The Scarlet Letter

I originally read this book in high school. I reread it now, with two more decades of life experience. I’ve lived among Christians who revere the Puritan era. I’ve experienced social shunning. I’m a male living in the #MeToo era where one sin of sexual harassment can lead to career demise.

In all of these situations, however, I side with Hawthorne’s sympathies towards those who bear the brunt of social shunning. Or at least, I try to side. If social order must be enforced (and social order in the case of a pregnancy is an extreme but common example), then it must be enforced loosely. That’s what prohibition, abortion, and the rest of the culture wars have taught us. It is foolishness to fight human nature.

At the same time, those who are persecuted are often ennobled by their suffering, as Hester Prynne and Pearl were by theirs. The Scarlet A became not a sign of Adultery but of Ability for Hester. Hawthorne holds her up as a model, and I follow her willingly against those (on whatever side of the left/right/center cultural battles) who hold that purity ought to be externally enforced all the time.

It is a tenuous foundation that we sit upon as Americans. We are often blind to the purity-seekers who more-or-less agree with us. Although we are considered a free country, we often bind up our fellow citizens in our quest for purity. Indeed, in so doing, we act like our forebears. Hawthorne reminds us of this well. Puritan New England is not that far away from us today.