Guilt and Shame in the Term Paper

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139)

This represents the first stirrings of change for the meaning of the scarlet letter from adultery to "able"; able to overcome tragedy with one's head held high; just as Hester Prynne had done. As Hester continues to contribute to the community through her seamstress and charity work, she becomes increasingly admired, once again changing the meaning of the scarlet letter. It has now surpassed mere ability to encompass admiration for a woman who was actually a victim of Puritanical small mindedness rather than a sinner worthy of a public haranguing. If anyone was truly sinful here, it was her husband Roger Chillingsworth, who chose to spend his life hell bent on revenge rather than forgiveness.

The Historical Critical Perspective

The Scarlet Letter is set in Boston in the 17th century during the Puritan era. According to Portersfield (2001) "people argued over the strong American tendency to define religion in terms of morality, which was a legacy of the Puritans' move to shift control of religious life from external authorities to individuals, families, and local communities" (p. 230). This description of Puritan life fits ideally into the setting that Hawthorne portrays in his novel.

Interestingly however, Hawthorne does not express disapproval of the Puritans for the fact they sought to chastise a crime of passion.

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Instead he expresses the following thoughts at the beginning of the novel: "The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison" (Hawthorne, p. 47). What he is actually criticizing is the hypocrisy and severity of the guilt and shame disseminated, and the public sanctions dealt to the Puritans by the Puritans.

Conclusion

Nathanial Hawthorne's the Scarlet Letter makes strong commentary on Puritan life from a feminist, a psychological and a historical perspective. The themes of shame and guilt are prevalent in each of these veins of literary analysis. From the feminist perspective, Hester's shame and guilt is a product of a sexist, patriarchal society that condemns women far more severely than men for the same act. From a psychological perspective, Hester's daughter Pearl is a manifestation of her own guilt and shame, causing her to struggle with the love she has for her daughter and the public humiliation her existence has caused her. From a historical perspective, Hawthorne's novel is an epitomic representation of the extreme and often duplicitous piousness of Puritan life......

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