1 17 08 Hawthorne day 4 Business Signs

1. 17. 08 | Hawthorne (day 4) • Business • Signs, symbols, the letter A. • HW – Read through “Child at the Brookside” chapter for Tues. Finish for Wed. – Upcoming schedule: • • Melville, thurs. Poe, Mon. Auster, Tues. – Tues. First paper due [2/8]

Chillingworth + Dimmesdale • We talked about this book as addressing the sign as it is applied in real life with real stakes. We talked about the Custom House asking the question of signification straight out, “what is the mystic meaning of the A? ” • Chillingworth + Dimmesdale’s relationship revolves around questions of inside/outside, public/private, sign/meaning. • My contention is that their relation even further draws the issue of signification out of allegory and into lived experience.

Sign, Signified, Signifier Some people regard language, when reduced to its elements, as a naming-process only_a list of words, each corresponding to the thing that it names. For example: This conception is open to criticism at several points. 1. It assumes that ready-made ideas exist before words; 2. it does not tell us whether a name is vocal or psychological in nature (arbor, for instance, can be considered from either viewpoint); 3. finally, it lets us assume that the linking of a name and a thing is a very simple operation—an assumption that is anything but true. But this rather naive approach can bring us near the truth by showing us that the linguistic unit is a double entity, one formed by the associating of two terms. • Pg. 5

Saussure’s Sign • Arbitrary • Consensus • Chained; Contextual • Multiple • Difference, differentiation

Chillingworth + Dimmesdale • Sickness as symptom: – “symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part” [122] • Confession: – Doctor / Confessor / Diagnosis / Identity – “wherefore not; since all the powers of nature call so earnestly for the confession of sin…” [118] • The mark: – “A rare case!” he muttered. “I must needs look deeper into it. A strange sympathy betwixt soul and body! Were it only for the art’s sake, I must search this matter to the bottom!” [124] – Discovers the mark: “But with what a wild look of wonder, joy, and horror!” [124]

Dimmesdale + Prynne • Chillingworth asks for comparison: – “Is Hester Prynne the less miserable, think you, for that scarlet letter on her breast? ” [121] • So, how DO they compare? • They are both adulterers and suffering because of it, etc. But I suggest that they’re suffering from a cultural desire for transparency, a window to the soul, for a one-to-one naming system. • Reading: Finding the one-to-one sign, the naming system that leads on from body to soul, appearances to reality, nature to God, that is the very foundation of the Boston world and part of the project of this novel is putting this system of naming to the test.

Let’s hit the letter A again. What does it mean? “On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore; and which was of a splendor in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony" 47 – my footnote says "sumptuary regulations" were rules of decorum intended to enforce class distinction.

“A” – sun shines on it – 70 • Changes H’s identity – giving up her individuality, she would become the general symbol at which the preacher and moralist might point, and in which they might vivify and embody their images of women's frailty and sinful passion. . . as the figure, the body, the reality of sin - 71 – 'emerging into another state of being' – 'her sin, her ignominy, were the roots which she had struck into the soil’ • Brings her back to reality – Lastly, in lieu of these shifting scenes, came back the rude market-place of the Puritan settlement, with all the townspeople assembled and levelling their stern regards at Hester Prynne, -- yes, at herself, -- who stood on the scaffold of the pillory, an infant on her arm, and the letter A, in scarlet, fantastically embroidered with gold thread, upon her bosom! Could it all be true? She clutched the child so fiercely to her breast, that it sent forth a cry; she turned her eyes downward at the scarlet letter, and evne touched it with her fing, to assure herself that the infant and the shame were real. Yes! -- these were her realities, -- all else had vanished! [53]

On the pillory: • Discerning the impracticable state of the poor culprit's mind, the elder clergyman, who had carefully prepared himself for the occasion, addresed to the multitude a discourse on sin, in all its branches, but with continual reference to the ignominious letter. So forcibly did he dwell upon this symbol, for the hour or more during which his periods were rolling over the people's heads, that it assumed new terrors in their imagination, and seemed to derive its scarlet hue from the flames of the infernal pit. Hester Prynne, meanwhile, kept her place upon the pedestal of shame, with glazed eyes, and an air of weary indifference. . . With the same hard demeanour, she was led back to prison, and vanished form the public gaze within its iron-clamped portal. It was whispered, by those who peered after here, that the scarlet letter threw a lurid gleam along the dark passsage-way of the interior. [62]

“A”: • Stranger's eyes burn it fresh into her skin - 77 – except for the bond-servant of the Governor who thinks it is a mark of distinction 94 – Children playing in the garden who see the A run in fear. 73 • Hester thinks it gives her sympathetic knowledge of hidden sins in others 77. – That unsunned snow in the matron's boom, and the burning shame on Hester Prynne's - what had the two in common? – O Fiend, whose talisman was that fatal symbol, wouldst though leave nothing, wheather in youth or age, for this poor sinner to revere? -- Such loss of faith is ever one of the saddest results of sin. Be it accepted as a proof that all was not corrupt in this poor vitcim of her own frailty, and man's hard law, that Hester PRynne struggled to believe that no fellow-mortal was guilty like herself.

“A”: Skill & Imagination – She bore on her breast, in the curiously embroidered letter, a specimen of her delicate and imaginative skill, of which the dames of the court might gladly have availed themselves. . . – turns her ignominy into a profitable business. Fitting she was castigated in the market-place. – But she was never called on to make wedding garments. "The exception indicated the ever relentless vigor with which society frowned on her sin. ” 74 – To Hester Prynne it might have been a mode of expressing, and therefore, soothing, the passion of her life. Like all other joys, she rejected it as sin. This morbid meddling of conscience with an immaterial matter betokened, it is to be feared, no genuine and steadfast penitence, but something doubtful, something that might be deeply wrong, beneath. [75]

“A” • It is both a punishment for adultery and a prideful sexy adornment, it makes imagination feel sinful, crashing it on the rock of the real, yet inspires imagination to contemplate sin, unites Hester with all sinners and ostracizes her. • What does the symbol A mean?

The Minister’s Vigil • Regarding the structure of the book, you know this has to be an important chapter. – Second of three pillory scenes. – comes in almost the exact middle of the book. • Set the scene. – What have we just learned about Dimmesdale? – What is his state of mind? • “Walking in the shadow of a dream…” [133] – What happens at the pillory?

• "Nothing was more common, in those days, than to interpret all meteoric appearances, and other natural phenomena, that occurred with less regularity than the rise and set of sun and moon, as so many revelations from a supernatural source. " • "Often its credibility rested on the faith of some lonely witness, who beheld the wonder through the colored, magnifying, and distorting medium of his imagination, and shaped it more distinctly in his afterthought. ” • “We impute, therefore, solely to the disease in his own eye and heart…” [140] • Good Governor Winthrop [143]

Other As • the pillory itself, which is in the Marketplace - 50 – that instrument of disciplined, so fashioned as to confine the human head in its tight grasp, and thus hold it up to the public gaze. • The arched form of the Governor's house – 93 • Governor’s breastplate - 95 • Pearl's dress – "But it was a remarkable attribute of this garb, and indeed, of the child's whole appearance, that it irresistibly and inevitably reminded the beholder of the token which Hester Prynne was doomed to war upon her bosom. It was the scarlet letter in another form; the scarlet letter endowed with life!" 92 • Others?

Pearl • "But, in truth, Pearl was the one, as well as th other [her object of affection and the emblem of her guilt and torture]; and only in consequence of that identity had Hester contrived so perfectly to represent the scarlet letter in her appearence. " • First object she showed awareness of is the letter. 86 • Throws flowers at the letter 87 • Rings the letter with thistles. • So what is the relationship between Pearl and the letter? • What is Pearl like? We will start there on Tues.