Emily: A Single Mother?

Emily: Close Reading

Text: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Lens: Feminist


According to My Safe Harbor, “70% of high school dropouts, teen pregnancies, teen suicides, juvenile murderers, and runaways come from single mother homes” (My Safe Harbor). If this statistic is true, then should Hester Prynne, a single mother be allowed to continue to mother Pearl?
After learning that Pearl is to be taken away, Hester pleas to the Governor, Roger Chillingworth and Mr. Dimmesdale to let her keep Pearl:

From: catalog.lambertvillelibrary.org

Hester caught hold of Pearl, and drew her forcibly into her arms, confronting the old Puritan magistrate with almost a fierce expression. Alone in the world, cast off by it, and with this sole treasure to keep her heart alive, she felt that she possessed indefeasible rights against the world, and was ready to defend them to the death.

“God gave me the child!” cried she. “He gave her, in requital of all things else, which ye had taken from me. She is my happiness!—she is my torture, none the less! Pearl keeps me here in life! Pearl punishes me, too! See ye not, she is the scarlet letter, only capable of being loved, and so endowed with a million-fold the power of retribution for my sin? Ye shall not take her! I will die first!”

“My poor woman,” said the not unkind old minister, “the child shall be well cared for!—far better than thou canst do it.”

“God gave her into my keeping,” repeated Hester Prynne, raising her voice almost to a shriek. “I will not give her up!”—And here, by a sudden impulse, she turned to the young clergyman, Mr. Dimmesdale… (Hawthorne 101)

Although Hester’s reputation is tarnished forever, she — like any loving mother — wished to rid remove that blemish on her child, Pearl. A pearl, is a precious jewel from an ugly oyster. Hester wish in naming the child Pearl, was to use the connotation to remove her sins from her child.

Hester is painted with many traditional feminine traits. Her expression is not described as fierce, but as “almost a fierce expression,” demonstrating that Hester is still attempting to exhibit the womanly trait of calm and composure. Her necessity of the child even drove her away from some of the calm and composure. However, her role as a mother overshadowed expectations to behave ladylike, but she still did not shriek, instead “raising her voice almost to a shriek.” The use of “almost” in front of a particularly strong adjective reverts the masculine word of fierce and the idea of being loud back into a feminine characteristic.

Hester main role is to be a mother; her “sole treasure” and her happiness depends upon her child. She believed that she “possessed indefeasible rights” as a mother and the repetition of “God gave [her] the child!” By appealing to higher entities, one that gives rights and God, Hester evokes the traditional roles of females — child rearing. Both of which reveal her belief that as a female, she is to care for her child. Pearl means to her so much that Hester pleaded with the clergyman, which could potentially betray her secret to her “husband.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays an outcast woman as feminine, detailing Hester’s motherly attachment to Pearl.