All You Need is Love: The Scarlet Letter, part 1
All You Need is Love: The Scarlet Letter, part 1
I love that Nathaniel Hawthorne has written a psychological novel with The Scarlet Letter – in my opinion, his descriptions of Dimmesdale compose an acute portrait of human suffering and guilt. Hester Prynne is worth countless critical essays, but in light of this weeks readings from Major Problems in the History of American Sexuality, Reverend Dimmesdale seems a better object for discussion. From William Bradford’s “Wickedness Breaking Forth”:
“…so wickedness being here more stopped by strict laws, and the same more nearly looked unto so as it cannot run in a common road of liberty as it would and is inclined, it searches everywhere and at last breaks out where it gets vent.” (77)
This describes so accurately the actions of Reverend Dimmesdale in Chapters 11 and 12 of The Scarlet Letter. Dimmesdale, a clergyman, would be more aware than anyone else living in Salem of the Puritanical laws and opinions regarding “uncleanness.” (Godbeer, 95) Dimmesdale’s self imposed punishment seems a reaction on his part that his “unclean” liaisons with Hester Prynne were such an overflow of pent up evil. He is paranoid and fearful that his actions “turne[ed] the temple of the holy ghost into a hog-sty, and a dog’s kennel” (Godbeer, 95). [“And all the time, perchance, when poor Mr. Dimmesdale was thinking of his grave, he questioned with himself whether the grass would ever grown on it, because an accursed thing must there be buried!” (Chapter 11)]
In Chapter 12, though, when the Reverend Dimmesdale takes his child’s hand for the first time, “there came what seemed a tumultuous rush of new life,” and, for a fleeting moment, Dimmesdale seems to be at peace, free of his guilt ridden ticks and physical afflictions. This, to me, puts Bradford’s metaphor into new context. The blocks the stop the evil river flowing appear not to be piousness; indeed, piousness seems to cause the evil flow itself. How better to describe Dimmesdale’s self abuse through starvation, flogging, and psychological torment than a “flow with more violence and…more noise and disturbance”? Hawthorne, intentionally or not, makes the point here that the suffering imposed by Puritanical law is wicked, the cure for such is love.
Tags: Dimmesdale, love, Puritans, Uncleanness
