On Form and Content in the Scarlet Letter


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On Form and Content in the Scarlet Letter

Introduction
In any competent literary work, we are often told, form and content are interdependent. And it is added, as a corollary, that the consistency and richness with which the two are adjusted to each other constitute the measure of artistic sophistication in the work. Our present interest is not so much with the theoretical possibilities of these two assertions as with their practical application to Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter. For despite its early position in a substantial American literary tradition, the romance, when appraised by these standards, reveals itself to be a work of rather astonishing sophistication.
Some brief particularization is necessary for terms so general as "form" and "content." Form in The Scarlet Letter rises out of a basic division of the whole into four parts, each of which gains its distinctiveness from the character that precipitates or is responsible for the action that takes place within its limits. Furthermore, the order of the parts is determined by the desires and capabilities of the characters. Thus the community, aside from the four main characters, is responsible for the action in the first part (Chapters i-vm); Chillingworth for that in the second (lx-xn); Hester for that in the third (ran-xx); and Dimmesdale for that in t9he fourth (xxi-xxIv). Within each part, moreover, there is a noticeable division between cause and effect, between material dealing primarily with the activating agent and material dealing primarily with the person or persons acted upon.
Content in The Scarlet Letter consists of those three matters which dominate the thoughts and actions of the characters: sin, isolation, and reunion. Generally speaking, with Hawthorne isolation is inevitably the result of sin, and the desire for reunion is usually the result of isolation. But it is a mistake to suppose that any one of these terms can be employed successfully in a general sense. No one of them is constant in meaning throughout the book.
There is, for example, no such thing as uniformity in the concept of sin. To assume this is to confuse the characters and to misinterpret most of the important speeches. Sin in The Scarlet Letter is a violation of only that which the sinner thinks he violates. To one character, adultery is transgression against Gods law, to another, no more than a violation of the natural order of things. Likewise, to one character hypocrisy is a violation of his own nature, to another, a transgression against the moral code of the community. To speak, therefore, even of adultery or hypocrisy without discovering what they mean to each individual is to become hopelessly confused about what Hawthorne is doing. Furthermore, as the nature of the sin differs, so must the nature of the isolation which is its result[1].
More than anything else, probably, The Scarlet Letter is a study of isolation. And just as one cannot generalize about sin in the book, so is it impossible to speak of isolation as though it were always one and the same thing. When a character feels isolated, he feels isolated from someone or something. Isolation, therefore, is a feeling of estrangement from those persons or elements whose code the individual feels that he has