘ power over
her. Even after her return to her former home, she resumes wearing the token on her besom
because it is a part of her past, and the past is an important part of her identity. She succeeds to
create a new life in which the letter is a symbol of knowledge rather than a symbol of failure. She
keeps controlling her own identity and in doing so, she becomes an example for others.
Hawthorne writes:
But there was a more real life for Hester Prynne here, in New England, than in
that unknown region where Pearl had found a home. Here had been her sin; here,
her sorrow; and here was yet to be her penitence. She had returned, therefore, and
resumed,— of her own free will, for not the sternest magistrate of that iron period
would have imposed it,— resumed the symbol of which we have related so dark a
tale. Never afterwards did it quit her bosom. But . . . the scarlet letter ceased to be
a stigma which attracted the world‗s scorn and bitterness, and became a type of
something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon with awe, and yet with
reverence, too. (Ref)
The best explanation of the character‘s actions and movement of spirit is not only through the
Puritans community‘s repressiveness, but rather through the interrelationship of feeling, thought,
and action with each character. It determines her fates to a degree that makes the external forces
of the patriarchal community secondary. Hawthorne writes that, it is remarkable that persons
who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external
regulation of society. That is to say that the explanation of the fate is related to the characters‘
responses to symbols, to the ―A‖, and to Pearl, the illegitimate child.
The critic Amy Schrager Lang says that Hester, during her period of preparation, learned to
reject both Word and Law and, rather than developing a heightened fear of the consequences of
sin, she has learned a reckless courage. In fact, the critic Harold Bloom adds, it is clear that

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Hester has access to a completely different source of power or is, perhaps, herself an alternative
source of power.
Perhaps, however, it is precisely her separation from the community that gives her this power.
Hester knows that those Puritans have the power to punish her only because she has granted it to
them by staying within their society. She is free to leave Boston whenever she chooses. Her
decision to stay requires obedience to Puritan power, but since she can withdraw her approval at
any time, this obedience is always temporary. Her reasons for staying are her own. In schematic
terms, if the Puritans symbolize the law, then Hester symbolizes the individual person and also
symbolizes good.
Rather than grief, doubt, faith, and dependence, Hester experiences her conversion as liberation
of the self that for seven years has remained hidden behind a pious exterior. In the simplest
terms, Hester finally says aloud what she has been thinking all those years and thus makes
herself ―true.
Moreover, rather than subjecting herself to the law, Hester subjects the law to her own scrutiny;
she takes herself as a law. During the seven years, she attempts to accept the judgement implicit
in the letter ―A‖; if she could accept that judgement, she would be able to see purpose and
meaning in her suffering. But ultimately she is unable to transcend her heartfelt conviction that
she has not sinned. She loves Dimmesdale with whom she sinned; she loves the child that her sin
brought forth. How, then, can she agree that her deed was wrong?
In fact, throughout the seven-years, while Hester outwardly proves to be a woman of mercy
through her kindness and good deeds, she is inwardly a more revolutionary woman to reject
society‗s norms through her growing alienation from the community. The only law she obeys is
her law. She becomes an intellectual independent, who searches for a total freedom. It is written
in The Scarlet Letter that:
The world‘s law was no law for her mind. It was an age in which the human
intellect, newly emancipated, had taken a more active and a wider range than for
many centuries before. Men of the sword had overthrown nobles and kings. Men
bolder than these had overthrown and rearranged — not actually, but within the
sphere of theory, which was their most real abode — the whole system of ancient
prejudice, wherewith was linked much of ancient principle. Hester Prynne
imbibed this spirit.
Conclusion
During puritan‘s times, women were submissive and obedient to the wishes and desires of the
males. They were not permitted to express their views, opinions or emotions in public. Puritans
believed that knowledge, intelligence and the freedom of expression were only meant for males.
They were of the opinion that women are more tempted to evils and in turn are more likely to go
to hell than men. In brief, female population was ―oppressed, damned, condemned‖ and are
dominated by males in all the aspects of their lives.

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In ‗The Scarlet Letter‘ Hawthorne associates Puritanism with ―superstition, excessive moralism,
intolerance, and patriarchal operation‖ (Person 17). Hester Prynne, the female protagonist living
amidst the strict puritans is different from the women of her time. She is a typical individualist.
After being charged with adultery, she is shunned, mocked and viewed as a ―living allegory of
sin‖. Her punishment is to wear the flaming letter ―A‖ on her bosom throughout her life.
Towards the end of the novel, she convinces her fellow sinner to abandon the narrow- minded
community and settle with her sin-born daughter Pearl elsewhere in a free atmosphere to assert
her individuality. She is an Emersonian self-reliant as she trusts her deepest instincts and values
her own inner truth in making her judgments.
Hester is self-reliant as she is inclined to listen to her own conscience and trusts her own ability
to make her judgments. Hester Prynne, the anti-puritan rejects all the codes of conduct set up by
the puritans. In the beginning of the novel, she repels the town beadles ―by an action marked
with natural dignity and force of character, and stepped into the open air as if by her own free
will‖ (Hawthorne 39).
Hester wants to emerge as a new individual within the puritans. She believes that ―perchance, the
torture of her daily shame would at length purge her soul, and work out another purity than that
which she had lost: more saint-like, because the result of martyrdom‖. (Hawthorne 61). By
residing at the outskirt of the town, she carries the responsibility of a single parent with ―grace
and fortitude‖. Though she suffers all the torments silently without open rebellion against the
puritans, but she is courageous enough to rebel openly when the time demands. When she is
asked to hand over Pearl to magistrates, she exhibits her courage and ―caught hold of Pearl, and
drew her forcibly into her arms, confronting the old Puritan magistrate with almost a fierce
expression‖ (Hawthorne 84). She feels that she posses an indefeasible right to her daughter and is
ready to defend her right to her death. She stands alone against the puritans for the sake of her
little Pearl and raises her voice almost to a shriek and says, "God gave her into my keeping!...I
will not give her up!‖ (Hawthorne 84). She refuses even to name the father of Pearl and
undertakes the responsibility of upbringing her daughter alone which gives Hester a great
individuality. She is neither ready to disclose the name of the father of Pearl nor wants to take off
the scarlet letter ―A‘‘ from her bosom.
Her strong determination is even admired by the puritan magistrates as said by Jumat Barus in
her article entitled ―Nathanial Hawthorns The Scarlet Letter as a Tragic Love Story‖ says: They
admire Hester Prynne for the strong determination that she shows in refusing to disclose the
name of her partner in her crime.
Sylvia Eekman in her research paper ―Women in The Scarlet Letter‖ interprets the golden
embroidery around the scarlet letter as a tribute to that love, which does not go entirely unnoticed
by the puritan‘s female (59).
In puritan society, women are regarded as dependent upon men, which results into the tragic life
of women. Hester revolts against this social order of puritan society tenaciously and gains self-
reliance in economy by serving her daughter and herself by her uncommon talent in the
needlework. ―In the Puritan society, who would succeed and who would fail are not determined
by himself or herself, but by God. Man is divided into two groups. And the bad people cannot

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save or relieve themselves until they appeals to God‘s help‖ (qtd.in ―A Representative of the
New Female Image‖ 896).
This holy idea which is not subjected to change is changed by Hester by her indefeasible courage
and strength. ―She possessed an art that sufficed , even in a land that afforded comparatively
little scope for its exercise , to supply food for her little infant and herself‖.( Hawthorne 61).
Though society changes its perception towards her, but she is not greedy of that respect. She
raises herself beyond their life styles. Neither she accepts their forgiveness, nor does she want to
forgive them. She possesses the fortitude and mental balance which is stronger than the worn out
principles of the puritans. Though she has the vigor, but she is not rebellious and disobedient to
the traditions of the community she belongs to. She does not separate herself from the society‘s
conventions but distinguishes herself from the women who are part of that society. She refuses to
be defined by society and its trivial constraints, continues believing in her potential despite her
crime, and comes to define herself as she sees fit; thus relying on her individual perception and
openly disregarding the collective consciousness.She celebrates her individuality and wins over
society‘s restrictions.
Critics like Michael J. Colacurcio and Nina Baym have agreed that Hester has achieved atleast
partial self-fulfillment. Hester Prynne is an example of a self-determining individual, who resists
the tyranny of the Societyand the patriarchal social order. Though her power has been controlled,
she remains strong and survives by being silent and performing typically charitable tasks:
helping and taking care for the sick. Moreover, she teaches to accept one‘s past and to transform
oneself and the society too, even if it has not been a radical revolution. And still, this should not
prevent one from being hopeful for the future. She assured us too, through her firm belief, that, at
some brighter period, when the world should have grown ripe for it, in Heaven‘s own time, a
new truth would be revealed, in order to establish the whole relation between man and woman on
a surer ground of mutual happiness.
Work Cited
Primary Sources
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. 5th ed. New Delhi: Rupa Publications
India Pvt. Ltd., 2011. Print.
Secondary Sources
Ahmed, Zaheer. "Hester Prynne as a Rebel to Puritan Society in Hawthrone's Romance The
Scarlet Letter." Journal of Philosophy, Culture and Religion Vol. 7 (2015): n. pag. Web
Doren, Mark Van. ―The Scarlet Letter‖. Hawthorne: A Collection Critical Essays. New Jersey:
Prentice Hall, 1966. Print.
Egan, Ken Jr. ―The Adulteress in the Market-Place: Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter‖. Studies
in the Novel. 27.1 (1995): 26-42. 2 Jun 2008. Web.

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Elmer Kennedy, Andrews, ed. Nathaniel Hawthrone : The scarlet letter – essays, articles,
reviews. New York: Columbia U Press, 1999. Print. II.
Ghent University. Faculty of Arts and Philosophy. Women in The Scarlet Letter. University
Gene (n.d.): n. pag. Web
Individual and the Community in the Scarlet Letter. The Imaginative conservative . N.p., Aug.
2013. Web. 27 Sept. 2016
Jayasimha, P. "Between passion and Sin : a postmodern feminist approach to Nathaniel
Hawthrone's The Scarlet Letter." International Journal of English Literature (28 May
2014): n. pag. Web. 23 Sept. 2016.
Kapoor, Janesh. Nathanial Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Delhi: Vrinda P, 1999. Print.
Kaul, A.N., ed. Hawthorne: A Collection of Critical Essays. New Jersey : Prentice Hall Trade,
1966. Print.
Malhotra, Anita. ‗The Scarlet Letter: A Psychological Approach‘. Perspectives in American
Literature. Ludhiana: Lyall Book Depot, 1969. Print.
Narayanan, Shreeja. "The Tragedy of Grand Passion : Hawthrone's Heroine a Victim of the
Seventeenth Century Puritanical Boston." International Journal of English Literature and
Translation Studies ( UELR ) Vol. 3.Issue 3 (Jul. - Sept., 2013): n. pag. Web. Sept. 2016.
Stubbs, John C. ―Hawthorne‘s The Scarlet letter - The Theory of the Romance and the Use of the
New England Situation‖. PMLA 83.5 (1968): 1439-1447. 6 Jun 2008. Web.

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