Shame, Hypocrisy, and Empathy in The Scarlet Letter: A Pastor’s Take

The Puritans in American Literature

“Welcome to Honors American Literature!” You probably haven’t heard that line since high school, right? After his first couple of weeks of school, my boy came home and wanted to talk about a book he was reading for his HAmLit class, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

I admit that it had been a minute since I’d given Hawthorne’s story even a second thought, but I was intrigued. He asked,

Dad, the Puritans created a great deal of shame according to Hawthorne, didn’t they?

adding,

That’s messed up.

The next few weeks we had several conversations about guilt and shame, the various characters of the story, its heroine, Hester Prynne and its pity-him-or-hate-him-minister, Arthur Dimmesdale. I re-read the story myself, so I could better dialogue with my son.

How is The Scarlet Letter Romantic? 

Romance? I don’t recall from my own stint in high school that Hawthorne’s book was a romance. Harlequin or Hallmark? Nope. Although there are indeed elements of eros, The Scarlet Letter is part of the broader classification of Romantic literature, a genre that takes seriously the experience of the individual, his/her intuition, feelings and emotion in a way that hadn't really happened that way before.

Romanticism and the art it produced countered the rationality of the Enlightenment and its accompanying moral and cultural norms. It laid open the inner workings of the human heart in all its uniqueness and complexity and was unafraid to question social taboos for the sake of the human conscience.

We see its literary flourishing in the late 18th century through the mid-19th century. Literary icons such as Keats, Byron, and Shelley produced the poetry of Romanticism that spurred on the Brontë sisters to plumb the depths of the human heart in novels such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.

Hawthorne stands in this stream of writing.

Hawthorne’s 19th Century Critique in a 21st Century World

Hawthorne does several unconventional things in The Scarlet Letter. He critiques the religious and moral tradition of 17th and 18th century Puritanism in Massachusetts, posits a woman as the heroine of the story, and elevates and redeems a scandalous love.

While it would be untrue to say that Mr. Hawthorne was in any way "woke," he was edgy. Neither he nor his heroine, Hester Prynne, would be likely poster children for the 21st century #MeToo movement and certainly not Reverend Dimmesdale whose abuse of power is never once mentioned. Nor is his novel a radical shift towards following one’s heart to love whom one loves. Adultery and infidelity are still viewed against their larger biblical and moral prohibitions. What is taken issue with is the harsh stigma associated with human failing which is prescribed to an individual by a legalistic culture that unfairly excoriates and marks the accused.

That was edgy!

The Scourge of the Salem Witch Trials

Some of you are aware that Hawthorne’s great-great-grandfather, Jonathan Hathorne, was the judge that presided over the Salem witch trials in 1692-93. In some sense, The Scarlet Letter appears to be Hawthorne’s attempt to wrestle with this sordid legacy.

I think that there is much to be appreciated in this perspective. While the themes of shame, loathing, sin, and guilt are readily available for the picking and the tenderness of a forbidden and abiding love underlies the relationship between Hester and Arthur, the larger theme of their religion’s unrelenting and unmerciful condemnation of an individual as represented by the letter embroidered into the clothes covering Hester’s chest is worth a reading by every pastor out there. 

The Scarlet Letter as a Critique of our Own Religious Tradition

Why, you ask? Simply put, for the Gospel to rise to the top in its mercy and grace, we have to be willing to critique the religious dishes in which we present our faith to the world and the community around us.

In recent years, folks within the Evangelical tradition have had their own Nathaniel Hawthorne moments to ask whether or not the tradition of their fore-mothers and fore-fathers may have created its own set of scarlet letters to stitch upon those it accused, condemned, and were prone to make remember their ever-present estrangement from the community of the faithful.

Some soul-searching is in order. Maybe your tradition isn't evangelicalism. Whatever it is, how might it have reflected something less than the Gospel’s power of love, forgiveness and transformation, and rather imparted a puritanical rigidity to right living and thinking to the detriment of another’s soul and well being?

The Scarlet Letter has the power to help us critique our own views on sin, guilt, shame, and punishment in a way that is refreshingly modern.  

Empathy for the Apparent Villain

I’ll leave you with this thought. My son shared with me that his teacher despises the character of Arthur Dimmesdale for the hypocrisy and abuse of power that he represents in his failure to do what is right and to publicly admit his sin. He leaves Hester Prynne to wallow in the weightiness of public derision alone. The teacher’s sentiment is fully understandable.

However, both my boy and I felt an empathy for Dimmesdale, not because we felt his actions justifiable, but that the expectations for his position and the sacrosanct esteem in which he was held by the community left no outlet for him to express his own guilt and shame. Such is the case when we cower in our sin because we fear the repercussion of bringing it into the light. Like Dimmesdale, we carve our own scarlet letter upon our bare breast of which only we are aware and it smears us, seers us, and eventually shatters us, as it did the pitiful pastor. 

Two Reasons Why You (as a Pastor) Should Read the Book

I encourage you to read Hawthorne’s American classic for these two reasons. One, to help you thoughtfully critique your own Christian tradition in the way it deals with sin, guilt, and shame. Is it Gospel-like or Gospel-lite?

Two, to help you to perhaps seek release from your own hidden shame that you wear upon your chest of which only you and God are aware. It might be high time to unburden yourself of whatever sin and guilt beset you and find the forgiveness and release of a merciful and gracious God.