Hester Prynne's Transformation as a Romantic Symbol of Patriarchy

Romanticism and the Break from Classical Convention

To the modern collective perception, art is one facet of life governed more by individual thought and emotional predisposition than by institutional prejudice. It seems a natural disposition of the artist to look within himself for expression, rather than toward the very established conventions from which he may seek to provide asylum. Likewise, it strikes a chord of logic that an artist makes his primary appeal to his own imagination, rather than to millennia of intellectual rules. This, however, is a new perspective relative to the broader age of humanity. From the Enlightenment through the mid-eighteenth century, classical rules intended to preserve the integrity and exclusivity of artistic expression were the prime determinants of societal artistic output. However, a surge in the population of the bourgeoisie — an overall expansion of the international middle class — opened up the possibility for artistry without the condition of aristocracy. Many of the formalities and superficialities of literary expression were subverted, and thus began the original age of Romanticism.

There is much evidence to suggest that Romanticism, of all artistic movements, has been the most influential, perpetuated most significantly in today's varied fields of artistic expression. Where prior approaches to literature promoted form and function above all else, the inception of Romanticism sparked a form of writing whose key identifiers centered on man's struggle with morality and his capacity for heroism. This is a novel approach evidenced by the female protagonist of the 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter, a representative work of the genre by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Hester Prynne and the Scarlet Letter's Social Order

In Hester Prynne, a woman with no objectionable qualities, Hawthorne uses the device of a red "A" to signal her transformation into a social pariah. In this way, Hawthorne serves as a crucial early interpreter of America's cultural vagaries. Exploring through the body of his work such aspects of the nascent democracy's social order as its proclivity toward an unquestionably dominant patriarchy, its wanton superficiality, and its ambitious pursuit of perfection, Hawthorne remarks compellingly on the vices of the American experience during the early nineteenth century (Stewart, 85).

On the subject of adultery, Hawthorne introduces us to convicted adulteress Hester Prynne, identified at all times by the scarlet "A" affixed to her as punishment for her indiscretions. Left unpunished in this affair is the secretive Reverend Dimmesdale, who has fathered Hester's precocious daughter Pearl. The third party to this love triangle is her husband, Roger Chillingworth, who remains at a distance from his wife as he attempts to exact an investigative revenge on Dimmesdale. In a story where none of the characters are straightforwardly "bad," we find each of them individually subjected to the deeply moralistic pressures of Puritanical Massachusetts.

Puritanical Moralism and the Force of Public Judgment

So much is this the case that it is stated with some explicitness by a stranger to Chillingworth, who arrives in Boston some years behind his wife, just in time to witness her public disgrace. In his inquiry on the subject, the stranger describes Chillingworth as fortunate "to find yourself, at length, in a land where iniquity is searched out, and punished in the sight of rulers and people, as here in our godly New England" (Hawthorne, 71). This statement of intent strikes at a core Romantic value, contending with no small degree of irony that there is a sense of moral authority in the air which bears a dominant effect on the lives of New Englanders. Indeed, this is consistent with our understanding of Hawthorne's critical response to the forces of Puritanism.

Conclusion: Moral Futility and the Indictment of Male Authority

As with his philosophically minded Romantic contemporaries, Nathaniel Hawthorne authored many works that explore the themes of female gender roles and render very serious positions on the deeply flawed nature of human society. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne uses the relationships that persist between men and women to offer a common moral concerning the futility — and even the callous cruelty — of the pursuit of moral authority. Here, we find Hawthorne in a pointedly critical state, imposing with great empathy the notion that the men in this story are in fact weak, self-indulgent, and ultimately fully incapable of achieving moral integrity themselves.