A Creative Protest against Punishment and Formation of a New Meaning of Life: An Analysis of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter - Mohammed Solaiman Chowdhury

A Creative Protest against Punishment and Formation of a New Meaning of Life: An Analysis of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter Mohammed Solaiman Chowdhury Assistant Professor Department of English Language and Literature (DELL) Premier University, Chattogram, Bangladesh E-mail Address: solaiman_sr@yahoo.com Abstract: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s magnum opus The Scarlet Letter is a novella set in the17th century New England which tells of Hester Prynne, a Puritan married young lady who has committed an act of adultery. This act of sin has upset the Puritan male authority very violently and under Puritan doctrine the punishment for such a sin is the death sentence. With this aim Hester, the mother of a baby girl, is put into the trial where she is given a ‘compromised’ punishment as her other partner of the sin is undetected. Surprisingly, Hester’s secret partner is a young and influential minister who is also present in the trial process but remains silent and Hester also keeps her partner’s identity secret. Finally, concerning the baby’s security the authority imposes upon her a punishment of carrying an alphabet ‘A’ round her neck. But in order to establish justice, when Hester is presented before all for interrogation about the identity of her secret partner, she, with an unprecedented sense of defiance, denies revealing the name. Furthermore, she has embroidered the alphabet ‘A’ in the most attractive lurid red color to make it visible to all. Interestingly, she has let all know, in this very process of protest, her creative faculty in the skill of embroidery which later turns her into an entrepreneur. Focusing on her renaissance spirit, Bhabha’s theory on space and identity and characteristics of an entrepreneur, this paper traces out Hester’s creative mind behind her protest against the punishment and the subsequent formation of a new meaning of life. Keywords: Creative protest; Puritan society; Renaissance spirit; Male dominated society; Sin and punishment; Entrepreneur