Nathaniel Hawthorne's seminal work, The Scarlet
Letter clearly has parbolic character. With Hester's child, Pearl, one is
reminded of the New Testament's "pearl of great price" as Hester's shame and punishment
are brought on by the birth of her daughter. Thus Pearl becomes a symbol of the sin of
passion between Hester Prynne and the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. This "elf-child" who
like a valuable pearl has a beauty that shines with deep and vivid tints. Yet, she is
referred to by the Puritans as a "demon offspring," and perceived as the child of sin.
In Chapter VIII, Hester pleas with the governor to be allowed to keep her child. She
protests,
readability="5">
"Pearl keeps me here in life! Pearl punishes me
too! See ye not she is the scarlet
letter...."
Reverend
Dimmesdale supports Hester by saying,
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"It was meant, doubtless, as the mother herself
hath told us, for a retribution too; a torture to be felt at many an
unthought-of-moment; a pang, a sting, an ever-recurring agony, in the midst of a trouble
joy!"
The man who devotes
his life to avenging himself upon the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, the man who "violates
the sanctity of the human heart" in his efforts to destroy the man--"he will be
mine!"--transforms himself into what he himself says is "a fiend," and becomes a
personification of evil. As he insidiously destroys the inner workings of Dimmesdale's
heart, Chillingworth becomes a dark and craven figure. He sins against Nature in his
violation of Dimmesdale's heart," and he sins against Hester when he married his young,
passionate wife as he could not be a husband to her. He admits his sin in Chapter
XV,
"Mine was
the first wrong, when I betrayed thy budding youth into a false and unnatural relation
with my decay."
His sin that
he commits against Dimmesdale is what Hawthorne calls the "unpardonable sin." This sin
is the subordination of the heart to the intellect, occurring as Chillingworth is
willing to sacrifice his fellow man to gratify his own selfish interest. These sins of
Chillingworth are parabolic in nature, as well; for, they illustrate two Biblical
injunctions, "Judge not lest ye be judged" and "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord."
Chillingworth tries to play God, but transforms himself into a devil. By Chapter IX
this transformation is evident (in Chapter XIV it is
complete):
A
large number...affirmed that Roger Chillingworth's aspect had undergone a remarkable
change while he had dwelt in town, and expecially since his abode with Mr. Dimmesdale.
At first his expression had been calm, meditative, scholar-like. Now, there was
something ugly and evil in his face, which they had not previously noticed, and which
grew still the more obvious to sight the oftener they looked upon
him.
Symbolic of the kind of
passion which accompanies Hester's sin, Pearl is a constant reminder to Hester of her
sin. Roger Chillingworth transforms himself in his desire for vengeance into an evil
being whose sin is the blackest of
all.
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