LITR 5535: American
Romanticism
Sample Student Research Project 2005
Karen
Locklear
8 April 2005
The
Use of Hester Prynne and Charlotte Temple as Heroines
Two heroines of the romanticism,
Charlotte Temple and Hester Prynne, experience loss and redemption in their
circumstances in the novel. However, Susanna Rowson and Nathaniel Hawthorne
present very different situations and perceptions of heroines to promote the
underlying agendas within the novels. Rowson uses her heroin as means of a
warning to young women. Take heed of this advice, as it is not the road to
follow. On the other hand, the is not at all Hawthorne’s intention. His novel
is not about adultery. It is about the redemption of a character and her
development through this redemption.
Rowson depicts her tragic main character as a young
woman struggling under outside influence. At the young age of fifteen, Charlotte
Temple is lead to her demise by the influence of Mademoiselle La Rue. Typical of
youth, she disregards the advice of her parents and gradually enters the world
of La Rue, which leads, unexpectedly to Charlotte, to many problems. Although
Charlotte does make poor decisions, the faulty influences upon her do not help
her meet society’s expectations of a young lady. For this reason, Rowson
treats her main character more as a victim. Her story is told as a cautionary
tale to beware of bad influences:
. . . When Mademoiselle asked Charlotte to go with
her, she mentioned the gentleman as a relation, and spoke in such high terms of
the elegance of his gardens, the sprightliness of his conversation, and the
liberality with which he ever entertained his guests, that Charlotte thought
only of the pleasure she should enjoy in the visit—not on the imprudence of
going without her governess’s knowledge, or of the danger to which she exposed
herself in visiting the house of a gay young man of fashion (Rowson 15).
Although recognizing the rules in which govern
her life, Charlotte breaks them when the opportunity of fun and games appear.
She is the favorite of the Mademoiselle, whose life is littered with
inappropriate situations and circumstances. This union puts Charlotte, being
very alone and impressionable, in a position risk. She is mislead about the
gentleman, his intentions, and his relation to Mademoiselle La Rue.
Impressionable as she is, Charlotte uses these circumstances to justify defying
Madame Du Pont who has left for the evening. Interestingly enough, the
invitation is to “come out that evening, and eat some fruit . . .” (Rowson
16). This all will take place in the garden, like a reference to original sin.
And like original sin, this decision, to disobey direct orders given by the
school, is the beginning of Charlotte’s demise.
In doing this, Rowson is building a set of
circumstances where the readers see a young lady, wholesomely brought up, with
many privileges, disgraced. As readers we observe a young lady who does not plan
on making acquaintances in which she should not. However, due to her lack of
wisdom and appropriate supervision, a situation develops to show that even
“proper” ladies can fall into disgrace:
Susanna Rowson recognized this power (of the
parable)
and knew that if she could find a means to tap it, she would
have at her disposal a mouthpiece forbidden to her gender
with which she could touch the minds and souls of women
throughout colonial America (Barton 26).
Like Charlotte, Hester’s external influences
put her in a situation where she uses poor judgment. Virtually abandoned by her
husband, Hester lives in solitude until she discovers the Reverend Dimesdale.
However, instead of defiling his character and naming him as the father of her
unborn child, Hester chooses to take responsibility for the action (for
Dimesdale and herself) and does not reveal him as the father of Pearl:
“I will not speak!” answered Hester,
turning pale as death,
but responding to this voice, which she too surely recognized.
“And my child must seek a heavenly Father; she shall never
know an earthly one!” (Hawthorne 21).
At this point Hawthorne creates a martyr figure in an
adulteress. Allowing Hester to take the weight of both her sin and the young
minister’s, he constructs a character who survives the persecution of her
situation, as many Puritan women would not. Unfortunately for the Reverend
Dimesdale, that which makes Hester stronger is what tears him apart. While
Hester experiences an opportunity to grow after her sin, the guilt of allowing
her to take his share of the responsibility leads to his demise.
He cannot survive, as he is not given the opportunity for redemption:
Dimmesdale achieves happiness only at the
moment when
he publicly reveals his sin. But no final state of future bliss
or perpetual happiness is anticipated. Dimmesdale has no
such hope (Evanoff 273).
Charlotte and Hester’s persona are partially
depicted through the physically. Although both are mentioned to be beautiful,
the features bring forth a different attitude.
The factors of fair skin and feminine beauty personify Charlotte’s
youth as innocence and purity, which are taken from by the poor judgment of
Mademoiselle La Rue, amongst others. This is directly in opposition to Hester
whose dark features give her the opportunity to be in control:
And never had Hester Prynne appeared more ladylike,
in the antique interpretation of the term, than as she ushered from the prison.
Those who had before known her, and had expected to behold her dimmed and
obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even startled to perceive
how the beauty shone out an made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which
she was enveloped (Hawthorne 7).
Hester is never seen as innocent. She is too
complicated for such a luxury. She begins the novel a woman punished for her
sins. By using words such as “antique”, Hawthorne reiterates that although
she is attractive, it is sophisticated beauty of knowledge, which is very
different from Charlotte’s. She starts the novel out as a harlot and ends it
like a chieftain within a tribe. Charlotte, on the other hand, never portrayed
as anything other than an inexperienced child, and once she looses her only
asset, her innocence, must loose her life. “’Did you not notice her?’”
continued Montraville: “’she had on a blue bonnet, and with a pair of lovely
eyes of the same colour, has contrived to make me feel devilish odd about the
heart’” (Rowson 4). Her fairness stereotypes this purity we see within
Charlotte. It would be difficult to portray her physically as Hester is
portrayed and create same agenda that Rowson desires.
Charlotte Temple
embraces Puritan values and belief systems. Rowson, well versed in Biblical
study, was not in a position to preach within the Puritanical society, due to
her gender (Barton 3). She stands by those values, and tells this story to teach
other caution in their behavior. The reader never questions Rowson, who tells a
cautionary tale of bad influences and judgment:
Considering her strong religious background, it
is surprising
that critics have done so little in ways of tying in Rowson’s
unmistakably homiletic narrative intrusions to the strong
Puritan sentiment prevalent in the 1790s (Barton 3).
On the other hand, The
Scarlet Letter, published
significantly later, expects the reader to look past the sins of the
heroine. Since the novel is more of a criticism of Puritan society than a
morality lesson against adultery, the evil is found within the social system. It
is the community that wrongs Hester. It is the lover who abandons her and allows
her to take full responsibility for a crime in which she is only partially
responsible. It is in an elderly husband who neglected every aspect of marriage
to a young wife. It is in a society who makes a point of not only punishing the
sinner, but to destroy her head to toe. Although Hester can come out in the end
a stronger, wiser character, as opposed to Charlotte, who is set up as an
example for what not to do as a young woman away from home, somehow the
inequities of the circumstances seem cruel.
Charlotte has no life experience, other than living away at school under
close supervision. This allows her to fall prey:
The inexperienced Charlotte was astonished at what
she heard. She thought La Rue had, like herself, only been urged by the force of
her attachment to Belcour, to quit her friends, and follow him to the feat of
war: how wonderful then, that she should resolve to marry another man. It was
certainly extremely wrong. He laughed at her simplicity, called her a little
idiot, and patting her on the cheek, said she knew nothing of the world (Rowson
35).
This is the moment when Charlotte comes to the
realization that all the justifications she’s made for La Rue’s
inappropriate behavior were wrong. La Rue did not follow a man not her husband
off out of “love”. Adventure, perhaps, but not love. Since she has announced
a plan to marry someone else, love seems to be the furthest thing from her mind
at this point. This is also the moment of clarity for Charlotte in her own
personal situation. She has discovered her own poor judgment and realizes her
life is now in jeopardy. It will soon be her that is left for Montraville to
marry another, while she is left carrying his baby. The circumstance of La Rue
will mirror the actions of Montraville very shortly and Charlotte will be left
to fend for herself.
Hester, being older and wiser, due to the fact she
has lived virtually alone for the length of her married life, is more
sophisticated in her actions. Hester answers to her persecutors, and receives
help from none. Unlike Charlotte, she is not discovered “wandering the
streets” alone out of desperation. She creates a way to support herself and
takes much grief from many within the Puritan society, until, that is, they
discover she can give something to them. She’s even given the opportunity
reveal the name of Pearl’s father to shed her mark of infamy, but she chooses
not:
“Never!” replied Hester Prynne, looking,
not at Mr. Wilson,
but into the deep and troubled eyes of the younger
clergyman. “It is too deeply branded. Ye cannot take it off.
And would that I might endure his agony, as well as mine!”
(Hawthorne 21).
Hester chooses a more complex repentance than
Charlotte. Here is where we see the difference between the two authors:
Hawthorne’s story, which is a more complex study of human spirit, depicts
Hester’s character. We see a heroin who accepts more than her portion of
punishment, as means of sparing someone else. Charlotte, who is written more
two- dimensionally, protects no one. She is totally honest and reports what she
sees. However, unlike The Scarlet Letter,
her story has very little to do with anyone else.
Thus, we see Charlotte influenced to make decisions
that are against her better judgment, and we see Hester making such a choice by
her own will. The reader is never lead to believe that Hester is helpless, nor
led to think that Charlotte is not impressionable. Not once is the idea even
inferred that Dimesdale took advantage of Hester at any point within the novel,
unlike Charlotte throughout. Never is Hester portrayed as a victim of anything.
Because Hester is in control of her decision-making, the reader sees more
significant suffering in Dimesdale internally than within Hester. He is the one
who must die in the end. Charlotte experiences the same fate, due to her weak
character.
The elements of good and evil also play a role
within these novels. Characters such as Mademoiselle La Rue and Chillingsworth,
not to mention most of the Puritan society shown, gives the reader an
opportunity to bond closer with the heroines, which allows sympathy within the
predicament. Charlotte is a victim, albeit a victim of youth and poor judgment
of character. To a certain degree Hester is also a victim. She is a victim of
neglect and loneliness within a society that does not allow much hope for women
in her circumstances. Neither women have many choices. Neither gets much
opportunity for escape. The difference is that Hester was able to overcome.
Charlotte was not.
Hester truly learns from her sin. She leaves
the prison, accepts her isolation, and discovers a way to support herself and a
child. She helps others, sometimes even when they do not accept her help.
Eventually she’s almost accepted back within society. Charlotte’s situation
does not allow for such redemption.
In both novels a dichotomy of good and evil is very
much apparent. In The Charlotte Temple
it is quite obvious within the beginning pages who is good and who is bad.
Because the book is set up as a cautionary tale, archetypal characters play
roles throughout. Not once does one question the intensions of Mademoiselle La
Rue, for instance. Her behavior is reckless from beginning to end. On the other
hand, despite Charlotte’s poor decision making, the author holds her up as a
character, deserving of our sympathy. The
Scarlet Letter is virtually the same way, as mentioned before the evil is
within the community. It is also within her husband, Roger Chillingsworth. His
anger towards both Hester and Dimmesdale, although justified, comes across as a
tormenting two souls who are already very tortured within their situations:
Chillingworth, using an assumed name and hiding
his intent
of revenge, becomes an increasingly diabolical villain by his
own duplicity. At the other end of the spectrum, Hester
Prynne, because she wears a sign of shame on the surface of
her clothing, cannot feign innocence; consequently she has a
greater potential for salvation and peace (Pearl 2).
The children, products of sin, in the eyes of that
society, also have very different roles within the novels. Lucy herself does not
have much of a role within the novel. Her importance is her arrival and her
creation. The importance of Lucy is the fact that her grandparents, whose sin of
neglect “ruined” their daughter, greeted the infant lovingly into their
life. She is the chance for Charlotte’s parents to redeem themselves. On the
other hand, Pearl is portrayed very differently:
Above all, the warfare within Hester’s spirit, at
that epoch, was perpetuated in Pearl. She could recognize her wild, desperate,
defiant mood, the flightiness of her temper, and even some of the cloud- shapes
of gloom and despondency that had brooded in her heart. They were now
illuminated by the morning radiance of a young child’s disposition, but, later
in the day of earthly existence, might be prolific of the storm and whirlwind
(Hawthorne 42).
Pearl is a struggle from her birth to the end
of the novel. Her nature is trying, due to the very characteristics, which make
her mother strong make extremely difficult. Throughout the book terms such as
“imp”, “product of sin”, and “elf” are used to describe her. Also,
Pearl is very perceptive about the missing father figure within her life and
questions her mother about him. She also is very innocently preoccupied with the
scarlet A, which rests upon her mother.
Despite all of this, like little Lucy, Pearl is also a chance for
redemption within her mother. Because she learned from experience what it was
like to be abandoned from within society, Hester is able to help others, despite
their disdain of her early on. Hester does not have a choice within this novel:
she must survive to continue, as she must provide for Pearl in which many
believed was not good:
She remembered—betwixt a smile and a
shudder—the talk of
the neighboring townspeople, who, seeking vainly elsewhere
for the child’s paternity, and observing some of her odd
attributes, had given out that poor little Pearl was a demon
offspring; such as, ever since old Catholic times, had
occasionally been seen on earth, through the agency of their
mother’s sin (Hawthorne 50).
At this point she must realize that her
daughter’s only protector within this community would be her. A child,
believed to be “demon offspring” must have an advocate within her mother.
Interestingly enough, it is Pearl at the end of the novel who inherits riches
from Chillingsworth. She becomes a respectable woman. Interestingly enough,
within this novel most of the information about Pearl and Hester at the end is
speculation. No one ever asks Hester directly of Pearl. It is just assumed that
she is married and off somewhere else.
Although both novels are very different in
approach, both The Charlotte Temple
and The Scarlet Letter are novels
which tell cautionary tales. The Charlotte
Temple warns young women of the harms of bad decision making and influences.
The Scarlet Letter tells the story of
two sinners: one who confesses and one who does not. In the end, it is the one
who confesses and punished, who is able to pick herself up, dust herself off,
and continue on in the end.
Bibliography
Barton, Paul.
“Nattative intrusion in Charlotte Temple: a closet feminist’s
strategy in an American novel”. Women
and Language: volume 23
number 1 (Spring 2000), 26- 32.
Evanoff,
Alexander. “Some Principal Themes in The
Scarlet Letter”. Discourse:
A Review of the Liberal Arts: Volume V, Number 3, 1962,
270- 277.
Hawthorne,
Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter.
Ticknor, Reed, and Fields: Boston,
1850.
Rowson,
Susanna. The Charlotte Temple. Oxford
Press: London, 1794.