References to mythological characters that people consciously or unconsciously recognize provide the writer with good examples of allusion for use in all genres, but the metaphorical quality of archetypes in Greek mythology engenders powerful plots and characters in fiction. How many stories have we all read – or perhaps movies seen – in which a woman saves the man she loves through her own wits? The Greeks perfected this tale, the one, for example, in which Theseus volunteers to enter the labyrinth with the intention of killing the Minotaur, but he succeeds only thanks to the woman who loves him. Ariadne gives him the blueprint for Daedalus’ labyrinth, as well as a ball of string to find his way back from this deadly trap.
Or Medea, whose rage drives her to destroy those she loves most, her own children, to the spite of the man who betrayed her? We all know real life stories of women possessed by mental illness who tragically choose this path. Even Medea’s lover, Jason, reminds us of the heartbreaking consequences of her when, despite the woman who sacrifices everything for him, he avoids her and chooses another richer and more politically connected. Sounds familiar? They should. These examples from ancient mythology are the sometimes dark archetypal patterns of our own lives and, later, the lives of literary figures whose consequences evolve from this tension. One of those characters is Hester Prynne, the well-known heroine of Nathaniel Hawthorne. the scarlet letter.
Hawthorne and Greek mythology
Hawthorne, the most celebrated fiction writer during the American Renaissance of the 19th century, drew ideas for several of his characters and plots from his knowledge of Greek mythology, the stories he admired and which he eventually retold for children in The book of wonders Y The Tanglewood Tales. While the structure of fiction often parallels motifs from mythology, the three Fates, or Moirae, lend Hester the image of the thread and weave of fate especially well.
Parallels between Hawthorne and Hester
Life is the stuff of literature, and Hawthorne chose to create a character whose situation, at least the emotional grievance she felt, mirrored her own. He had lost his job at Customs, money was tighter than ever, and he still hadn’t earned the distinction of established writer he thought he had. Pouring his sense of loss and injustice into Hester’s troubles, he gave his publisher Ticknor and Fields a partial manuscript of the scarlet letter, and the book was published on March 16, 1850, resulting in good reviews. Scholars today consider the protagonist of the seventeenth-century novel, Hester Prynne, a moral and practical example of the nineteenth century, a literary example of modern times. The book also established Hawthorne as a literary exemplar in her own time.
Thread and the three destinies
In the seventeenth-century book’s patriarchal setting, Puritans regard women as the fairer sex, an attitude that actually saves Hester from hanging, the usual punishment for the crime of adultery. Her new husband, who two years earlier sent her to Boston without him and then lost at sea, returns unexpectedly to find her publicly humiliated on the gallows with a child that is not his, but the name of this child’s father will be guarded and painfully held by the mother until the end of his life. Before she begins the story, Hester has already fallen in love with her minister, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. Although the minister is supposed to protect this helpless woman alone in the New England desert, he becomes the father of her child, but she remains steadfast in her decision not to reveal his identity and ruin his esteemed position in the puritan community. At this point, if she wants to stay close to him in Boston, she must see to the well-being of her and her daughter Pearl’s, and she does so through her skillful sewing and her embroidery.
The thread and the seam in any context seem to suggest connections or ties that unite people, places, actions and ideas. The Greeks personified this thread imagery in the form of the three Fates, or Moirae: Clotho the Spinner, who spun the thread of life; Lachesis the Arrangement of Lots, who assigned a length of thread to each man or woman; and Atropos, who cut the thread at the end of that life. Hester Prynne embodies the three Fates as she literally uses her needle and thread to weave her own destiny, to thrive in a hostile environment, and to alter an entire community’s perception of her, from adulteress to Angel Y capable-and at the end of her life to return to the place of her sin and her loving commitment to live her life and be buried next to her partner Arthur Dimmesdale.
thread like the world axis
In ancient mythology the thread that crosses the sphere of the pearl is the world axis, and Hester’s beloved daughter Pearl, the union of fire and water, is the center of her world, a constant reminder of the mother’s sin. Only when mother and father stand on the gallows together in the final revelation of the truth will the demon girl Pearl recognize her dying father, an act that will calm her spirit and allow Pearl to move on, become a woman to behold. her own family, which she does.
After Dimmesdale, the man who cuckolds Hester’s husband dies, the evil disguised husband who calls himself Roger Chillingworth, has no desire to live now that Dimmesdale is gone, and dies too, leaving Hester’s daughter, Pearl, with her wealth. Mother and daughter go missing in Europe, but Hester, now an old woman, returns to Boston to minister to women in need of the kind of solace and solace Hester longed for. She wears the finely embroidered HAS once more, albeit faded, and when she dies, she is buried next to her beloved Dimmesdale. They are separated in life but also separated in death, with a space between them, and there is only one tombstone that says: “On a field of sable, the letter gules”.
If the thread of life weaves and unites Hester Prynne’s universe, it is also a major motif of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s personal journey, as well as the microcosm of our own lives.
For more information about Hawthorne and youthe scarlet letter, see the following sources:
Hamilton, Edith. mythology. New York: Back Bay Books, Little, Brown and Company, 1969.
O’Connor, Susan. D.ance of language. Bloomington, IL: Author House, 2008.
Reynolds, David. Beneath the American Renaissance. Cambridge: Harvard University, 1988.
Wineapple, Brenda. Hawthorne, One Life. New York: random