The Scarlet Letter

The women in town reproached Hester for committing a sin that brought shame to them. From the classic novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, here are some paragraphs…

… "Goodwives," said an unattractive lady of fifty, "I'll tell you a piece of my mind. It would be greatly for the public benefit if we women, being of mature age and church-members in good repute, should have the handling of such offender as this Hester Prynne. What think you, friends? If the whore stood up for judgment before us five, that are now here in a knot together, would she come off with such a sentence as the worshipful magistrates have awarded? Marry, I think not."

"People say," said another, "that the Reverend Master Dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very grievously to heart that such a scandal should have come upon his congregation."

"The magistrates are God-fearing gentlemen, but merciful overmuch—that is a truth," added a third autumnal matron. "At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne's forehead. Madame Hester would have moved at that, I warrant me. But she—the naughty baggage—little will she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown! Why, look you, she may cover it with a brooch, or such like heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as ever!"

"Ah, but," interposed, more softly, a young wife, holding a child by the hand, "let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart."

John Calvin

"What do we talk of marks and brands, whether on the bodice of her gown or the flesh of her forehead?" cried another female, the ugliest as well as the most pitiless of these self-constituted judges. "This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die; is there not law for it? Truly there is, both in the Scripture and the statute-book. Then let the magistrates, who have made it of no effect, thank themselves if their own wives and daughters go wrong."

"Mercy on us, goodwife!" exclaimed a man in the crowd, "is there no virtue in woman, save what springs from a wholesome fear of the executions? That is the hardest word yet! Hush now, gossips for the lock is turning in the prison-door, and here comes Mistress Prynne herself."

The door of the jail being flung open from within there appeared, in the first place, like a black shadow emerging into sunshine, the severe and tough presence of the town-official, with a sword by his side, and his staff of office in his hand. This personage prefigured and represented in his aspect the whole depressing severity of the Puritanic code of law, which it was his business to administer in its final and closest application to the offender. Stretching forth the official staff in his left hand, he laid his right upon the shoulder of a young woman, whom he thus drew forward, until, on the threshold of the prison-door, she repelled him, by an action marked with natural dignity and force of character, and stepped into the open air as if by her own free will. She bore in her arms a child, a baby of some three months old, who winked and turned aside its little face from the too vivid light of day; because its existence, until now, had brought it acquaintance only with the grey twilight of a prison, or other darksome apartment of the prison.

When the young woman—the mother of this child—stood fully revealed before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her bosom; not so much by an impulse of motherly affection, as that she might conceal a certain symbol, which was created or fastened into her dress. In a moment, however, wisely judging that one symbol of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and with a burning blush, and yet a proud smile, and a glance that would not be embarrassed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbours. 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. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore, and which was of a splendour in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony.

The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam; and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes. She was ladylike, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days; characterised by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace which is now recognised as its indication. And never had Hester Prynne appeared more ladylike, in the antique interpretation of the term, than as she issued from the prison. Those who had before known her, and had expected to behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped. … (Paragraphs from The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne)

Vocabulary

Pang: a sudden feeling of mental or emotional distress

Puritans: Puritans sought both individual and corporate conformity to the teaching of the Bible, with moral purity pursued both down to the smallest detail, as well as ecclesiastical purity to the highest level. They believed that man existed for the glory of God, that his first concern in life was to do God's will and so to receive future happiness.

Artículo relacionado

La letra escarlata. Párrafos del clásico de Nathaniel Hawthorne en castellano

Comentario

“… al menos deberían marcarla con un hierro caliente. A Hester no le va a molestar tener una letra en su vestido…”

Las que así comentaban eran las viejas de la comunidad escandalizadas por el pecado de Hester. Muy cristianas ¿no creen?

De la web

Themes, motifs and symbols in The Scarlett Letter, from Sparknotes.com