Apple Partaken: A Post-Lapsarian Reading of

Apple Partaken: A Post-Lapsarian Reading of Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter

By Ben Elliott

Faculty Mentor, Dr. Maren Clegg-Hyer, Department of English

Article Abstract

This paper, alongside contemporary likeminded scholarship, seeks to explore a Post-Lapsarian reading of Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter via the lens of allegorical hermeneutics. To this end, the work’s core cast, larger setting, and Puritan community will be examined as filling the roles of Adam, Eve, Satan, God, Cain and Abel, and Eden itself. Hester, having tasted sin, finds herself cast from the world she once knew, which, in the case of Hawthorne’s work, is the social sphere of Puritan women. In this reading, her compatriot in sin, Arthur Dimmesdale, is allegorized as Adam, and their shared progeny, Pearl Prynne, with mind to her duality, serves the role of both Cain and Abel. Finally, the work’s antagonist, Roger Chillingworth, serves as another stand-in for God but, in his wickedness, also Satan. In examining the text in this manner, the project opens the text up to both secular and religious readings, and, by analyzing the ways in which Prynne and the characters around her react to this fall from grace and its consequences, the work can be recontextualized as an examination of sin, temptation, and the theological ramifications of the Fall of Man. Furthermore, this reading strives to allegorize Hawthorne’s work alongside the biblical canon to allow for a more three-dimensional and evocative interpretation of the work.

Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, centered around themes of sin and salvation, is a work that is intensely fixated on matters of the soul. As such, and with a mind to the work’s religious colony setting, the struggles of Hawthorne’s core cast mirror biblical crises of faith and can be recontextualized as biblical allegory. While this idea has been explored in scholarship before, these readings seldom agree on which part of the Bible is being adapted due to a variety of scholarly opinions and, in lieu of agreement, present the work through a variety of lenses. One often touched upon but seldom explored interpretation of Hawthorne’s work is the recontextualization of the novel as fixating on the biblical Fall of Man. With the work’s distant past setting, focus on ostracization and changing circumstances in the face of sin, and ruthless demonization of Hester Prynne, one can easily draw connections between the work’s core cast and that of the Bible story. Particularly, the work’s central characters and environments, being viewed in this perspective, allow more complete examinations of judgement, sin, and what follows, and, by extension, addresses questions of biblical interpretation within the lens of allegorical hermeneutics. Exploration of these further meanings invites a deeper understanding of both Hawthorne’s work and the unexplored questions posed within the earliest chapters of Genesis. Born on July 4th of 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, Nathaniel Hawthorne “lived in genteel poverty with his widowed mother and two young sisters in a house filled with Puritan ideals and family pride in a prosperous past” (Hawthorne, Scarlet Letter: Signet Classic Edition i). After graduating from Bowdoin College in 1825, Hawthorne returned to his birthplace with aspirations of becoming a writer. Twelve years later, in 1837, he found a modicum of success with the first of his major works, Twice-Told Tales. However, the author did not see exemplary success until the publication of The Scarlet Letter in 1850, around 25 years since beginning his career as a writer. He struck gold once more the following year with the publication of The

House of the Seven Gables. Then, he served a brief, four-year tenure as the American Consul in Liverpool, England. After this time, Hawthorne traveled extensively in Europe for many years before returning to Massachusetts in 1860. He died four years later on May 19th, 1864, while in Plymouth, New Hampshire (Hawthorne, Scarlet Letter: Signet Classic Edition i). With an eye to the work’s Puritan setting, many critics of Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter tend to focus on the work’s examination of divine versus secular forgiveness as being both of irremovable importance to the work’s core conflict as well as a direct critique of the common conception of Puritan society. As succinctly stated by Janice Daniel in “‘Apples of the Thoughts and Fancies’: Nature as narrator in The Scarlet Letter,” “The human dramas which transpire in Hawthorne’s fiction have long been recognized as those in which he develops his theme of the importance of community” (307). Both David Heddendorf’s “Anthony Trollope’s Scarlet Letter” and Constance Hunt’s “The Persistence of Theocracy: Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter” similarly highlight the importance of secular forgiveness for the work’s characters. In Heddendorf’s examination, the author, despite framing Hawthorne’s conflict through that of Anthony Trollope’s Orly Farm, redresses the trial of Hester Prynne as something of primarily secular concern rather than something divine. While the character’s actions are considered sinful within the Christian faith, her problems lie not with the scorn of God but rather with that of her countrymen: “Although characters in both novels urge divine forgiveness as the ultimate balm and cure, the stories themselves insist on the need for human forgiveness— not only forgiveness by Hester’s husband, Roger Chillingworth, and Lady Mason’s stepson, Joseph, but by the wider community that observes and judges the two women” (Heddendorf 3). Here, it is not that Heddendorf is disavowing each character’s respective searches for divine forgiveness but, instead, that he is making it abundantly clear which of the two judges of morality holds more direct sway over the character’s life. While God forgives the soul,

it is the unwavering scorn of the public eye that gazes cruelly upon the transgressions of those who fall outside of its body. Hunt explores this same idea through the value of theology in the work and, also, the hypocrisies of Arthur Dimmesdale: “Dimmesdale’s hypocrisy goes to the very heart of the inner tension within the Puritan theocracy between belief in original sin, its corollary that the individual can only be saved by God’s grace, and a social and political order intolerant of human beings’ imperfect and fallen nature” (Hunt 5). In drawing this distinction between God’s grace and the intolerance of the Puritan community, Hunt construes the Puritan community and its relationship with religion as being a house divided against itself which, in turn, is heightened via the sharp critiques of Hawthorne’s own writing. Hawthorne’s work is also frequently reinterpreted in light of its Christian themes and symbols. However, despite sharing a common source material, these examinations can vary wildly. One example is James Ellis’ “Human Sexuality, the Sacrament of Matrimony, and the Paradox of the Fortunate Fall in The Scarlet Letter” in which the author recasts Hester as “the reconciliation of man’s natural sexual passion” and Dimmesdale as “the soul’s aspiration after God” within the “sacrament of matrimony” (53). While this example only places the conflict within a Christian context, some analyses see the work allegorized as referring to a specific part of the Bible. However, different scholars have interpreted the work as vastly different parts of the Bible. Some examples of these wide-ranging interpretations come via examining Tadd Ruetenik’s “Another View of Arthur Dimmesdale: Scapegoating and Revelation in The Scarlet Letter” alongside Evan Smith’s “Re-figuring Revelations: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter.” Ruetenik, whose paper focuses primarily on interpreting the character of Arthur Dimmesdale, states the following explicitly: “Arthur Dimmesdale is Adam, who assumes the sin of Eve not because he follows her in committing an individual sin, but because sin cannot be completely individuated” (72). In

hearkening back to Eden, Ruetenik’s paper makes use of the earliest sections of Genesis. While partially the subject of this paper, his interpretation is by no means the only one available. As aforementioned, Evan Smith’s article goes the complete opposite route by examining The Scarlet Letter via the book of Revelations: “In The Scarlet Letter, allusions to the Book of Revelation determine the basis of the novel’s theme and structure to an extent not fully recognized by most critics of the novel who have failed to note that Hawthorne attempts in this work a comprehensive refiguration of the Biblical apocalypse” (91). Though, initially, the two papers seem to have little, other than their subject matter, in common, it is through these ties that both can be drawn together to expand upon one another. In fact, Ruetenik’s claim is echoed and deepened in other likeminded pieces of scholarship such as Darrel Abel’s “Hawthorne’s Dimmesdale: Fugitive from Wrath,” and Debra Johanyak’s “Romanticism’s Fallen Edens: The Malignant Contribution of Hawthorne’s Literary Landscapes.” To begin chronologically, Abel’s article expands on this idea by exploring the character of Dimmesdale at length. Though Abel never explicitly makes the same connection that Ruetenik does, the language he utilizes with the character alongside the observations he makes about his characteristics does not feel completely divorced from Ruetenik’s own reading. Specifically, Abel focuses on alienating Dimmesdale from the larger Puritan community via his saintly naiveté and an “angelic otherworldliness” (Abel 88). While this analysis expands upon the character, Johanyak’s article reexamines the utilization of the natural world as both Edenic and threatening interchangeably: “. . . The Scarlet Letter (1850) is centered in a haunting setting distanced from reality in time and location…and this tale emphasizes a woodland setting that provides an alternative and somewhat softened framework for her isolated character” (360). While much of The Scarlet Letter’s scholarship centers upon Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, the character of Chillingworth does serve as the focus of a small multitude

of scholarly articles. Two such examples are Claudia Durst Johnson’s “Impotence and Omnipotence in The Scarlet Letter” and Dan Vogel’s “Roger Chillingworth: The Satanic Paradox in The Scarlet Letter.” In the first, Johnson paints Chillingworth as an impotent male since the character has technically been cuckolded by Dimmesdale: “A retelling of the novel as a tale shaped by impotence is initially invited by Chillingworth, a character who fits the classical stereotype of the impotent man—an old man who marries a young wife, a husband who has been cuckolded” (596). Since this observation is grounded within the work itself, this particular reading can be placed upon any number of interpretations of Chillingworth as an almost immutable element. Vogel’s article blends this character discussion with the previously mentioned biblical allusions by casting Chillingworth as The Scarlet Letter’s devil and placing him under the Devil’s paradox: the idea that, in doing evil, there is good and vice versa (272-73). In acknowledging this, Vogel further complicates the already gray morality of Hawthorne’s text by casting aside the labels of protagonist and antagonist in favor of a more real-world ethicality.

Man in Mask of Maker: Puritan Society as a Substitute for God

Much like a stage play’s set, this analysis hinges on establishing the “world,” or, in this case, community, of Hawthorne’s text prior to discussing its players. More specifically, it must first be proven that Hawthorne’s villagers can be allegorized as a secular, surrogate God. In this analysis, one must keep in mind the Puritans’ religious fervor and Old Testament anger in exacting punishment against Hester Prynne. While Puritan society’s intrinsic religiosity needs little textual evidence to be proven, Hawthorne provides ample evidence via their treatment of Hester that supports the claim that they function as a vengeful surrogate God. Here is one example from the text,

“Throughout them all, giving up her individuality, she would become the general symbol at which the preacher and moralist might point . . . thus the young and pure would be taught to look at her . . . as the figure, the body, the reality of sin” (Hawthorne 154). In utilizing Hester as a learning tool for the community, the Puritan values are reaffirmed constantly, which initially seems to make her punishment appear unyielding. This endless cruelty is further supported through Hawthorne’s decision to label the punishment as “the undying, the ever-active sentence of the Puritan tribunal” (Hawthorne 166). Though Prynne rises above the punishment via her good deeds toward the second half of the novel, the character is still irrevocably divided from larger Puritan society due to her initial sin. However, her efforts can be recontextualized as the actions of a repentant sinner attempting to regain the favor of God, but, even in her good deeds, Prynne is prevented from ever fully reintegrating herself to Puritan society due to the irrevocability of her actions. This irreparable barrier between the two parties is emblemized via Hawthorne’s labeling of the Puritans as “a people among whom religion and law were identical” (Hawthorne 97). This division is also further supported by Hawthorne’s description of the unmendable tear between Hester and humanity: “The links that united her to the rest of humankind—links of flowers, or silk, or gold, or whatever the material—had all been broken” (Hawthorne 310). Though the colonists bore no flaming sword against Prynne, the harsh social stigmas against Prynne definitively disbar her from ever being able to fully reseat herself within her old life. This irreversibility of her fall from grace is supported through the Puritans’ decision to bar Prynne from creating sigils of purity through her needlework as it speaks to the fact that, having been stained by sin, she can never be fully pure again: “But it is not recorded that, in a single instance, her skill was called in to embroider the white veil which was to cover the pure blushes of a bride. The exception indicated the ever relentless vigor with which society frowned upon her sin” (Hawthorne

162). The Puritans’ role as both judge and executioner in the trial of Hester Prynne also showcases their absolute authority over the lives of the individuals within their community. This all-ruling dominion of the Puritan community is typified in Hawthorne’s list of potential “criminals” who might find themselves placed upon the platform and punished before the community. From the “anticipated execution of some noted culprit” to a “sluggish bond-servant” to an “undutiful child. . . given over to the civic authority,” Hawthorne makes it explicitly clear that the iron fist of Puritan justice swings often and with great vigor against any who violate the Puritan social code, and it is in the way that Hawthorne demonstrates both this reach and severity that the Puritans, within the framework of their own community, attain a pseudo-Old Testament Godhood (Hawthorne 96-97). Here, it also becomes interesting that the power structure erected by the Puritans is largely supported by an aversion to finding oneself cast out of the unit and a desire to be dominated by said social structure. Secularly, the first of these concerns could be understood as a riff on man’s early interrelationship with nature and God which, in turn, creates room to cast the second concern as being a socially supported formalization of the first. As the community that ostracizes, punishes, and rejects Hester Prynne, the larger Puritan community also, conveniently, serves as Hawthorne’s Eden, as exemplified by the starting divide between Hester Prynne’s life before and after her fall from grace. While nothing in the text states what exactly Prynne’s life might have been like before, the drastically increased difficulty of her life following her exposure implies that her previous life was filled with little hardship. Despite this lack of information, it can be inferred from her post-fall home that her circumstances have been greatly diminished:

On the outskirts of the town, within the verge of the peninsula, but not in close vicinity to any other habitation, there was a small, thatched cottage. It had been built by an earlier settler,

and abandoned, because the soil about it was too sterile for cultivation, while its comparative remoteness put it out of the sphere of that social activity which already marked the habits of the emigrants. (Hawthorne 157)

Prynne is literally forced to exist outside the framework of Puritan society by her sin and, in this case, Puritan society is akin to Eden. This separation from God is also exemplified in the scene in which Prynne attempts to grasp the sunlight, which, in dissipating before she is able to enter the light, draws a further stark distinction between Prynne and society: “‘Mother,’ said little Pearl, ‘the sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself . . .’ . . . As [Hester] attempted to [grasp the light], the sunshine vanished…” (Hawthorne 344-46). In being connotatively associated with growth and plenty, the sunlight is more associated with Edenic nature rather than the harsher natural world outside of the Puritan community’s walls, but the plot of land that Prynne finds herself living on is unfit for cultivation, which juxtaposes the plenty of Prynne’s prior life amongst the lush overgrowth of Eden with the barrenness of an untamed Earth. This contrast is supported through the ways in which Hawthorne goes on to describe nature, particularly the woods, as compared to the opulent garden of the governor’s house. Whereas the woods are described as consisting of “pinetrees, aged, black, and solemn, and flinging groans and other melancholy utterances on the breeze,” the garden, which, in turn, would be a captive nature as maintained by Puritan society, is promised to be lush with flowers “more beautiful ones than [found] in the woods” and “a number of apple trees” (Hawthorne 184, 206, 207). The inclusion of apple trees within this pseudogarden of Eden also likens the two further. Thus, the Puritan community acts as the Edenic world from which Hester is cast by her original sin.

Flesh of my Flesh: Hester Prynne as Eve

Besides her role in being vilified by the community, Hester Prynne can also be allegorized as Hawthorne’s Eve in several other ways. First, her exposure, in taking place first chronologically, serves to label Prynne as the first “sinner” between herself and Dimmesdale, and as such, her public shaming before the community can be interpreted as the church’s tendency to vilify Eve over Adam due to both her act of eating the apple first and, more implicitly, her sex. Like Eve, Hester is made a model upon which the Puritans can foist their sexist “images of woman’s frailty and sinful passion” (Hawthorne 154). It could also be said that Hester has acquired a “forbidden” knowledge of sex through her dalliance with Dimmesdale that would have betrayed her expected role as a Puritan woman. While this is easily comparable to Eve’s betrayal of God’s one rule in the garden, her gained knowledge could also place her as an object of envy within the eyes of the larger community. This jealousy is emblemized in the ornateness of Prynne’s condemning sigil: “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’” (Hawthorne 103). With its fine attention to detail, the “A,” in spite of its meaning, is described as almost opulent with its “gorgeous luxuriance of fancy” (Hawthorne 103). Also, Hawthorne’s exploration of Prynne’s motherhood likewise aligns her with a biblical Eve. One such quotation comes from the scene in which Hester is displayed publicly: “God, as a direct consequence of the sin which man thus punished, had given her a lovely child, whose place was on that same dishonoured bosom, to connect her parents for ever with the race and descent of mortals. . .” (Hawthorne 173). First, this quotation draws a direct line of causation between the act of sin and the conception of Hester’s/ Eve’s progeny,

and its emphasis on “the race and descent of mortals” as something sprung from sin speaks to the transposition of Adam and Eve from their immortality in the garden to their and their future children’s mortal lives upon Earth. The circumstances under which Prynne delivers her child are also important as the dismal conditions of the prison can be interpreted as the biblical “pains of childbirth” that Eve is punished with: “. . . the wooden jail was already marked with weather-stains and other indications of age, which gave a yet darker aspect to its beetle-browned and gloomy front” (Hawthorne 93).

Speech of an Angel: Arthur Dimmesdale as Adam

In addition to being Hester’s compatriot in sin, Dimmesdale is also cast as Adam through his initial description: “Therefore, so far as his duties would permit, he trod in the shadowy by-paths, and thus kept himself simple and childlike, coming forth, when occasion was, with a freshness, and fragrance, and dewy purity of thought, which, as many people said, affected them like the speech of an angel” (Hawthorne 130). In this quotation, Dimmesdale’s “simple” and “childlike” “purity of thought” set him apart from his peers in highlighting both his alleged innocence and his outward piety. Particularly, it is his association with youth that likens Dimmesdale to Adam as a man possessing faculties far younger and less world weary than his age/physical appearance would initially suggest. In his paper “Hawthorne’s Dimmesdale: Fugitive from Wrath,” Darrel Abel explores this same idea but instead focuses on Dimmesdale’s otherworldliness which equates him with the more-than-human pre-fall Adam: “The traits chiefly emphasized in Hawthorne’s initial characterization. . . are his learning, especially his theoretical knowledge of good and evil; his inexperience and ignorance of worldly things. . . All of these visible traits and manners can be interpreted as signs of angelic otherworldliness” (88).

Dimmesdale functions as a masculine counterpart to Hester in the ways in which he interacts with the community. Whereas Hester was readily demonized, it is even in Dimmesdale’s final moments that he is still pardoned by a portion of his flock: “It is singular. . . that certain persons, who were spectators of the whole scene, and professed never once to have removed their eyes from the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, denied that there was any mark whatever on his breast, more than on a new-born infant’s” (Hawthorne 500-01). In this, there is also a counterpoint to Hester’s own demonization due to her sex. Unlike his Eve, Dimmesdale is unable to be condemned by his flock. Likewise, they act as foils to one another in their reactions to guilt. While Hester elects to serve her community despite their antagonism toward her, Dimmesdale, upon feeling the weight of his sin once more off his chest, immediately finds himself assailed by thoughts of new, black stains of sin. Whereas Hester forgoes temptation in an act of penance, Dimmesdale finds himself almost overcome upon leaving the forest, and, while he does not act upon these urges, his temptations during chapter 20 paint him as someone who is far more concerned with living with himself rather than truly serving others. Given consideration to his role as the town’s priest, his reaction is highly ironic when juxtaposed with Hester’s own attempts to save her soul alongside her sullied reputation. In this, there is an implication that one must assume one’s sin to begin the process of healing, and, though not rooted within the Bible’s Genesis, this idea can be carried onto the manner in which Eve has been demonized by the church throughout history. To cite an example from the First Epistle of Timothy, the author utilizes Eve’s initial sin as a basis for religiously-backed sexism thus deferring blame away from Adam: “Do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet / For Adam was formed first, then Eve. / And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who deceived and became a sinner” (1 Timothy 2:12-14). Similar to Dimmesdale’s avoidance of his own sin, the injection

of sexist thought in biblical teachings reveals a male tendency to place blame upon women in the name of reaffirming unjust systems. Prynne’s public humiliation against Dimmesdale’s equal-but-unstated sin serves as just another example of such views made manifest.

Imp or Angel: Pearl Prynne’s Duality as Cain/ Abel

As the offspring sired by both Hester and Dimmesdale, Pearl Prynne serves as both the work’s Cain and Abel figures. The fact that the character can be read as either of the first sons of man speaks to the character’s nebulous descriptions and the idea that, in being born of man rather than directly created by God as a fully grown adult, the babe is of Earth rather than Eden: “. . .that little creature, whose innocent life had sprung, by the inscrutable decree of Providence, a lovely and immortal flower, out of the rank luxuriance of a guilty passion” (Hawthorne 172). This idea that Pearl is conceived of sin and therefore drawn to it, proves to be the character’s core conflict within this reading. In the earlier descriptions of Pearl, she is described as cherublike, even in lieu of her serving as a symbol of her mother’s sin: “By its perfect shape, its vigour, and its natural dexterity in the use of all its untried limbs, the infant was worthy to have been brought forth in Eden. . .” (Hawthorne 173). In being “worthy to have been brought forth in Eden,” there rings the favoritism that eventually would result in the violence propagated by Cain upon Abel, and it also acknowledges a purity of soul that is more reminiscent of Abel instead of Cain. Here, Pearl can easily be read as a child who, were it not for the sins of her progenitors, would have been right at home within Puritan society. However, Pearl is just as easily written as Cain, especially as the work progresses. One striking scene that depicts this shift comes during the scene in which Pearl lashes out against the Puritan children for not associating with her: “Pearl saw, and gazed intently, but never sought to make acquaintance. If spoken

to, she would not speak again. If the children gathered about her. . ., Pearl would grow positively terrible in her puny wrath, snatching up stones to fling at them, with shrill, incoherent exclamations, that made her mother tremble. . .” (Hawthorne 182). In being ostracized from the community, Pearl lashes out with violence and aggression in a way directly rooted in the Cain-Abel mythos, and, though it might be an overly on-thenose examination, her utilization of a rock as her tool of violence is, of course, decidedly Cain-esque. Also, just as Cain struck his brother down in jealousy and anger, so too does it serve as Pearl’s basis for exacting vengeance, and, regarding the role of Puritan society, the two acts of aggression are linked by both method and feeling of abandonment. In never resolving the issue of characterization, Pearl is, interestingly, left in a liminal space between truly becoming Cain or Abel, but, in this, her nebulous moral identity plays into the uncertainty surrounding the eventual fate of children born of sin and affirms her character as both through her question’s open-endedness.

A Man of Heaven or Hell: Roger Chillingworth as Both God and Satan

Finally, the character of Roger Chillingworth can fulfill the roles of both God and Satan in the text depending on perspective. In labeling him as the first of the two, one need only look as far as the work’s core conflict. Like God, the one most betrayed by Hester Prynne’s trial is Chillingworth by means of their marriage. However, in this, his deformity and weakness of body alongside the actual act of being cuckolded label him as an enfeebled, elderly man. Shortly following the character’s initial appearance, he speaks briefly on his work with alchemy: “My old studies in alchemy,” observed he, “and my sojourn, for above a year past, among a people well versed in the kindly properties of simples, have made a better physician of me than many that claim the medical degree” (Hawthorne 140). Though Hawthorne elects to describe him as a physician for the rest

of the text, Chillingworth’s status as an alchemist is worthy of note as, in many ways, alchemy is far more comparable to the supernatural works of a god than that of a physician’s hard science. Moreover, in being associated with the natural world through his utilization of herbs to “treat” Dimmesdale, the character retains a strong relationship with the natural world not seen elsewhere in the novel: “. . .it was observed that he gathered herbs and the blossoms of wild-flowers, and dug up roots and plucked off twigs from the forest-trees like one acquainted with hidden virtues in what was valueless to common eyes” (Hawthorne 234). Furthermore, Dimmesdale’s treatment and guilting, in being administered by Chillingworth, can then be seen as acts of divine punishment, and, in this, Chillingworth then becomes another avatar for the wrath of God. Though Puritan society fulfills a similar role, the personal relationships between Chillingworth and the targets of his scorn, again align him more specifically with the Fall of Man’s betrayed God rather than the more general version of God portrayed by the larger community. However, Hawthorne also explicitly likens the character to the Devil frequently throughout the work. One such example would be when Chillingworth is referred to as having “a glare of red light out of his eyes, as if the old man’s soul were on fire and kept on smoldering duskily within his breast, until by some casual puff of passion it was blown into a momentary flame” (Hawthorne 329). Furthermore, the character dies shortly after completing his “devil’s work” against Arthur Dimmesdale, which implies that the character’s sinful pursuit was the only thing keeping him alive: “. . .in short, there was no more Devil’s work on earth for him to do, it only remained for the unhumanised mortal to betake himself whither his master would find him tasks enough, and pay him his wages duly” (Hawthorne 503). Regardless of interpretation, both readings of the character are enriched through his voyage “deep into his patient’s bosom, delving among his principles, prying into his recollections, and probing everything with a cautious touch. . .”

(Hawthorne 240). This knowledge of damnable secrets implies an element of supernatural abilities and possible omnipotence that is at home whether Chillingworth be devil or deity.

Conclusion

Hester Prynne’s and Arthur Dimmesdale’s exiles from a puritanical Eden is rife with biblical allegory, as is Pearl’s duality as both Cain and Abel. Their adversary’s diabolical efforts likewise suggest a loose but well-evidenced retelling of the Fall of Man. Thus, The Scarlet Letter’s narrative of sin and redemption is enriched by being examined alongside religious canon. Remapping the character conflicts to this allegory, in fact, allows a deeper understanding of character mindsets and motivations. Interpretations of The Scarlet Letter can be informed by and reflect on the tensions and character crises inherent within the book of Genesis’ account of the Fall of Man.

Works Cited

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Hunt, Constance C. T. “The Persistence of Theocracy: Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter.” Perspectives on Political Science, vol. 38, no. 1, Winter 2009, pp. 25–32. EBSCOhost, doi:10.3200/PPSC.38.1.25-32. Johanyak, Debra. “Romanticism’s Fallen Edens: The Malignant Contribution of Hawthorne’s Literary Landscapes.” CLA Journal, vol. 42, no. 3, 1999, pp. 353–363. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44323211. Johnson, Claudia Durst. “Impotence and Omnipotence in the Scarlet Letter.” The New England Quarterly, vol. 66, no. 4, 1993, pp. 594–612. JSTOR, www. jstor.org/stable/366035. Ruetenik, Tadd. “Another View of Arthur Dimmesdale: Scapegoating and Revelation in The Scarlet Letter.” Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, vol. 19, 2012, p. 69. EBSCOhost, search. ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&Auth Type=ip,shib&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.41925334&site=e ds-live&scope=site. Vogel, Dan. “Roger Chillingworth: The Satanic Paradox in The Scarlet Letter.” Criticism, vol. 5, no. 3, 1963, pp. 272–280. JSTOR, www.jstor. org/stable/41938352.