In The Scarlet Letter, important thematic junctures in the text are driven by Hester and then Dimmesdale identifying Chillingworth as THE ENEMY. This is related, also, to their identifying that the society and ethos of the theocratic Calvinist Massachusetts Bay Colony is a gross distortion of revealed Christian theology. Interestingly, The Scarlet Letter represents an—if not the—American national epic, and so typifies a handful of novels that literary scholars casually call “the Great American Novel.” Other books falling into this category include Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, and Samuel Clemens’ The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Interestingly, the theme of “suspicion, discovery, insight” figure as salient philosophic and plot-driving themes in these novels. Here I will reflect on Hawthorne, Melville and Milton. I will return to The Scarlet Letter at the end of this note.
In Moby-Dick, the problem is explored through Ishmael at last recognizing that Ahab is evil and that an affiliation with his leadership and his monomaniacal quest to slay the white whale will lead to destruction. In the novel there are a number of similar instances of emotions and impressions leading to important insights; for example, insights into the character of the mates: first mate Starbuck (conformist, i.e. clerk; Melville concludes this sketch seeing in Starbuck a “lack/loss of manhood”); second mate Stubb (coward, despite appearances--indeed, a moral coward); third mate Flask (reckless, self-effacing, superficial—an uninvolved ghost of a man). Melville examines his own narrator along such lines. Through much emotion, superstitious exploration, rationalization, philosophical speculation, theological re-examination, and so on, Ishmael discovers and rejects his own Platonic tendencies (transcendental reverie, aloofness, sophomoric cynicism unchecked by a proper and sensible (albeit closely-related) skepticism). Among Melville’s conclusions are that these weaknesses are: 1) hard to see, and 2) fatal.
In The Confidence-Man, Melville offers a series of scenes or vignettes in which people have odd impressions leading to insight (though, more often than not, people dismiss their impressions, and much to their peril.)
In the novella Benito Cereno, Melville offers a grotesque examination of the subject of indifference to one’s surroundings and the presence of an enemy. Delano, an American ship captain happens upon a slave ship taken over by the slaves; the slaves successfully deceive Captain Delano into believing they are “friends” with the captain of the slave ship, Benito Cereno, who has given the slaves the run of the ship. Melville describes the American captain overlooking all sorts of emotional and physical clues as to what has actually transpired aboard the ship. The scenes are amazingly striking and incongruous, including Delano watching with beneficent (indeed almost pious) naiveté as a slave holds a straight razor to Cereno’s neck and shaves him. Suspension drives much of the plot as the reader waits for Captain Delano to figure out what is really going on. At last Captain Delano realizes the true state of affairs aboard Cereno's ship, and he proceeds to take action. The "utilitarian" character and astonishing efficiency of Delano's movements in re-taking the ship are fascinating, and in this regard Delano's capability and quick intelligence under pressure are outstanding examples of a "heroic man of action." The question, of course, is why (and how) did it take him so long to arrive at a clear awareness of the situation?
In Paradise Lost, Milton offers scenes in which Adam is suspicious of what the angels (and God) have told him about his state, his nature, Paradise, the motions of the planets, and so on. Being very clever, Adam notes the contradictions in the angels’ statements, but he keeps his cards very close to his chest and doesn’t let on that he suspects. There are of course many such “clues” in the poem, including the notion that an orthodox reading of the poem is itself as misleading as Adam and Eve’s prelapsarian perceptions of Eden, each other, and the universe. We might consider, too, that the language of the poem—and, more largely, human language (and notwithstanding the sophistication of late-Renaissance/early-modern understanding)—is subject to error, misrepresentation, conceptual confusion, philosophical credulity, and thus requires much careful and attentive review.
Complicating the matter—and I address this in the Afterword to the International Authors edition of The Scarlet Letter—is that we are bound by our language, and thus, for example, Hester and Dimmesdale are delimited and circumscribed by Calvinist language, and so when they transcend the mores of the community and the community’s theocratic catechism, they are very confused. Initially, Hester and Dimmesdale are forced to interpret their dissent in theological terms, believing they are very great sinners, and so on. Of course, Hester gets beyond this. Poor Dimmesdale, however, is rather like Starbuck in Moby-Dick, and he is destroyed by his desire for “community respectability,” even though the criteria of that “respectability” are false and destructive to his well-being; indeed, they lead to his death.
There is much more to be said on these matters. Suffice it to say we must be on guard and pay close attention to all of our impressions, and no matter how odd, absurd or weird they may be.
Click the cover image
to view the Amazon page for the International Authors edition of The Scarlet
Letter with my Afterword “‘A’ is for Antinomian: Theology and Politics in The Scarlet
Letter.”
Originally posted to Highbrow April 15, 2025 (HERE)
