Moral Ambiguity In The Scarlet Letter, By Nathaniel Hawthorne

The perceived righteousness or reprehensibility of adultery by an individual subsists where that individual chooses to comply or dissent from the ubiquity of society. The perception of morals proffered in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is “shadowed forth,” as is stated in the words of one of Hawthorne’s contemporaries. (“Review of ‘The Scarlet Letter”’) In the novel, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale battle the respective shame and guilt imposed by a judgmental Puritanical society and an evil doctor and former acquaintance of Hester, Roger Chillingworth. An ambiguous conclusion may only inhere upon coexistence with humanistic characters, thrilling terror through the “caustic” use of supernatural events, and “graphic delineation.” (“Review of ‘The Scarlet Letter”’) Such characteristics of The Scarlet Letter, as claimed in the criticism, exist and thrive throughout the text. Each poises the undefined moral for being interpreted by each reader his or her own. The use of terror in The Scarlet Letter, employed to “masterly effect,” adds to the novel’s mystery and tragedy. (“Review of ‘The Scarlet Letter”’) …show more content…
While the contexts of the two main moral sources in the novel, nature and society, each show ideas of what is morally correct, incorrect, or indeterminately moral or immoral, the author’s own beliefs are irrelevant to what the novel offers in terms of a moral statement because the applicability and universality of any clearly defined moral is opportune for dissention. Meanwhile, the novel is multifaceted in its judgments on such items as Dimmesdale’s internal consistency, which is variously “dim” and filled with “many precious materials.” (Hawthorne 194). Alternate determinations of any one situation shadow the moral of the novel, no matter how extensively elaborated any one aspect of morality is within the