Ripping Letters: “Illuminating Incidents” in Scarlet Letter and Huckleberry Finn
In the novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Scarlet Letter by Mark Twain and Nathaniel Hawthorne, respectively, each of the protagonists attempt to surmount the conditions and beliefs imposed upon them by unsympathetic societies. In the romance Scarlet Letter, set in mid-seventeenth century Puritan Boston and told by an omniscient narrator, Hester Prynne, as a single, mother in Puritan Boston, attempts to transcend the punishment of the eponymous scarlet letter, which she must wear for her adultery. Meanwhile, in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, set in the antebellum South along the Mississippi River and realistically narrated in the first person by protagonist …show more content…
At the time of Hester’s “illuminating incident” (Wharton), the scarlet letter represents Hester’s sin of adultery, which is an inherently societal construct because without her Puritan society to condemn her adultery as immoral, Hester would not feel “the burden of shame of anguish” (Hawthorne 199) of the scarlet letter. In this way, Hester’s removal of the scarlet letter represents her rejection of Puritan society’s judgement of her. Nevertheless, she is forced to replace the letter on her gown after her daughter Pearl refuses to accept Hester as her mother (207). Hawthorne goes on to characterize Hester without the scarlet letter as beautiful and radiant, with “a crimson flush was glowing on her cheek, that had been long so pale” (199). However, the replacement of the scarlet letter effects a “dreary change” (207) in Hester: “As if there were a withering spell in the sad letter, her beauty, the warmth and richness of her womanhood, departed like fading sunshine, and a gray shadow seemed to fall across her” (207). These descriptions of Hester with and without the scarlet letter on, combined with the significance of the scarlet letter as a symbol of Hester’s sin, convey Hawthorne’s criticism that society’s judgement of an individual is often an inefficient determiner of that individual’s moral character and thus, unjust in its wrongful assumptions of an individual’s
In the novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Scarlet Letter by Mark Twain and Nathaniel Hawthorne, respectively, each of the protagonists attempt to surmount the conditions and beliefs imposed upon them by unsympathetic societies. In the romance Scarlet Letter, set in mid-seventeenth century Puritan Boston and told by an omniscient narrator, Hester Prynne, as a single, mother in Puritan Boston, attempts to transcend the punishment of the eponymous scarlet letter, which she must wear for her adultery. Meanwhile, in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, set in the antebellum South along the Mississippi River and realistically narrated in the first person by protagonist …show more content…
At the time of Hester’s “illuminating incident” (Wharton), the scarlet letter represents Hester’s sin of adultery, which is an inherently societal construct because without her Puritan society to condemn her adultery as immoral, Hester would not feel “the burden of shame of anguish” (Hawthorne 199) of the scarlet letter. In this way, Hester’s removal of the scarlet letter represents her rejection of Puritan society’s judgement of her. Nevertheless, she is forced to replace the letter on her gown after her daughter Pearl refuses to accept Hester as her mother (207). Hawthorne goes on to characterize Hester without the scarlet letter as beautiful and radiant, with “a crimson flush was glowing on her cheek, that had been long so pale” (199). However, the replacement of the scarlet letter effects a “dreary change” (207) in Hester: “As if there were a withering spell in the sad letter, her beauty, the warmth and richness of her womanhood, departed like fading sunshine, and a gray shadow seemed to fall across her” (207). These descriptions of Hester with and without the scarlet letter on, combined with the significance of the scarlet letter as a symbol of Hester’s sin, convey Hawthorne’s criticism that society’s judgement of an individual is often an inefficient determiner of that individual’s moral character and thus, unjust in its wrongful assumptions of an individual’s