Fatherhood in the Scarlet Letter

I’ve now read the Scarlet Letter at least three times, and it must truly be a classic because it’s one of those books that never seems to lose its emotive power and I always seem to notice something new about it. This time around, one of the new things that struck me was the societal implications of the novel. There’s a great deal that goes on in a mechanical sense that’s very tied to the spirituality of the book. For instance, I think the familial relationship between Pearl, Hester, and Dimmesdale is very intriguing. It’s an excellent glimpse into the single-parent phenomenon that’s become such an issue in our nation at this time. 

Like many single-parent households, Hester’s is fundamentally broken. We have Dimmesdale, who refuses to acknowledge his parenthood not from a desire for freedom but from a fear of the societal implications of binding himself to a fallen woman. At root, he’s essentially an irresponsible character who won’t take ownership of what he has engendered. Hester does her best without Dimmesdale, but Pearl nevertheless feels the effects of not having a father. Hawthorne makes much of the fact that Pearl is basically a pagan: She does not believe in God. In fact, she can’t even seem to understand what God is. Yet I would point out that Pearl’s paganism is directly tied to the absence of a father figure in her life. She can’t connect to the idea of a Heavenly father because she has no earthly father. This leads her to a sense of “unconnectedness” with her society and her very being. She becomes a sprite, uncertain of her parentage and who she is as a human. A certain perversion ensues from her lack of familial grounding, as Hester notes with increasing dismay. 

If we see Pearl as the driving force (or the litmus test, as Dr. Hake put it), then the somewhat disorderly plot begins to unravel in a more orderly skein. Just as Chillingworth attempts to discover who his wife’s adulterer is, Pearl seeks throughout the whole novel to find her father. She rejects the initial solution (starting over as a family unit somewhere else), because she feels that Dimmesdale still will not take complete ownership of his child. Only at the end, when he confesses his parentage in front of the whole community, does she run to him, kiss him, and become a true child (and eventually a woman). It is implied that Pearl’s spirituality is revived when her sense of parentage is restored. In short, Hawthorne draws a strong (and accurate) connection between fatherhood and spiritual wellbeing. Even today, boys without a father are more likely to adopt a gay lifestyle, just as girls without a father are more likely to seek a father-figure in sexual partners. Hawthorne’s portrayal of Pearl, Hester, and Dimmesdale, therefore, directly foreshadows issues that haunt American society today.