“ Transcendentalism in Scarlet Letter”

Name : Gausvami Surbhi A.

Assignment Topic : “ Transcendentalism in Scarlet letter”

Paper no: 10, American Literature

Email id: gausvamisurbhi17@gmail.com

Roll No. : 23

Submitted to :  Dr. Dilip Barad, Department of English MK Bhavnagar University  

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“ Transcendentalism in Scarlet Letter”

# What is Transcendentalism?    

Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the 1830s and 1840s in the Eastern region of the United States as a protest to the general state of culture and society.  Among the transcendentalists’ core beliefs was the inherent goodness of both man and nature. Transcendentalists believed that society and its institutions—particularly organized religion and political parties—ultimately corrupted the purity of the individual. They had faith that man is at his best when truly “self-reliant” and independent. It is only from such real individuals that true community could be formed. They were very optimistic about the perfectibility of humans by following one’s own conscience. The Romantic Movement gave rise to New England Transcendentalism, which portrayed a less restrictive relationship between God and Universe. The new philosophy presented the individual with a more personal relationship with God. Major transcendentalists are

        

   Ralph Waldo Emerson - essayist, author, leading exponent of Transcendentalism

      Henry David Thoreau - poet, essayist, abolitionist; best known for Walden

      Nathaniel Hawthorne - immensely influential 19th-century American novelist

    Herman Melville - influential novelist, author of Moby-Dic

           Walt Whitman - American poet (Leaves of Grass, etc.), humanist     

       Transcendentalism as a movement that supports the conviction that divinity can be found in all things, Hawthorne deliberately represents his personal beliefs and observes all the ethics of transcendentalism in The Scarlet Letter. Nathaniel Hawthorne who had been brought up in a puritanical society with its rigid laws tried to blend his favor upon transcendentalist ideas with his religious thought together in his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter. 

It’s quite opposed to puritan orthodoxy and dogmatic theology of all religious. It is highly influenced by the individual idealism of romanticism and self reliance, nature and human as a central aspect of everything. While puritan puts religion at the center and human at the periphery. So transcendentalism saw a direct connection between universe and human.

It is believed by transcendentalist that man is able to find good and evil, by which he can improve his condition on earth.  The ideas of a Supreme Being, or of immortality and freedom of will, are inherent in the human mind. What attracted Hawthorne in Transcendentalism was its free inquiry, its radicalism, its contact with actual life. It is remarkable to pay attention that the main aspects of the transcendental ideas which occupied Hawthorne’s thought in his romances, especially in The Scarlet Letter, were the doctrines of self-reliance and of compensation. According to the idea of compensation every action carries its reward or punishment with it.

#  Transcendentalism in Scarlet Letter:

In scarlet letter, Hawthorne portrays puritans and their religion. They are very much orthodox in the matter of God and religion and tend to follow them blindly, at the cost of human being. In the first  chapter society curses and abuses Hester for her adultery. Would it be different if the community had different religions? It probably would because other religions might have a different opinion on adultery. But puritan society can not bear such adultery. Transcendentalism allows one to think about self. In this way transcendentalism comes into large umbrella of ‘Romanticism’.  The follower of romantic movement strongly believed in individualism. Transcendentalists try to find themselves through nature. Nature cannot influence a human to think a certain way. Nature actually reveals what a person really feels without any thoughts that are not from him/her mind.

Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter illustrates self-reliance in a society in which there is no respect for individuals. During her punishment, Hester passes some different and difficult stages which show her as a transcendental and self-reliant character. First stage shows her as sinner, cursed by society, seen as lawbreaker. Which takes place in prison, market and scaffold. The second stage portrays Hester as victim who suffers everything with persistently and patiently. in the third stage society accepts her as good human being who helps poor people and now the letter “A” has different meaning than earlier that is ‘A’ for “Able or Angel”.

Hester is, indeed, a sinner. But her sin is a cause not of evil but of good. Suffering disciplines Hester, so that she grows strong. Sorrow awakens her sympathies, so that she becomes a nurse. In fact, the best deeds of Hester’s life come about through her fall from grace. Her charity to the poor, her comfort to the broken-hearted, and her unquestioned presence in times of trouble are the direct result of her search for repentance. If Hester had not sinned, she would never have discovered the true depths of tenderness within herself. Considering Hawthorne’s transcendental ideas Hester did nothing wrong. She is faithful and loyal toward her true lover, Arthur Dimmesdale, and also she is not disloyal to her evil husband, Chillingworth, because she has never loved him as we see she tells Chillingworth, “Thou knowest I was frank with thee. I felt no love, nor feigned any”. but her love for Dimmesdale is a real love. She wants honestly to be with her lover forever. Transcendentalists do not consider Hester as a sinful woman who broke the rules because in the sight of God she had never been married. Hester just obeys her heart because she feels no conflict, as Dimmesdale feels, between her heart and her head. (ESSAYMONSTER)

The one of the major themes of Transcendentalist is Individual v/s society.  Hester  is outcast woman, lives in forest with her daughter Pearl. Puritan society does not accept her and pearl is not allowed to study in Puritan school. Society, for the transcendentalists, is a blinding, deforming, and devouring force. What matters to them is the individual, who has the potential to be beautiful, divine, and free. Hester and Pearl live as social outcasts who can't attend Church services, and Pearl is not accepted into the Puritan school. Children are taught to shun and mock them both. They are literally alone even when in the midst of the community, yet they seem closer to the divine and are more free than others in the community. Another theme is the idea of the sacred within. Transcendentalists do not believe in one religion and certainly not in the highly restrictive Christianity practiced by the Puritans. For the transcendentalists, God cannot be confined to a single name or religion. One can develop the sense of scared within self. Hester developed her own sense of morality and helped poor people.  

When puritan society was forcing Hester to admit her adultery, it was not because they think that adultery is wrong but it is taught to them through religion and religious masters. the cause of the crowd having the same idea was not cause the true believed it, it was taught to them. Their teachers forced them to accept these ideas, not allowing them to question the teachings.  Nature is the central element of transcendentalism. When Hester was abandon to live in society she prefers to live in forest surrounded by woods. She is quite free from the thoughts of society, what society would think about her. Nature allows her to spent time with herself. And become the medium of expression for Pearl and Hester. In Scarlet letter, characters believe in supernatural. Transcendentalist accepts supernatural elements. Transcendentalists saw the world split in two. One side was God, spirits, and over-soul. The other side was humans, animals, and nature.

# Quotes from the Novel related with Transcendentalism:

“She had wandered, without rule or guidance, into a moral wilderness. Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods. The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers - stern and wild ones - and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.” Chapter XVIII

Transcendentalist focused around nature. Transcendentalist felt that they could learn about themselves from nature. Nature is also part of the over-soul, equally as important as humans.

“It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility.” Chapter XIII

Transcendentalism is about transforming or changing. Hatred changing into love could possibly be a example of transcendental. (CRISOLOGO)

“A pure hand needs no glove to cover it.“ Chapter XII

Transcendentalist believed in the truth. Transcendentalist did not want to follow society thought their rules and regulations, transcendentalist wanted to express them selves by their own thoughts, not ones given to them by religion or culture. When people fallow the rules and regulations, they are fictionally meaning they are putting on gloves, covering their impulse.

“A bodily disease, which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may, after all, be but a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part.” Chapter X

Hawthorn writes that the character is suffering from a spiritual sickness. Transcendentalist did not try to prove that their theories of the spiritual world were true, but that everyone is free to believe in it anyway they want to.

# Conclusion:

Transcendentalism is not a religion, it is a way of thinking. One could be involved in a religion and still believe in Transcendentalism. Transcendentalism is how one views the world through their eyes. Knowing one's self is key to learning about transcendentalism. Transcendentalist are constantly faced with questions about themselves and their thoughts.  It must have been hard to go against everyone in the community. But what motivated the transcendentalist was the phrase "fallow your heart". 

Works Cited

CRISOLOGO, CHRISTIAN KYLE. CONNECTIONS BETWEEN SCARLET LETTER AND TRANSCENDENTALISM. 11 June 2008. 25 0ctober 2017 <http://aceenglishproject.blogspot.in/>.

ESSAYMONSTER. 4 December 2015. 25 October 2017 <http://essaymonster.net/literature/901-transcendentalist-codes-in-hawthorne-s-the-scarlet.html>.