It is known that Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne were good friends. Actually, Melville inscribed his book Moby Dick, to Hawthorne because of their close relationship and professional admiration. So, it’s no wonder that he took the liberty of giving detailed insights, and even well-meant criticism, to Hawthorne’s work.
Based on Hawthorne’s short story collection Mosses from and Old Manse, Melville provided the following characteristics of his friend: “For spite of all the Indian-summer sunlight on the hither side of Hawthorne’s soul, the other side—like the dark half of the physical sphere–is shrouded in a blackness, ten times black.” However, this “blackness” is also observable in other Hawthorne books, such as The Scarlet Letter.
Firstly, I must state that I would rather use “darkness” instead of blackness, for Hawthorne deals with the dark side of human personality, and decaying morality and its results on individuals’ life. Throughout, The Scarlet Letter explores the motives behind protagonist Hester Prynne’s sin. The mid 17th-century Puritan New England society that Prynne belongs to finds her sin unacceptable and unforgivable. As punishment, Hester is doomed to wear a scarlet scarf with the golden letter A stitched on it. The letter A serves for the rest of her life as a sign and a reminder of her evil-doings. The letter stands for “adultery” for she had a baby with a man who was not her husband (whose name she refuses to give, to save his reputation).
But to tell things in order. Even the story’s beginning, in which characters gather in front of the prison door, suggests something terrible will happen, creating a sad and tense atmosphere. Then comes the sinner, placed on the same level with the most horrible criminals, the society last pushing her away. “In all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it. Every gesture, every word, and even the silence of those with whom she came in contact, implied, and often expressed, that she was banished…” (Hawthorne, 1994, p. 71). All the townspeople avoid Hester, pointing at her as if she has done some contract with the devil himself. Consequently, the reader empathises with Hester, in her solitude and troubles. Only her stitching art provides some acceptable position in society. On the other hand, it also provides a source of pain. For the scarlet letter (as the writer himself describes in the chapter “The Custom House” about what happened when he found it and tried it on himself), is like burning heat or a red-hot iron, burning the wearer’s bosom as if containing some magic.
As if Hester’s trials are not enough, she suffers from her child, Pearl. Little Pearl is “an imp of evil, emblem and product of sin” and “Hester had never felt a moment’s safety; not a moment’s calm enjoyment of her” because “she fancied that she beheld, not her own miniature portrait, but another face, fiendlike in small black mirror of Pearl’s eye.” (Hawthorne, 1994, p. 79, 81, 82). Sometimes it seems to Hester that Pearl is not her child but a recreation of her sinful passion, some devil reincarnated in her child’s body. Hester, and even the reader, may feel that the girl is somehow cognizant of what her mother has done and all its impact and connections to specific people. Above everything else, Hester is interested in her mother’s shame symbol, but with an ill interest. Pearl considers it an inherent part of Hester. However, she knows from other people that it signifies something bad. She “amused herself with gathering handfuls of wild-flowers and flinging them, one by one, at her mother’s bosom, dancing up and down like a little elf whenever she hit the scarlet letter” (Hawthorne, 1994, p. 82). Her actions make her mother suffer more.
But the child is just one presence of black magic. The theme of witchcraft appears in other forms, most obviously represented by Mistress Hibbins. The writer clearly states that the people consider her a witch, a member of some sect, although the society tolerates her because she is a sister of Governor Bellingham, the town’s most important and weighted personage. She used to attend secret meetings deep in the forests with the so-called Black Man. This Black Man may be Satan himself. Several times, he is described as having a big book into which people, mostly sinners, assign themselves with their blood. These two creatures provide the clearest representations of the “blackness.” However, they are not the only ones.
Another, maybe less overt man of the black side is Roger Chillingworth, an old, creepy scholar and physician whose only passion is studying clever books and hunting for information. There is something bad even in his appearance: “a deformed old figure, with a face that haunted men’s memories longer than they liked” (Hawthorne, 1994, p. 148). He is Hester’s former husband. But the reader must admit it must have been a very unhappy marriage between such an old man and such a young woman. Hester was likely forced into it. It is obvious that a young woman deserves something more than a wrinkled man in his last years, always hidden in his heavy books. Finally Roger’s passion overwhelms him and he leaves the home to search for wisdom. It is believed he dies during his search; since Hester receives no information about him, she sins and conceives Pearl.
While the writer does not reveal the co-sinner’s name until late in the book, it is apparent from its first chapters. A reader may notice that clergyman Arthur Dimmesdale has some close connection with Hester. So, her sin is worse for having a baby with a religious man. Although Dimmesdale’s sin is not revealed and punished, he suffers in a different way. His trouble is in his heart. He has to hide his sin and lie to the society which considers him a holy man. This inner conflict gives him pain, developing into a real illness. At this time, Chillingworth returns to the town, aware of all that his wife has done, and he becomes Dimmesdale’s personal doctor. Chillingworth already has some sense that this clergyman holds some secret. So, he manages not to help him become healthy, but prolong his life and suffering until he will confess his sin. This makes Dimmesdale feel as if he “was haunted either by Satan himself, or Satan’s emissary, in the guise of old Roger Chillingworth” (Hawthorne, 1994, p. 108). The uncertainty makes him sicker and saddens Hester.
Eventually, Hester and the clergyman decide not to hide the secret anymore, to escape Chillingworth’s devilish plan of revenge. Dimmesdale finds relief in death, uncovering his sin symbol “SCARLET LETTER—the very semblance of that worn by Hester Prynne—imprinted in the flesh” (Hawthorne, 1994, p. 219).
Although the reader might have expected a different ending, the story ends very sadly with Dimmesdale’s death. So, the secret love of Hester remains unfulfilled. This is much worse than all the devilish plans of revenge. It is even worse than what Chillingworth hoped for. Satisfied, the demon leaves the old physician. When his “evil principle was left with no further material to support it, when, in short, there was no more Devil’s work on earth for him to do” (Hawthorne, 1994, p. 221), he soon dies. The only reminder of Hester’s sinful love is her punishing cloth with the scarlet letter. Even her daughter, when she grows up, leaves her alone with her sorrow.
In conclusion, I can say the “blackness” in The Scarlet Letter can be interpreted as several things. It can be interpreted as the black, dark and devilish intentions of old Roger Chillingworth and the Black Man’s overall presence as symbols of Satan. Alternatively, it can be interpreted as sin’s destructive impact on the human soul and the dark and heavy remorse (personified in Pearl). A third explanation can be found in the darkness and pain of the solitude of a woman unwelcomed by society and the unfortunate fate of her secret forbidden love. Whatever the author’s intentions were, the various possibilities demonstrate The Scarlet Letter is a complex book, well worth reading.