Friday's dilemma

                               

In class last Friday, we broke up into groups and addressed the question of whether or not The Scarlet Letter is a Christian book or not, and now I’m really curious. No one seemed to be able to settle down on the issue one way or another, but the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that it is a profoundly Christian book, gorgeous and complex (admittedly, a strong case can be made that it isn’t. Speaking personally, I think it is). As I was reading Hawthorne, I kept thinking about Flannery O’Connor, primarily because the two authors paint humanity in such dark, grim colors. Nevertheless, we can certainly recognize O’Connor’s Christianity (even if we question the value of her grotesque portrayals) and do not question that her stories are Christian. Perhaps part of it is just that O’Connor lived in a drastically different time than Hawthorne. Perhaps the two of them lived and wrote on a darker, more somber plane than most do, but I do think there is a profound sense of structure, for lack of a better term, which anchors Hawthorne (and O’Connor, for that matter) into some sort of real interaction with religion. Perhaps Hawthorne’s is not a saving faith, but he nevertheless doesn’t let his readers or his characters fade into the background, excusing their sin, though  he certainly seems to wish them peace, at least. Hawthorne’s best and most sympathetic characters are those who are hopelessly flawed, but still struggling toward the light (I make no excuses for Chillingworth. Hawthorne’s right: prying into a man’s soul is no light injury). 

Someone brought up Heart of Darkness in class as an example of a completely non-Christian book—the thing that keeps The Scarlet Letter from delving into that same nihilism is this idea that, even though Dimmesdale's and Hester's and Chillingworth’s stories are done, THE story goes on. Pearl has a life to live; Hester goes away into other parts of the world, outside the Puritan community. Perhaps, as Sarah said, it is unusual that such an event didn’t turn the Puritan community inside out, but I think that’s one of the story’s strengths. Mankind commits really ghastly sins that should make the world stop turning—creation should reject us as unclean—but it doesn’t, and that’s evidence of God right there. Does that make Hawthorne a Christian? No, it’s there because frankly, one can’t get away from some sort of interaction with God. I don't know if Hawthorne was a believer, but it's important, I think, to draw a distinction between the man and his book. Is it a Christian book? Yes, I do believe it is; it struggles with one of the biggest problems we as Christians have to face: the problem of sin and suffering and the hypocrisy that so muddies the waters of the soul.