charlesbbaker
The Scarlet Reader
This post focuses the universal themes one can draw from sin shown in chapters 5-8.
Symbol in Sin
As seen in one of our previous Articles : Nathanial Ha(w)thorne, Nathanial Hawthorne dislikes the puritan culture and feels shame in being related to John Hathorne (the minister in the puritan trials). This bothered him to the point that he changed his name, adding a “w.” He shows this discontent by weaving sin into the fabric of Puritan society with Hester’s Needle. This is done in the paragraph where Hawthorn acknowledges the spread of Hester’s stitching, being used in babies caps, the Governor’s collar, the sashes of military men, the armband of the minister, and the burial shrouds. I believe that this represents the planting of seeds of dissent among the community. Sin has now touched the children, the leaders, the protectors, the prophets, and the dead. I interpreted this as three possible ways, the first was foreshadowing. It may show how this is the beginning of the end, and how sin will be seen in the community. The children will grow with sin in wearing their caps. The adults will succumb to sin in the community and begin to fail to lead it properly. The dead are now bringing sin into their afterlife’s
The second way I saw this was as a statement on the falsehood of perfect leadership. When we look to the leaders in our community we want to see them as perfect, sometimes to the point of ignoring flaws. An example of this can be seen in the 2008 presidential campaign where Sarah Palin said that Paul Revere was talking about guns on his midnight ride through Boston. McCain, Palin supporters then began to change Wikipedia articles from saying he was warning about the British to saying he was talking about guns, when they knew it wasn’t. In puritanical America, there was a culture like this, where admitting to a mistake is seen as worse than denying a falsehood was stated. We look to our leaders to be infallible and treat them like hero’s, when they are truly just people. Puritans saw their leaders as infallible, as they were chosen by God to lead the community. Many people would blindly follow these men, but by bearing the stitching from a woman of sin, it shows that their leaders are fallible. It is a universal message against hero worship.
When Hawthorn says that the burial shrouds bear Hester’s Stitching, I believe he is making a statement on tradition. The dead cannot be hurt by the sin but he still assigns them to bear the burden. They represent the past, where the culture came from. They are the ones that carried on the traditions of an oppressive culture that revolves around fallowing instead of thinking. Hawthorn assigns sin to the dead by putting the stitching on their coffins, revealing that they are part of the problem as well. By this, one may intemperate a message warning against relying on tradition as it is not always best.
Work cited
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New York: Bantam Dell, 1850. Print.
The Scarlet Reader 
The point you make about a society often seeing their leaders as perfect is very relevant in the story. How many times has a famous person gotten away with something simply because they are famous? Consequence does not seem to impact those who are “above the law” as much as it does the common man. Pertaining to this, Dimmesdale was too idolized by the community to even be suspected of such a sin. This is the reason why Chillingworth easily took the punishment into his own hands, and slowly killed Dimmesdale in front of the community without suspicion. In this case being above the law happened to hurt Dimmesdale more than it helped. As a matter of fact, it ended up killing him.
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