![]() Hester herself occupies a middle ground, between the two extremes of Dimmesdale and Chillingworth, as it were, through her own positioning in this Paysage Moralise (as indeed, she does, right through the story). He is a passive (but not inwardly uninterested) watcher of Hester’s shame, and although his function in the tale is only hinted at, at this stage, as Chillingworth’s was, we are seized of his presence this early in the story. He, too, is a spectator of a sinner’s Tribulation although he is tied in with this sinner in a way unknown to the general community of Boston at the time. Converse Dimmesdale, from his vantage position of physical elevation, look down upon Hester as well as the crowd (which then include his yet unknown but future tormentor).ĭimmesdale’s physical position, then, seems to define his symbolical-psychological role in the narrative. Hawthorne’s imagination working at lever pitch here, invests Chillingworth with all his concentrated art to bring out the voyeuristic aspect, especially, of Puritanism. As he looks up, Chillingworth, apparently, can see both Hester (on the pillory) and Dimmesdale (on the balcony), and his (Chillingworth’s) physical position at this stage, in the narrative defines his symbolical-psychological role in the tale as a voyeur as an unnatural prier into the private lives of others. Thus, Dimmesdale’s apparent status at this stage in the proceedings contrasts with Hester’s unbecoming but temporary elevation to status as a Public Sinner, as well as with Roger Chillingworth’s apparent lack of status, but actually his significance in the plot is hinted at, in that Hester reacts sharply when she recognizes him in that crowd. Hester’s public shame, symbolised in the presence of the vivid Scarlet Letter on her bosom and the baby Pearl in her arms, contrasts sharply with Dimmesdale’s apparently respectable position (and his private, anonymous shame) in this community as well as with Chillingworth’s apparent lack of status in this community (but he has central importance in the unfolding of this “tale of human frailty and woe”). Chillingworth (or Prynne, as he was presumably called in Europe) stands in the company of a Red Indian who has come to collect a ransom for releasing him to the community of Boston-as if to emphasize Chillingworth’s affinity with a moral outsider (the Red Indian) as well as Chillingworth’s low status in this community (indeed, his anonymity) at this stage. Conversely, Roger Chillingworth stands anonymous in the crowd which has turned out to watch Hester’s public shame on this day. Arthur is, at this stage, sitting in company of the would-be judges and dignitaries of this Puritan settlement. At this juncture, Arthur Dimmesdale sits in the balcony of a structure overlooking the town-square, in which the pillory is situated. Thus, the first pillory scene occurs in the first two chapters of the book when the entire Puritan settlement of Boston has turned out in broad daylight to witness Hester Prynne’s punishment as a result of her moral as well as legal lapse. Artistically (that is, in terms of the general symmetry of the narrative of the book) and dramatically, these three scenes are at the very core of Hawthorne’s imagination in the book. While there are many artistic features of this book which could stand up to the closest critical scrutiny, the above question necessitates a consideration of only one of them-namely, the placing and significance of the three pillory scenes in The Scarlet Letter‘. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is artistically one of the tightest books of fiction ever written (with the concomitant virtues and limitations of such a definition). They now felt themselves, at last, inhabitants of the same sphere.Three Pillory Scenes in the Scarlet Letter The grasp, cold as it was, took away what was the dreariest in the interview. It was with fear, and tremulously, and, as it were, by a slow, reluctant necessity, that Arthur Dimmesdale put forth his hand, chill as death, and touched the chill hand of Hester Prynne. The soul beheld its features in the mirror of the passing moment. Each a ghost, and awe-stricken at the other ghost! They were awe-stricken likewise at themselves because the crisis flung back to them their consciousness, and revealed to each heart its history and experience, as life never does, except at such breathless epochs. So strangely did they meet in the dim wood, that it was like the first encounter, in the world beyond the grave, of the two spirits who had been intimately connected in their former life, but now stood coldly shuddering, in mutual dread, as not yet familiar with their state, more wonted to the companionship of disembodied beings. “It was no wonder that they thus questioned one another’s actual and bodily existence, and even doubted of their own. ![]()
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