LITR 4232: American Renaissance
UHCL, spring 2001
Sample Student Paper

Charley Bevill
Professor White
Literature 4232
19 April 2001

Freely Adapted:

An American Classic Made Popular

The gods and goddesses of Greek mythology had temples erected in their names. They were worshipped and most times adored. The people brought offerings to these gods in the form of food, drink, and gold. Todayās gods and goddesses donāt sit high on Mount Olympus. They sit high on or behind the movie screen. We visit their temples in record numbers and bring food, drink, and the mighty dollar. But what do they offer us in return? Voyeurism, titillation, narcissism÷all in a rebirth of classical American literature, which through their filters becomes sappy love stories with politically correct happy endings. In this way, their gifts are made more palatable for an audience they feel is not quite ready for films dealing with bitter social controversy, such as sin, hypocrisy, spiritual crisis, and guilt.

Nathaniel Hawthorneās The Scarlet Letter is one of the classics that is experiencing this renaissance. Director Roland Joffe has enlisted the aid of writers Michael Mann and Christopher Crowe to produce a body of work also entitled The Scarlet Letter. The effort to introduce the American audience to this classical piece of literature was undertaken, as the filmās star Demi Moore asserts, because "not many people have read the book" (qtd. in Mr. Showbiz, par. 4). However, in doing so, Joffe has taken away the essence of Hawthorne. "It [is] sorrowful to think how many days and weeks and months and years of toil [have] been wasted on these musty papers [of Hawthorneās] never more to be glanced at by human eyes. But, then, what reams of other manuscripts÷filled [·] with the thought of inventive brains and the rich effusion of deep hearts÷[have] gone equally to oblivion" (Hawthorne 46; The Custom House).

In film, the viewer sees a story from the directorās perspective. When experiencing a novel, the reader is drawn into the authorās story and relates to the characters and events created by the author. He is allowed to bring forth his own imagination to recreate the characters and events by visualizing what the writer describes. He chooses the voice of each character, pictures how the character looks, and brings his own personal experiences forth to enhance the written word. He has an opportunity to be one-on-one with the author, hear his words, and experience for myself the charactersā emotions. The experience of the novel becomes personal for the reader. However, when viewing a film version of that same novel, a moviegoer is experiencing not only the authorās story, but also the vision of the director and cinematographer, not to mention the actorsā interpretations. Many times, the movie executives as well as others have input into the making of a film and the direction in which it takes. As if originally in another language, the story loses something in the translation. No longer can the author directly express his ideas to the consumer. No longer is the story personal.

The "films of [the early 1990s] convey the social, political, and cultural landscape of the Reagan/Bush and Bush/Quayle political administrations [·]. ĪReaganiteā entertainment, as the films of this period have been dubbed, is, in part, a cinema of reassurance, optimism, and nostalgia÷qualities embodied in the political persona of Ronald Reagan" (Belton 322), himself one of the gods. Although the audience today is much more diverse, made up of younger, better-educated individuals open to ideas and to the truth, the gods are still making films for a "Reaganite" audience. These films "[possess] no power of thought, no depth of feeling, no troublesome sensibilities; nothing, in short, but a few common-place instincts [·] in lieu of a heart"(Hawthorne 34; The Custom House).

To attempt to relate Hawthorneās The Scarlet Letter would again be through filters, not of the gods, but of my own. The symbols Hawthorne is so famous for may mean something entirely different through my eyes than through his. The characters I create from his words become infused with my experiences. Director Joffeās filters produced a film of lust and titillation, defiance and retribution. The opening shot slowly comes into focus. It becomes apparent that a Native American runner is carrying a lighted torch suspiciously resembling a burning cross through the woods serving as an omen of things to come. "Freely adapted from the novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne," as Joffeās The Scarlet Letter disclaims, the narrator of this story is Pearl who becomes a minor character in the film. She begins with Hester Prynneās scandalous arrival in Salem without her husband. Hester dresses inappropriately and plans to live independently in her own home until her husbandās arrival. Days after moving in, a red bird leads Hester into the woods. While there, a stag watches her as she picks wild fruit and as she watches a naked man as he swims. But it is The Sabbath and she is called away. Later, she learns the man is The Reverend Mister Arthur Dimmesdale and a mutual flirtation begins. However, they resist their lust. A short time later, news comes that Indians have slaughtered the passengers and crew of the ship bringing Hesterās husband to Salem. There is a piece of cloth with Doctor Roger Prynneās name embroidered in red to seal his fate. Upon giving Hester this news, Dimmesdale and Hester consummate their passion. Seven years is too long to wait as the grieving widow. Does this make the affair less a sin because all assume Prynne is dead and as Dimmesdale says, they are only together naked once? Shortly thereafter, Hester is summoned to appear before the magistrate for heresy. However, there is also a rumor that she is pregnant. "Get her for adultery and the meeting will stop," says one of the judges. Arthur attempts to confess but as Hester says, "you risk your own ruin and deny me my right to stand up against this hypocrisy."

After Hester gives birth to Pearl in the prison, the film picks up where the book begins. However, the story is not the same. Symbols are changed or omitted. Hawthorneās message is lost. Always in the novel, Hester and Dimmesdale believe they have sinned. However, when Hester asks Dimmesdale if he feels they have sinned, he answers weakly, "I know not." For his penance, Dimmesdale goes to the scaffold at night. Crying, he forcefully pulls his hands down the splintered pole inflicting pain and injury. Is he somehow washing his hands of the sin? Hester, however, never seems to do penance. When the magistrate asks Hester if she believes she has sinned, defiantly she replies, "I believe that I have sinned in your eyes. But who is to know if God shares your view." Here she receives her sentencing and the scarlet letter A is placed upon her breast.

To further remove Hester and Dimmesdaleās sense of guilt for their adulterous liaison, and perhaps to soften the audienceās puritanical view of the lovers, Roger Prynne is portrayed as evil and insane. Pearlās narration implies that Prynne sends Hester alone to America as a test or trap. After being released by his Indian captors, Roger comes to the house and bitterly beds Hester off camera. He assumes the name Chillingworth and later he claims that Pearl is marked with the sign of the witch. For his final atrocity, Roger kills and scalps a man he believes is Dimmesdale. When he learns he has killed an innocent, the guilt ridden Roger hangs himself. But is this man an innocent? We are not as disturbed by this death as perhaps we should be because the victim is a villain in his own right. He has just tried to rape Hester.

Joffe turns Hawthorneās novel into a western complete with a conveniently timed Indian raid on the town. The Western genre of film "concerns conflicts [·] between two distinct cultures÷that of whites and Native Americans. This comprises one of the largest of the Westernās several subgenres, which is the cowboy/cavalry and Indian picture. These films dominate the genre [·] running from The Battle at Elderbush Gulch (1913) to [·] Last of the Mohicans (1992)" (Belton 217). Being produced in 1995, The Scarlet Letter is not on this list. However, this "freely adapted" version brings into issue this same conflict never noted in the novel.

"It is a good lesson÷though it may often be a hard one÷for a man who has dreamed of literary fame, and of making for himself a rank among the worldās dignitaries by such means, to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognized, and to find how utterly devoid of significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves, and all he aims at" (Hawthorne 44; The Custom House). Stepping outside of his circle today, Hawthorne would find his work being interpreted in ways he could never have imagined. His melancholy conclusion to the loverās plight is consistent with the emphasis throughout the novel. Though we try to escape it, "the past [is] not dead" (Hawthorne 45; The Custom House). He ends his tale such:

There is no reward for sin. Guilt is there; always ready to keep us mindful of this truth. Therefore, there can be no other end for Hester Prynne and The Reverend Mister Dimmesdale. The punishment for adultery is death.

Joffe alters this ending. Little Pearl picks up the scarlet letter that Hester has removed, plays with it while her parents talk beside the grave of Roger Prynne, then symbolically drops it on the ground as, in the fashion of the gods, the family of three rides off into the sunset.

"Many works thought to be literary classics in their time have disappeared from view while other works ignored in their day have resurfaced as classics in later times. [Hawthorneās] The Scarlet Letter is one of the rare American literary works that, recognized as a Īclassicā at once, has also remained in print constantly from first appearance to present" (Baym xxi). Although it brought many worshipers into theaters, Joffeās The Scarlet Letter was not well received by critics. Geoffrey Graybeal is one such reviewer. He wrote that Joffeās scarlet letter A "could stand for many things: ĪAtrocity,ā ĪAwful,ā or ĪAshamedā" (par. 6). "The studio is currently not producing this VHS edition" (Amazon.com). Perhaps it may resurface in a later time. But, "[b]orne on such queer vehicle of fame, a knowledge of my existence, so far as a name conveys it, was carried where it had never been before, and, I hope, will never go again" (Hawthorne 45; The Custom House).

 

Works Cited

Amazon.com. Buying Info. 13 Apr 2001 <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos.html>.

Baym, Nina. The Scarlet Letter: A Reading. New York: Twayne, 1986.

Belton, John. American Cinema/American Culture. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994.

Graybeal, Geoffrey M. "Movie Review: ĪScarlet Letterā Filmmaker Should Be

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959.

Mr. Showbiz. Celebrities: Demi Moore Bio. 13 Apr 2001 <http://mrshowbiz.go.com/

celebrities/people/demimoore/bio.html>.

The Scarlet Letter. Dir. Roland Joffe. Perf. Demi Moore, Gary Oldman, and Robert

Duvall. Hollywood Pictures Home Video, 1995.