Initially,
I found this theme in Hawthorne and Melville, and my reading in their books led to my discerning the theme in Milton. How (and when) do people translate impressions, feelings,
emotions and “peripheral” observations into clear, true and therefore
actionable facts about their environment and the actual character of the people
they are dealing with? These feelings and emotions might, in a larger
consideration, be “metaphysical” notions or impressions. Thus even outlandish (and,
ahem, not so outlandish) “shamanic” activity might lead to solid psychological,
ethical and political insights.
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)
