Certain lines should not be crossed for there is no going back to who you once were, or to the world in which you lived. Once that point has been crossed, the social ecosystem will undoubtedly transform, inciting a desperate need to recuperate and make things right again—even if it costs you everything. Yet, that “rightness” may very well be a façade as explored within Nathaniel Hawthorne’s iconic novel, The Scarlet Letter, where even in the face of punishment and accountability, Puritan society cannot so easily move on. The root of the sin, adultery, carries on and dwells among the people. Hawthorne’s work exposes the frailty of Puritan culture and the deterioration of reputation, but, upon deeper investigation, the decay of gender norms and shifts in those dynamics are shown. On the other side of what is developed in Hester’s forgery of power as an outcasted woman, Hawthorne explores the consequence of emasculation with the men entangled in adultery. Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth suffer and ultimately perish from the unforgiving nature behind emasculation. As a true anathema to Puritan patriarchal society, Dimmesdale and Chillingworth serve as Hawthorne’s fatal reminder of challenges to male-dominated norms in Puritan society. Even when a sin is shared, the extreme male impotence amidst changed norms within the narrative is a mark of death that places emasculation as the deadliest penalty man must pay.
Hawthorne forms the hierarchal power structure within Puritan society in 17th century Massachusetts. The narrator, painting Puritan society in a harsh and unfavorable light, details social order and how Hester, the publicly marked outcast and sinner, operates after her public shaming for adultery. With her place reorganized to the outskirts of society, she still has a role to be socially responsible in giving back to her community, namely with her sewing for grand events and charity to the less fortunate. Describing Hester’s shift in social standing, context is given regarding Puritan ceremonies where:
Deep ruffs, painfully wrought bands, and gorgeously embroidered gloves, were all deemed necessary to the official state of men assuming the reins of power; and were readily allowed to individuals dignified by rank or wealth, even while sumptuary laws forbade these and similar extravagances to the plebeian order. (Hawthorne 470)
From early in the novel, it is clear that Puritans carry a deep reverence for those in power, men, who maneuver in ranks above “plebians,” or the lower class. The separation of people, and the evocation of status that distinguishes and emboldens a certain, smaller group, is the context in which Hester is judged for adultery that brands her a religious, moral, and social outsider. Nina Baym, writing for The New England Quarterly, echoes these observations of the power dynamics, writing:
Power in this community is vested in a group of elders, ministerial and magisterial, who blend its legal and moral strands into a single instrument, and, acting as a group, make that power appear diffuse and impersonal. This is the Puritan oligarchy as an outsider or an unbeliever might perceive it. The patriarchal nature of this oligarchy is important for Hawthorne’s scheme, which contrasts youth with age, and women with men. (Baym 214)
Baym astutely describes Puritan society as an oligarchy where only a few, selected men are given the control to decide laws and condemn those they deem wrong either lawfully, religiously, or morally. As Baym deduces, Hawthorne’s setup of such a society with the Puritans illuminates the major contrast between the powerholders and those below. Men of a certain age are held higher above those younger and, in particular, female. Claudia Durst Johnson also reiterates similar observations, noting, “That this society… values age and intellect over potency and creativity is clear from the first scene. The valued leaders in the community are old men, except for one young man who is old in spirit” (Johnson 604). With little doubt, Hester epitomizes the opposite of what Puritans revere as right, just, and powerful—setting her as the perfect target to make an example out of her transgression.
The very nature of Hester’s transgression embodies the antithesis of Puritan value and power. She is a young, attractive woman who commits adultery and has a child from the affair. Her youth, her femininity, and her biology are terribly perceived and shamed for straying away from Puritan principles. Therefore, the scarlet letter became central to her identity, objectifying and mythifying her very self into a frightening legend. According to the narrator:
The vulgar, who, in those dreary old times, were always contributing a grotesque horror to what interested their imaginations, had a story about the scarlet letter which we might readily work up into a terrific legend. They averred, that the symbol was not mere scarlet cloth, tinged in an earthly dye-pot, but was red-hot with infernal fire, and could be seen glowing all alight, whenever Hester Prynne walked abroad in the night-time. (Hawthorne 474)
Here the narrator, with complete retrospect, details how those who would engage in vulgar talk may use Hester and the scarlet letter as a myth to spread around. She is objectified to the symbol of her sin and given a new life to it. The embroidered cloth would itself be a metaphorical external fire marking Hester’s presence and reminding society of what is in store for those who would transgress and threaten Puritan social dynamics.
The embroidered letter, however, transforms into a talisman of power as Hester dons it with her own hands. To the embroidery, Baym opines, “In the social context, the amoral, sensuous activity of her art takes on moral significance, because by making the letter beautiful Hester is denying its social meaning. The embroidery is a technique by which Hester subverts the letter’s literal meaning” (Baym 219). Baym further points out that the women of the town acknowledge her skill and how she seemingly flaunts the scarlet letter, whereas the men in power may overlook the details as nothing more than the literal letter embroidered on her clothing. This unique understanding of women’s abilities by fellow women shows a relationship between power and communication based on gender and how Hester subtly comes into her power as she is pushed out. Her resilience remains stalwart throughout the novel as she raises her daughter, as she adapts, grows, and maneuvers within her new environment within Puritan Massachusetts. Yet, the complexity of the transgression manifests further in the people directly involved—namely, the men attached to the adultery, Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth. Her lover and her husband, two figures of power and influence in the Puritan world Hawthorne creates, have a price graver, mortal, to pay: their masculinity.
Dimmesdale proves to be the center of a fascinating paradox within The Scarlet Letter. As a priest of great power and influence, he is afforded so much space and credibility that even with the revelation of his participation in Hester’s adultery, he is given a level of redemption and defense of his reputation. After the climax in which the priest confesses, the narrator affirms:
That certain persons… professed never once to have removed their eyes from the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, denied that there was any mark whatever on his breast… Neither, by their report, had his dying words acknowledged, nor even remotely implied, any, the slightest connection, on his part, with the guilt for which Hester Prynne had so long worn the scarlet letter. (Hawthorne 565-566)
Even beyond the denial of Dimmesdale’s own scarlet letter etched on his chest at the climax of the novel, we see society—particularly those in power and influence—deny or refuse to acknowledge Dimmesdale’s adulterous connection to Hester and Pearl. Even his confession was negated by the masses who refuse to stain his character despite his responsibility for what both he and Hester did. This speaks to gender biases in which Puritans uphold sacredness and power to men. Therefore, they must protect those institutions regardless of the truth. Still, the paradox develops throughout Dimmesdale’s journey in the narrative as his deterioration is linked to the guilt and shame he internalized and carried for the seven years since Pearl’s birth.
Even a symbol of male power within the hierarchy of church and society cannot escape the sin of adultery and the decline of his manhood. Despite the favor shown to him at the end of his life, he could not escape unharmed. At the beginning of the novel when Hester is questioned on the scaffold, Dimmesdale is an active participant in her interrogation and punishment. There, the people question and criticize her, with a townsman saying, “Madam Hester absolutely refuseth to speak, and the magistrates have laid their heads together in vain. Peradventure the guilty one stands looking on at this sad spectacle, unknown of man, and forgetting that God sees him” (Hawthorne 460). As no one could suspect the father was anyone of significance, there were calls for the mysterious man to step forward and take accountability. Of course, this did not happen, but the public shaming of the unknown father was obvious, with Dimmesdale himself nervously attempting to get Hester to confess the man’s name after rising public pressure. Nina Tassi, who investigates the complex dynamics of gender, morality, and intellect surrounding Hester, notes this moment as the first time “Dimmesdale exhibits the ‘feminine’ traits of weakness and nervous sensibility… When he is asked to persuade Hester to name her lover publicly” (Tassi 27). This is the beginning of the guilt’s strain on Dimmesdale, where a man of power deteriorates from the inside out due to the weight of the sin and his inability to confess. Megan Healy affirms Tassi’s observations as she also notes, “Hawthorne makes reference to his feminine traits of trembling nervousness” (Healy 20).This develops an imbalance of the Puritan gender dynamics which further weakens and consumes Dimmesdale as a patriarchal power, man, and father into a “feminine,” unattractive, and emasculated husk.
When he finally entertains the notion of leaving Massachusetts with Hester and Pearl to start anew, Dimmesdale’s weakness mortally grows to a point of no return. He becomes heavily reliant on Hester as a pillar of strength to guide him as his journey twists in the later part of the novel. The imbalance is shown publicly as Dimmesdale confesses during the Election Sermon, where he calls to Hester:
Hester Prynne… in the name of Him, so terrible and so merciful, who gives me grace, at this last moment, to do what—for my own heavy sin and miserable agony—I withheld myself from doing seven years ago, come hither now, and twine thy strength about me! Thy strength, Hester; but let it be guided by the will which God hath granted me! This wretched and wronged old man is opposing it with all his might!—with all his own might and the fiend’s! Come, Hester, come! Support me up yonder scaffold! (Hawthorne 563)
He calls for Hester’s strength—for her own physical and internal strength that he prays for God’s will to guide her support as he finally steps up to the responsibility he has long held off. Tassi expounds on this dynamic shift, explaining, “In rearranging traditional gender traits in his lovers, Hawthorne not only expands the range of qualities for each sex but also, in moments of crisis that intensify as the romance goes on, sets up opposing energies” (Tassi 27). This mortal crisis has brought Dimmesdale to an extreme point of humility where he must rely on Hester to walk down the path she took seven years ago. On the scaffold, they finally equalize the burden of the sin—yet the energy in how much Hester has embraced the so-called “masculine” side of herself through her seven years of open punishment and atonement, versus the formation, or regression, of “feminine” energy in Dimmesdale, emphasizes the imbalance created by deadly emasculation. Healy furthers explains the danger of emasculation within the priest as she observes, “that his sexuality and his sexual sin makes him, ultimately, weaken into an unattractive, sexually unappealing man. In other words, his virility in turn causes his feeble, emasculated state” (Healy 20-21). Hawthorne proves that there exists a point of no return from which no man can recover, where characteristics that once drew people to him like Hester fade away and leave a husk of a man he once was. The deadly sin he has committed marked him with death by emasculation—death by stripping his power, legacy, and manhood from within.
A very key factor in Dimmesdale’s terminal emasculation extends beyond Hawthorne’s stark juxtaposition between Hester and him. After all, Roger Chillingworth’s friendship—or torment—of the priest proves to be the catalyst of Dimmesdale’s fall. A symbol of the devil to the narrator, Hester, and Dimmesdale, Chillingworth unsurprisingly becomes a demon of emasculation—a projector of his impotence and pain of being cuckolded. Chillingworth, arriving on the day of Hester’s public shaming and punishment, is doomed as the cuckold and regresses into that role at the loss of his humanity and the sense of manhood. Outwardly presenting as a doctor and friend of Dimmesdale, he is an internal swirl of bad intentions, revenge, and emasculation directed toward the priest. Once more, Hawthorne’s narrator, speaking from a vantage point over the events of the novel, observes:
To sum up the matter, it grew to be a widely diffused opinion, that the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, like many other personages of especial sanctity, in all ages of the Christian world, was haunted either by Satan himself, or Satan’s emissary, in the guise of old Roger Chillingworth. This diabolical agent had the Divine permission, for a season, to burrow into the clergyman’s intimacy, and plot against his soul. (Hawthorne 496)
Here, Chillingworth’s reputation as a devil working on behalf of Satan is established to the Puritans and the reader, dictating the malevolence in which he carries out his revenge and heightening Dimmesdale’s emasculation. He is described as having so much delight in the priest’s suffering like Satan relishing in a human soul lost to heaven (Hawthorne 502) or how, when comparing to Hester’s disgrace, “The old man, on the other hand, had brought himself nearer to her level, or perhaps below it, by the revenge which he had stooped for” (Hawthorne 517). Again, the dynamics between Hester and the men shift where “she had climbed her way, since then, to a higher point” (Hawthorne 517) whereas Chillingworth has stooped to an unredeemable depth that further threatens all parties involved in the adultery.
The final threat is that of death to the emasculated man—a man who has lost his power and his source of life. At the beginning, Chillingworth admits that he is at fault for the adultery, admitting to Hester, “Mine was the first wrong, when I betrayed thy budding youth into a false and unnatural relation with my decay. Therefore, as a man who has not thought and philosophized in vain, I seek no vengeance, plot no evil against thee. Between thee and me, the scale hangs fairly balanced” (Hawthorn 467). Chillingworth takes accountability for practically taking away Hester’s youth—her prime years of life—with his older age and impotence. As Johnson thoughtfully writes regarding the doctor’s impotence, “Chillingworth’s sexual impotence and the actions he takes as a result of his condition are most indicative of a middle period… his tendency to blame others for his deficiencies… Chillingworth is bent on vengeance against the community and against the man who has cuckolded him” (Johnson 609). This vengeance provides the doctor with a newfound sense of masculinity as he focuses on tormenting Dimmesdale and reducing the priest’s masculinity further. Therefore, he reflects his deficiencies on the priest and finds a new life for himself as a personal punisher. As Gillian Brown for The John Hopkins University Press notes, “In a kind of medical blackmail, Chillingworth would bind Dimmesdale to the fear that his sin, the source of his ill health, may become manifest” (Brown 114). The second life for Chillingworth gives him a drive that provides him with a sense of masculinity through medical blackmail at the cost of his well-being and morality.
The demonic, dark-sided characteristics and behaviors developed in Chillingworth throughout the narrative cumulate into Dimmesdale’s public confession. There the doctor tries, in vain, to stop the priest from telling the truth, thus ending Chillingworth’s purpose in life. At the climax, Dimmesdale escapes Chillingworth through confession and death, which strips the doctor of his final claim to power. The most astonishing effect to come from the revelation lies in Chillingworth’s change where, “All his strength and energy—all his vital and intellectual force—seemed at once to desert him” (Hawthorne 566). Once more, the impotence that Johnson highly attributes to Chillingworth’s fall, is shown through the loss of vitality, further supported by the narrator describing how he “withered up, shriveled away… like an uprooted weed that lies wilting in the sun” (Hawthorne 566). With Dimmesdale dying the moment he confessed, and Chillingworth following him within the year, Hawthorne institutes the mark of death unique only to the emasculated men involved in the transgression of adultery. Hawthorne sees that the women involved, Hester and Pearl, come out on an arguable happy ending, with Pearl marrying rich and Hester willing to return and live out her days in Massachusetts. In her focus on inheritance and women’s property, Brown observes, “Relieving Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale from debt to their sin and from the scenario of subjection in that debt is exacted, Hawthorne rescinds adultery’s power of nullification and restores the safe passage of inheritance” (Brown 111). Consequently, Pearl, the human manifestation born of the adultery, is given a safe passage to life as her parents ultimately paid the debt of the sin, something Chillingworth both wanted but stalled for his own sake. For Pearl’s happy ending, Dimmesdale and Chillingworth had to die to restore their legacy, who is Pearl, as the men lost their power and would never be able to live without it.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s timeless novel truly embodies the complex nature of sin, responsibility, and what it means to live and die as a flawed human. There are limits to defending transgressions that wreck social balances, but Hawthorne masterfully criticizes the irony and faults within the established social standards of Puritan Massachusetts. The upset uncovers layers of wrongdoings that a removed, impersonal narrator exposes throughout the narrative of The Scarlet Letter. Paradoxes develop that show the bizarre, contradictory nature of humanity and sin. A society meant to uphold religious purity is full of dark secrets and divisions meant to repress and divide people. Hester, a woman who is further diminished for a grave sin by her feminine characteristics, finds power in that punishing isolation. Dimmesdale and Chillingworth, two men capable of hiding their involvement and socially succeed, internally deteriorate and eventually succumb to the rot of emasculation. We see Hawthorne masterfully unveil the consequences of emasculation, guilt, and strength in oppressive social environments that leave the reader fascinated with a story that warns of the inevitable; of the truth that the truth will set you free, but always at a cost.
Works Cited
Baym, Nina. “Passion and Authority in The Scarlet Letter.” The New England Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 2, 1970, pp. 209–30. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/363242. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.
Brown, Gillian. “Hawthorne, Inheritance, And Women’s Property.” Studies in the Novel, vol. 23, no. 1, 1991, pp. 107–18. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/ stable/29532769. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. The Norton Anthology of American Literature: Beginnings to 1820, 9th ed., edited by Robert S. Levine, W.W. Norton and Co., 2016, pp. 451-569.
Healy, Meghan. “Weak-Willed Lovers and Deformed Manliness: Masculinities in The Scarlet Letter and Ruth.” The Gaskell Journal, vol. 28, 2014, pp. 17–34. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/48518102. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.
Johnson, Claudia Durst. “Impotence and Omnipotence in the Scarlet Letter.” The New England Quarterly, vol. 66, no. 4, 1993, pp. 594–612. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/366035. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.
Tassi, Nina. “Hester’s Prisons: Sex, Intellect, and Gender in ‘The Scarlet Letter.’” CEA Critic, vol. 60, no. 3, 1998, pp. 23–36. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44377290. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.
The Punch 