ELTWeekly Vol. 4 Issue#3 | January 16, 2012 | ISSN 0975-3036
One of the striking aspects of The Scarlet Letter is that the beginning, middle and the end occur in the same place, namely the market place. The scaffold, the church and the prison encompass the public sphere of this New England town where the novel’ major events take place. The novel ends with Arthur Dimmesdale’s confession in the market place and the mystery of the scarlet letter is disclosed to the public.
The aim of this paper is to try and show two aspects of the ending in this novel. Firstly, the scene at the market place puts an end to the formal action of this novel, but the last lesson titled Conclusion conforms to another kind of narrative closure. The final lesson somehow restores the idea of the novel to that of a legend.
The first aspect of the narrative closure, namely the scene at the marketplace is the denouement of the novel, written in the realistic mode of writing. This revelation can be seen in terms of the Escape motif where the four main characters either escape from their predicament or are doomed to be trapped in their situations forever. For Dimmesdale, it is a release from his silent suffering and also from the clutches of Roger Chilingworth.
In one sense, it is suggested that through his death he achieves martyrdom. Is it really martyrdom or is it a continuation of that cowardice which held him back from public exposure? The latter is closer to the truth as Dimmesdale confesses at that point in his life when he knows his death is imminent and he would not have to meet the punishment of the Puritans. Moreover, by exposing his share in Hester’s crime he is able to meet his death with an easy conscience. Through this he tries to escape the wrath of afterlife and ensures a peaceful passage to the other world.
Dimmesdale’s confession is actually a deathblow to whatever form of escape Hester could have imagined in this life. It is obvious that Hester is a reluctant participant in this confession. Even Roger Chilingworth is bereft of all meaning to his life as his victim has escaped from him. Revenge and slow poisoning had become the sole aim of the physician’s life and without them his ‘being’ becomes meaningless. For Pearl, this confession is another kind of release as it is an affirmation of her wild self into that of society. Pearl, who had not been touched by human sorrow, is affected by her father’s acceptance of herself and in that sense is released from her wild self.
In the lesson, titled Conclusion, there is a certain sense of vagueness attached to the events. The narrator pretends to know nothing about the life of Hester and Pearl when they leave this place. There are various speculations but nothing is certified. True to the narrative tradition of a legend, there are no specificities of any kind. Even the confession is viewed from multiple perspectives as no one seems to know the true purport of Dimmesdale’s confession. This vagueness as to the events after the death of Dimmesdale is the meeting point between the novel as a realistic fiction and a legend.
Throughout the novel, Hawthorne’s point of view is never clear and part of the reason can be that he is only narrating a story which he has found in the records of bygone times. He has woven the novel on the lines of a real story to interest the reader and at the same time gives it an added dimension of a legend. This enables him to distance himself from the actions of the characters and to speculate about events rather than providing a definite view point.
In this lesson, we even come to know that Hester has come back to this town and spends her life in the service of others. This is problematic as there is no reason for her to continue her penance; especially when her attitude towards her act is ambiguous and at one point she even says, “What we did had a consecration of its own. We felt it so!” The parallelism with Ann Hutchinson cannot be ruled out as both try to help society and to go beyond the concerns of the individual self. A partial answer can be that Hester can derive her identity only from the place.
The form of a legend requires a specific place around which a story is woven. The story then passes from one generation to another. Historical specificity and multiplicity of voices fuse together in this novel so that it falls somewhere between a work of realism and that of the symbolist mode of writing , and the dual ending contributes to this effect.