Hawthorne, Dark Romanticism, and the Nature of Evil

1. Hawthorne, Dark Romanticism, and the Nature of Evil Lauren Simcic 25 October 2012

2. Why Hawthorne? • Exploring evil is his hobby • Varied approaches • Studying him is my hobby • Little guesswork • Kept journals

3. Biographical Snippets • Born in Salem, 1804 • Changed “Hathorne” to “Hawthorne” • Momma’s boy • Little interest in school • Married Sophia Peabody

4. Biographical Snippets • Experienced success in his lifetime • With friends’ help! • The Scarlet Letter published 1850 • Mother’s death • Earlier works: Fanshawe and Twice Told Tales • Died 1864

5. The Social-Antisocial • Powerful connections • Emerson, Holmes, Longfellow • Brook Farm • Political involvement • Taylor and Pierce • Interest in family history • “Custom House” confession

6. Hawthorne’s Dark Romanticism “Each work is meant to instruct readers on the nature of sin, its role in human nature, and its function in personal salvation.” Jason Courtmanche

8. Earth’s Holocaust • Plot: Narrator describes massive bonfire, meant to extinguish evil on earth • Source of evil: the human heart • Important element: regeneration of social ills

10. Rappacini’s Daughter • Plot: A man enters a poisonous garden because of love for the woman inside. His attempts to cure her lead to her death. • Source of evil: Excessive intellectualism • Important element: Woman as (unintentional) temptress • Companion work: “The Birthmark”

11. The Minister’s Black Veil • Plot: A minister alarms his entire community by wearing a veil for decades • Source of evil: Concealed sin • Important element: Effect of sin on society • Companion work: “Young Goodman Brown”

12. Hawthorne’s Eve, Dimmesdale’s self-mutilation, Chillingworth’s obsession Puritan legalism, the Black Man, festering secret Calvinist undertones, sin inescapable

13. The Scarlet Letter • Plot… • Evil and sin NOT EQUIVALENT • “The fortunate fall” • Stigma remains • Important element: Religious allegory • Adam and Eve, Mary and Christ

14. The Fortunate Fall • Known as “Felix culpa” (happy fault) • Sin allows God to enter the world and redeem us, thus creating a greater good • Adopted by Augustine, Aquinas, and Ambrose

15. “Was that very sin, into which Adam precipitated himself and all his race, was it the destined means by which, over a long pathway of toil and sorrow, we are to attain a higher, brighter, and profounder happiness, than our lost birthright gave? Will not this idea account for the permitted existence of sin, as no other theory can?” From The Marble Faun

16. Hester Prynne Pearl

17. Arthur Dimmesdale

18. Roger Chillingworth

19. Mistakes about Salvation • If I suffer enough in isolation for my sin, I’ll be saved. (Hester and Arthur) “Is there no reality in the penitence thus sealed and witnessed by good works?” “Of penance, I have had enough. Of penintance, there has been none! Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly… Mine burns in secret!”

20. “Surely, surely we have ransomed one another, with all this woe!” “Wilt thou stand here with mother and me, to-morrow noontide?” “Not then Pearl, but another time… At the great judgement day… But the daylight of this world shall not see our meeting.”

21. He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but if they confess and turn from them they will receive mercy. -Proverbs 28:13 Whatever, you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in the inner rooms shall be proclaimed upon the housetops. -Luke 12:2-3

22. Mistakes about Salvation • I am beyond God’s reach “I fear! I fear! That when we forgot our God… it was thenceforth vain to hope that we could meet hereafter, in an everlasting and pure reunion.” • Romans 10:9

23. Undeserved Spoils Chillingworth is spurned Satan figure “Hast thou enticed me into a bond that will prove the ruin of my soul?” “Not thy soul. No not thine!” “That old man’s revenge has been blacker than my sin!”

24. “The Unpardonable Sin might consist in a want of love and reverence for the Human Soul; in consequence of which, the investigator pried into its dark depths, not with a hope or purpose of making it better, but from a cold philosophical curiosity… Would not this, in other words, be a separation of the intellect from the heart?"

25. You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things…So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment?  Romans 2:1,3

26. Unforeseen Benefits • Sin and repentance can lead to character development • Hester’s sixth sense, Dimmesdale’s incredible sermon “all things together” David and BathshebaSolomon

27. A Flood of Sunshine • Interesting contradiction there… • Pearl’s unusual behavior • What saves you? • Acknowledging sin and confessing it (scaffold scene) *Social effects (Pearl again)

28. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgives our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. -1 John 1:9 But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. -1 Corinthians 6:11

29. Discussion • The problem of underestimating God’s grace • Separation of head and heart is an impediment to the Christian walk • Can the good of Christ’s sacrifice be viewed as outweighing human corruption?

30. The End