A semester-long assignment had me stuck. Last week it finally came due.
After reading extensively for the project, I had more information than I knew how to arrange. I wasn’t sure what it meant. In the final moments, though, returning to an old favorite story bailed me out. Thumbing through my old copy of The Scarlet Letter, a new angle appeared. (spoilers throughout?)
Assigned Reading
In my opinion, The Scarlet Letter is assigned reading. You must enjoy it once. It’s the story of Hester Prynne, a 17th century woman living in Puritan Boston who is forced to wear a symbol of her adultery—the scarlet letter A which lends the book its title. It deals with themes of religion, hypocrisy, and shame.
In her introduction to the book, Nina Baym captures what I so enjoy about Hawthorne’s writing style:
Despite the usual accuracy of his detail and the demonstrable fullness of Hawthorne’s knowledge of the historical Puritans, they are not his subject. The Puritans are used for purposes other than those they would have accepted as their own… he was writing about what goes on inside people, “the truth of the human heart,” rather than what goes on outside and around them.
Few of us live in Boston under rigid puritanical ideologies. We live always, though, within some culture, offering interpretations of what is good, what is unforgivable, and what punishments we should bear for our sins. Hawthorne crafts a masterful, realistic work about two characters who, having committed the same act, are subject to different recourse—and who interpret their actions differently. Living in a different place and time, we still recognize the story as our own.
I’m currently reading as many novels (by as many authors) as possible. I wish I had a book that was less basic to call my favorite, but I haven’t found one yet. Hawthorne’s masterwork is still my pick.
Assigned Meaning
In my last essay, I wrote about Simlish and the impressive, puzzling nature of language. We combine and communicate through phonemes. We assign meaning to sounds.
The same is true with the written word. We stick meaning not just to sounds, but to characters on a page. It really is strange when you think about it: you stare at these odd little shapes on a screen that communicate to you a message. In the last decade, communication has increasingly involved the use of emojis and memes, which we sometimes call “visual” language. In some sense this is a grand distinction, but in another it’s all the same. What makes these characters [ A B C D ] all that different from these? [ 🥱🧦🍊🧍♂️🫰 ]
We humans assign meaning to characters.
The very word character carries several definitions. Originally meaning something imprinted on the page (characters of the alphabet), it also came to mean something imprinted on the soul (personal character). Further, it’s the way we refer to those in books and movies (main characters).
Scribbles on a page, strength in a soul, people in an imagined town. Character works on all three of these levels. And, just like in language, our method for defining characters is not always clear and consistent.
No one knew this better than Hester Prynne, who wore the embroidered A as her inscription.
1. As a letter, it stood for Adultery.
2. The mark labeled her as a sinful criminal.
3. Further, it outlined her role as a character within the community—defining her relationships (or lack thereof) with others.
On all three levels, Hester subverts the letter’s assigned meaning. She misunderstood the assignment.
A to her represents Adultery, yes—but it also represents Able, Admirable. The trouble of living with her mark produces what Baym describes as “ever-growing strength of character.” And over time, members of the town add Hester’s hand-embroidered pieces to their wardrobes. The scarlet letter drove her out of fellowship with the town, but embroideries of the same kind open a new space for her in the town’s fabric.
Hester doesn’t reject the marking she’s given to wear. Nor does she fully accept its interpretation in the Puritans’ eyes.
Choose Your Character
Character was the subject of my semester-long project. It’s a topic I regularly explore on this newsletter.
I’ve come to believe that developing character is a partially passive process. We choose some (but not all) of the marks life makes on us. We control none of the meaning people place on those marks.
We don’t choose the materials we’re given, but we choose what we make of them.
Like Hester, we live in a cultural moment. Ours is one that wishes not to be defined. We resist the notion that anything would tell us who we are (a good first instinct).
If we’re ultimately successful in resisting definition, though, what are we? Undefined. It’s the reason we know who not to be, who to fight, the new thing to speak against, who to vote against—but never know what we’re for.
Hester never rewrites her history. She accepts reality, but she interprets it.
Baym summarizes it best:
[To] the literal-minded Puritans, that letter has one fixed meaning—the one they imposed on it. But Hester struggles against that literal meaning as well as against the Puritan assumption that they can say what things mean. She endows her letter with many meanings, and with many good meanings… No sooner do they put the letter on Hester and assign it a meaning than it begins to change under their very eyes.
Like the shapes of these letters on your screen, maybe it’s not as obvious as it seems what the shapes of our lives should mean. The meanings we assign to characters (of any type) are rarely exhaustive or absolute. They may be marked in ink, but they are not set in stone.
Like Hester, you can’t control the marks put on you. You can, however, control your interpretation. You may not change their shape, but you can assign their meaning.
If you can’t choose your characters, then at least choose your character. Others may notice and learn its meaning in time.
Great writing! “Character” It made me think of one of many sayings written in the back of my Bible: “Eliminate who you are not, then you’ll see who you are”
"The scarlet letter drove her out of fellowship with the town, but embroideries of the same kind open a new space for her in the town’s fabric."
Great parallel you identified here, between the fabric she was reshaping that she wore, the "A," and the fabric of the community that she was reshaping on many levels.