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Definition of Motif
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the central themes of a book... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of... read full definition
The Custom House
Explanation and Analysis—Graves and Prisons:
Graves and prisons, or other spaces of confinement, are a motif throughout the novel. The narrator makes clear that there is a strong link between graves and prisons in Chapter 1:
The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison.
The main narrative thus opens with the assertion that graves and prisons are the twin foundations of a society. The narrator claims that it is straightforwardly "practical" to make room for a prison and a cemetery in a new society. The logic here seems to be that every society must deal with crime, and every society must deal with death. Graves and prisons are places to cordon off these less desirable parts of society.
The novel as a whole complicates this idea, demonstrating that crime and death cannot be easily carved out from the rest of society. The narrator first makes this point in "The Custom House":
This long connection of a family with one spot, as its place of birth and burial, creates a kindred between the human being and the locality, quite independent of any charm in the scenery or moral circumstances that surround him.
The narrator himself describes feeling attached to Salem because he has a long line of relatives buried there. More than anything else, he claims, what attaches families to towns is the burial of family members in local soil. The narrator has complex feelings about whether or not this is a good thing. He suggests that the family tree might wither and die if it does not put down roots in other towns as well. The main concern here is likely incest, but the narrator also makes the point that people's remains, in their graves, can be stained by their moral failings in life. To stay on "stained" ancestral land is to risk inheriting those moral stains. Graves do not keep the past in the past, but rather keep both good and bad family history alive.
Prisons, like graves, are not as good at containing society's sin as the "founders of a new colony" might like. Pearl, the symbol of Hester and Dimmesdale's sin, is born in prison: the simple structure literally cannot keep sin from being born into the world. The clearest evidence that sin will forever be part of society is Hester and Dimmesdale's shared grave, which the narrator describes at the end of the novel. The tombstone bears the mark of the A, preserving in cultural memory the fact that they committed adultery together. Prisons and graves do not keep sin from staining society, but they are good places to look for the traces of cultural events people may want to hide.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Moral Stains:
Metaphorical stains appear as a motif throughout the novel, suggesting that immorality leaves traces that can't be erased. Although the scarlet letter itself is the primary example of such a mark, the narrator introduces the idea of moral stains in the "Custom House" chapter:
His son, too, inherited the persecuting spirit, and made himself so conspicuous in the martyrdom of the witches, that their blood may fairly be said to have left a stain upon him. So deep a stain, indeed, that his old dry bones, in the Charter Street burial-ground, must still retain it, if they have not crumbled utterly to dust!
The narrator describes a moral stain left on the bones of his own grandfather, Judge Hathorne, known for persecuting witches during the Salem Witch trials. The bones must not be literally stained with other people's blood, but the narrator imagines that this man's remains must bear a lasting mark of the atrocities he once committed. Hawthorne himself was descended from Hathorne and changed the spelling of his name to distance himself from this man's sins. He was thus personally familiar with the idea of being marked by immoral actions from long ago, and he felt that it was up to descendants to rid themselves of these old stains.
Pearl functions as a moral stain on Hester. Once Hester is pregnant with Pearl, it is impossible for her to conceal her adultery. But Pearl, like Hawthorne, is also a descendant who has been stained by her parents' actions. In Chapter 6, the narrator writes of Pearl's moral development:
The mother's impassioned state had been the medium through which were transmitted to the unborn infant the rays of its moral life; and, however white and clear originally, they had taken the deep stains of crimson and gold, the fiery lustre, the black shadow, and the untempered light of the intervening substance.
Pearl complicates the idea of moral stains as something always to be eradicated. She is "stained" with Hester's sin, but she is also stained with rays of light that have shone on her as though through a stained glass window. Hester is a complicated person who has stamped Pearl with all kinds of marks. There is beauty in the way Pearl bears all these marks. The fact that Hester's "impassioned state" has added color and depth to the originally "white and clear rays of [Pearl's] moral life" makes for a more interesting and captivating child.
The complexity of Pearl's inherited moral stains allows the scarlet A, too, to become a complex mark of Hester and Dimmesdale's morality. The A takes many forms (the fabric letter, Dimmesdale's brand, the meteor in the sky) and is not always something the characters long to cast off. Pearl even imagines that she will inherit Hester's A one day, and that it will simply mark her passage into adulthood. The A thus comes to signify a variety of meanings, even to the townspeople. Unlike the stain on Judge Hathorne's bones, the stain on Hester and Pearl is not wholly horrifying. Rather, it symbolizes an interest in and an ongoing reckoning with the past.
Related Themes:
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Graves and Prisons:
Graves and prisons, or other spaces of confinement, are a motif throughout the novel. The narrator makes clear that there is a strong link between graves and prisons in Chapter 1:
The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison.
The main narrative thus opens with the assertion that graves and prisons are the twin foundations of a society. The narrator claims that it is straightforwardly "practical" to make room for a prison and a cemetery in a new society. The logic here seems to be that every society must deal with crime, and every society must deal with death. Graves and prisons are places to cordon off these less desirable parts of society.
The novel as a whole complicates this idea, demonstrating that crime and death cannot be easily carved out from the rest of society. The narrator first makes this point in "The Custom House":
This long connection of a family with one spot, as its place of birth and burial, creates a kindred between the human being and the locality, quite independent of any charm in the scenery or moral circumstances that surround him.
The narrator himself describes feeling attached to Salem because he has a long line of relatives buried there. More than anything else, he claims, what attaches families to towns is the burial of family members in local soil. The narrator has complex feelings about whether or not this is a good thing. He suggests that the family tree might wither and die if it does not put down roots in other towns as well. The main concern here is likely incest, but the narrator also makes the point that people's remains, in their graves, can be stained by their moral failings in life. To stay on "stained" ancestral land is to risk inheriting those moral stains. Graves do not keep the past in the past, but rather keep both good and bad family history alive.
Prisons, like graves, are not as good at containing society's sin as the "founders of a new colony" might like. Pearl, the symbol of Hester and Dimmesdale's sin, is born in prison: the simple structure literally cannot keep sin from being born into the world. The clearest evidence that sin will forever be part of society is Hester and Dimmesdale's shared grave, which the narrator describes at the end of the novel. The tombstone bears the mark of the A, preserving in cultural memory the fact that they committed adultery together. Prisons and graves do not keep sin from staining society, but they are good places to look for the traces of cultural events people may want to hide.
Related Themes:
Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Light and Dark:
Light and dark imagery appears throughout the novel as a motif, often representing secrets and disclosure. For instance, in Chapter 12, Hester, Dimmesdale, and Pearl stand together on the scaffold at night but under the light of a meteor:
And there stood the minister, with his hand over his heart; and Hester Prynne, with the embroidered letter glimmering on her bosom; and little Pearl, herself a symbol, and the connecting link between those two. They stood in the noon of that strange and solemn splendor, as if it were the light that is to reveal all secrets, and the daybreak that shall unite all who belong to one another.
Although Dimmesdale is Pearl's father, these three have scarcely ever spent time together. Dimmesdale is too afraid to publicly claim paternity, and Hester will not reveal his identity for him. This nighttime rendezvous on the scaffold represents the fact that they would like to stand together in public but that they remain shrouded in the darkness of their family secret. The meteor's sudden light is described as "the light that is to reveal all secrets," and the meteor itself forms the shape of an "A," like the twin scarlet letters on Hester and Dimmesdale's chests. This sudden burst of light is a clear sign that the universe wants Dimmesdale to disclose his secret so that he, Hester, and Pearl can be "united." That union will be a relief from dark and shameful secrecy, and it also seems as inevitable as "daybreak."
Light and dark imagery is especially heavy-handed in this scene on the scaffold, but it has been at play since the first scene on the scaffold in Chapter 2, when Hester is brought out of the prison to be publicly shamed:
The door of the jail being flung open from within, there appeared, in the first place, like a black shadow emerging into sunshine, the grim and grisly presence of the town-beadle, with a sword by his side, and his staff of office in his hand.
The beadle is supposed to lead the town's effort to force Hester to disclose the identity of Pearl's father. He emerges out of the shadowy prison into the sunshine because he is seen as a crusader for truth (which, as we have seen, is associated with light). When Hester and Pearl emerge, Pearl hides her face from the light: she and Hester are not ready to expose the secret. Throughout the novel, secret conversations take place under cover of night and in the forest. By contrast, when Dimmesdale finally does confess, the sun is high in the sky. Dimmesdale may die right after he discloses his secret, but this moment still constitutes a "daybreak" because he dies in light (truth) rather than darkness (shameful secrecy). Just as the meteor promises, telling the truth allows Dimmesdale and Hester, who "belong to another," to be eternally united in a shared grave.
Related Themes:
Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Pearl's Recognition:
Pearl's eerie recognition of her parents and their adultery is a motif in the novel, even when Pearl is an infant. In Chapter 3, when Hester first stands with Pearl on the scaffold, Pearl is strangely responsive to Dimmesdale's sermon:
Even the poor baby, at Hester's bosom, was affected by the same influence; for it directed its hitherto vacant gaze towards Mr. Dimmesdale, and held up its little arms, with a half-pleased, half-plaintive murmur.
Pearl is too young to understand what Dimmesdale is saying about Hester's moral imperative to reveal the baby's father. The townspeople, who ascribe to Puritan doctrine, are understandably affected by Dimmesdale's words, but a baby who cannot speak yet and does not have a developed belief system should not be "affected by the same influence." Close reading of the passage reveals that the narrator might not be entirely earnest about this statement. The line, "for it directed its hitherto vacant gaze towards Mr. Dimmesdale [...]" suggests that Pearl can be observed looking at and reaching toward the pastor, and that the preceding claim (that she is affected by the sermon) is a deduction based on that observation. The narrator may in fact be summarizing a false deduction onlookers are making about why Pearl is behaving strangely.
As the novel continues, it becomes clearer that Pearl is not interested in Dimmesdale's words so much as Dimmesdale himself. In Chapter 8, she surprises her mother by behaving especially tenderly toward Dimmesdale for no apparent reason:
Pearl, that wild and flighty little elf, stole softly towards him, and taking his hand in the grasp of both her own, laid her cheek against it; a caress so tender, and withal so unobtrusive, that her mother, who was looking on, asked herself,—“Is that my Pearl?”
Pearl's response to Dimmesdale here and while she and Hester are on the scaffold foreshadows their connection, which is soon revealed to the reader and will eventually be revealed to the entire town. The title of Chapter 3 is "The Recognition," and it ostensibly refers to Hester's recognition of Chillingworth, her husband. But the reader might also take it to refer to Pearl's recognition of Dimmesdale.
Pearl also has an impossible understanding of the scarlet letter for a child who is under seven for almost the entire novel. In Chapter 6, her recognition of its significance terrifies Hester:
From that epoch, except when the child was asleep, Hester had never felt a moment's safety; not a moment's calm enjoyment of her. Weeks, it is true, would sometimes elapse, during which Pearl's gaze might never once be fixed upon the scarlet letter; but then, again, it would come at unawares, like the stroke of sudden death, and always with that peculiar smile, and odd expression of the eyes.
Even if Pearl does not verbalize exactly what the scarlet letter means, she nonetheless seems to know that it means something. Her recognition is "like the stroke of a sudden death" to Hester. The novel elsewhere compares death to shame within the Puritan context. Pearl's gaze perhaps feels like death to Hester because Hester is unable to hide the mark of her shame even from her young daughter.
Related Themes:
Chapter 6
Explanation and Analysis—Pearl's Recognition:
Pearl's eerie recognition of her parents and their adultery is a motif in the novel, even when Pearl is an infant. In Chapter 3, when Hester first stands with Pearl on the scaffold, Pearl is strangely responsive to Dimmesdale's sermon:
Even the poor baby, at Hester's bosom, was affected by the same influence; for it directed its hitherto vacant gaze towards Mr. Dimmesdale, and held up its little arms, with a half-pleased, half-plaintive murmur.
Pearl is too young to understand what Dimmesdale is saying about Hester's moral imperative to reveal the baby's father. The townspeople, who ascribe to Puritan doctrine, are understandably affected by Dimmesdale's words, but a baby who cannot speak yet and does not have a developed belief system should not be "affected by the same influence." Close reading of the passage reveals that the narrator might not be entirely earnest about this statement. The line, "for it directed its hitherto vacant gaze towards Mr. Dimmesdale [...]" suggests that Pearl can be observed looking at and reaching toward the pastor, and that the preceding claim (that she is affected by the sermon) is a deduction based on that observation. The narrator may in fact be summarizing a false deduction onlookers are making about why Pearl is behaving strangely.
As the novel continues, it becomes clearer that Pearl is not interested in Dimmesdale's words so much as Dimmesdale himself. In Chapter 8, she surprises her mother by behaving especially tenderly toward Dimmesdale for no apparent reason:
Pearl, that wild and flighty little elf, stole softly towards him, and taking his hand in the grasp of both her own, laid her cheek against it; a caress so tender, and withal so unobtrusive, that her mother, who was looking on, asked herself,—“Is that my Pearl?”
Pearl's response to Dimmesdale here and while she and Hester are on the scaffold foreshadows their connection, which is soon revealed to the reader and will eventually be revealed to the entire town. The title of Chapter 3 is "The Recognition," and it ostensibly refers to Hester's recognition of Chillingworth, her husband. But the reader might also take it to refer to Pearl's recognition of Dimmesdale.
Pearl also has an impossible understanding of the scarlet letter for a child who is under seven for almost the entire novel. In Chapter 6, her recognition of its significance terrifies Hester:
From that epoch, except when the child was asleep, Hester had never felt a moment's safety; not a moment's calm enjoyment of her. Weeks, it is true, would sometimes elapse, during which Pearl's gaze might never once be fixed upon the scarlet letter; but then, again, it would come at unawares, like the stroke of sudden death, and always with that peculiar smile, and odd expression of the eyes.
Even if Pearl does not verbalize exactly what the scarlet letter means, she nonetheless seems to know that it means something. Her recognition is "like the stroke of a sudden death" to Hester. The novel elsewhere compares death to shame within the Puritan context. Pearl's gaze perhaps feels like death to Hester because Hester is unable to hide the mark of her shame even from her young daughter.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Moral Stains:
Metaphorical stains appear as a motif throughout the novel, suggesting that immorality leaves traces that can't be erased. Although the scarlet letter itself is the primary example of such a mark, the narrator introduces the idea of moral stains in the "Custom House" chapter:
His son, too, inherited the persecuting spirit, and made himself so conspicuous in the martyrdom of the witches, that their blood may fairly be said to have left a stain upon him. So deep a stain, indeed, that his old dry bones, in the Charter Street burial-ground, must still retain it, if they have not crumbled utterly to dust!
The narrator describes a moral stain left on the bones of his own grandfather, Judge Hathorne, known for persecuting witches during the Salem Witch trials. The bones must not be literally stained with other people's blood, but the narrator imagines that this man's remains must bear a lasting mark of the atrocities he once committed. Hawthorne himself was descended from Hathorne and changed the spelling of his name to distance himself from this man's sins. He was thus personally familiar with the idea of being marked by immoral actions from long ago, and he felt that it was up to descendants to rid themselves of these old stains.
Pearl functions as a moral stain on Hester. Once Hester is pregnant with Pearl, it is impossible for her to conceal her adultery. But Pearl, like Hawthorne, is also a descendant who has been stained by her parents' actions. In Chapter 6, the narrator writes of Pearl's moral development:
The mother's impassioned state had been the medium through which were transmitted to the unborn infant the rays of its moral life; and, however white and clear originally, they had taken the deep stains of crimson and gold, the fiery lustre, the black shadow, and the untempered light of the intervening substance.
Pearl complicates the idea of moral stains as something always to be eradicated. She is "stained" with Hester's sin, but she is also stained with rays of light that have shone on her as though through a stained glass window. Hester is a complicated person who has stamped Pearl with all kinds of marks. There is beauty in the way Pearl bears all these marks. The fact that Hester's "impassioned state" has added color and depth to the originally "white and clear rays of [Pearl's] moral life" makes for a more interesting and captivating child.
The complexity of Pearl's inherited moral stains allows the scarlet A, too, to become a complex mark of Hester and Dimmesdale's morality. The A takes many forms (the fabric letter, Dimmesdale's brand, the meteor in the sky) and is not always something the characters long to cast off. Pearl even imagines that she will inherit Hester's A one day, and that it will simply mark her passage into adulthood. The A thus comes to signify a variety of meanings, even to the townspeople. Unlike the stain on Judge Hathorne's bones, the stain on Hester and Pearl is not wholly horrifying. Rather, it symbolizes an interest in and an ongoing reckoning with the past.
Related Themes:
Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—Pearl's Recognition:
Pearl's eerie recognition of her parents and their adultery is a motif in the novel, even when Pearl is an infant. In Chapter 3, when Hester first stands with Pearl on the scaffold, Pearl is strangely responsive to Dimmesdale's sermon:
Even the poor baby, at Hester's bosom, was affected by the same influence; for it directed its hitherto vacant gaze towards Mr. Dimmesdale, and held up its little arms, with a half-pleased, half-plaintive murmur.
Pearl is too young to understand what Dimmesdale is saying about Hester's moral imperative to reveal the baby's father. The townspeople, who ascribe to Puritan doctrine, are understandably affected by Dimmesdale's words, but a baby who cannot speak yet and does not have a developed belief system should not be "affected by the same influence." Close reading of the passage reveals that the narrator might not be entirely earnest about this statement. The line, "for it directed its hitherto vacant gaze towards Mr. Dimmesdale [...]" suggests that Pearl can be observed looking at and reaching toward the pastor, and that the preceding claim (that she is affected by the sermon) is a deduction based on that observation. The narrator may in fact be summarizing a false deduction onlookers are making about why Pearl is behaving strangely.
As the novel continues, it becomes clearer that Pearl is not interested in Dimmesdale's words so much as Dimmesdale himself. In Chapter 8, she surprises her mother by behaving especially tenderly toward Dimmesdale for no apparent reason:
Pearl, that wild and flighty little elf, stole softly towards him, and taking his hand in the grasp of both her own, laid her cheek against it; a caress so tender, and withal so unobtrusive, that her mother, who was looking on, asked herself,—“Is that my Pearl?”
Pearl's response to Dimmesdale here and while she and Hester are on the scaffold foreshadows their connection, which is soon revealed to the reader and will eventually be revealed to the entire town. The title of Chapter 3 is "The Recognition," and it ostensibly refers to Hester's recognition of Chillingworth, her husband. But the reader might also take it to refer to Pearl's recognition of Dimmesdale.
Pearl also has an impossible understanding of the scarlet letter for a child who is under seven for almost the entire novel. In Chapter 6, her recognition of its significance terrifies Hester:
From that epoch, except when the child was asleep, Hester had never felt a moment's safety; not a moment's calm enjoyment of her. Weeks, it is true, would sometimes elapse, during which Pearl's gaze might never once be fixed upon the scarlet letter; but then, again, it would come at unawares, like the stroke of sudden death, and always with that peculiar smile, and odd expression of the eyes.
Even if Pearl does not verbalize exactly what the scarlet letter means, she nonetheless seems to know that it means something. Her recognition is "like the stroke of a sudden death" to Hester. The novel elsewhere compares death to shame within the Puritan context. Pearl's gaze perhaps feels like death to Hester because Hester is unable to hide the mark of her shame even from her young daughter.
Related Themes:
Chapter 12
Explanation and Analysis—Light and Dark:
Light and dark imagery appears throughout the novel as a motif, often representing secrets and disclosure. For instance, in Chapter 12, Hester, Dimmesdale, and Pearl stand together on the scaffold at night but under the light of a meteor:
And there stood the minister, with his hand over his heart; and Hester Prynne, with the embroidered letter glimmering on her bosom; and little Pearl, herself a symbol, and the connecting link between those two. They stood in the noon of that strange and solemn splendor, as if it were the light that is to reveal all secrets, and the daybreak that shall unite all who belong to one another.
Although Dimmesdale is Pearl's father, these three have scarcely ever spent time together. Dimmesdale is too afraid to publicly claim paternity, and Hester will not reveal his identity for him. This nighttime rendezvous on the scaffold represents the fact that they would like to stand together in public but that they remain shrouded in the darkness of their family secret. The meteor's sudden light is described as "the light that is to reveal all secrets," and the meteor itself forms the shape of an "A," like the twin scarlet letters on Hester and Dimmesdale's chests. This sudden burst of light is a clear sign that the universe wants Dimmesdale to disclose his secret so that he, Hester, and Pearl can be "united." That union will be a relief from dark and shameful secrecy, and it also seems as inevitable as "daybreak."
Light and dark imagery is especially heavy-handed in this scene on the scaffold, but it has been at play since the first scene on the scaffold in Chapter 2, when Hester is brought out of the prison to be publicly shamed:
The door of the jail being flung open from within, there appeared, in the first place, like a black shadow emerging into sunshine, the grim and grisly presence of the town-beadle, with a sword by his side, and his staff of office in his hand.
The beadle is supposed to lead the town's effort to force Hester to disclose the identity of Pearl's father. He emerges out of the shadowy prison into the sunshine because he is seen as a crusader for truth (which, as we have seen, is associated with light). When Hester and Pearl emerge, Pearl hides her face from the light: she and Hester are not ready to expose the secret. Throughout the novel, secret conversations take place under cover of night and in the forest. By contrast, when Dimmesdale finally does confess, the sun is high in the sky. Dimmesdale may die right after he discloses his secret, but this moment still constitutes a "daybreak" because he dies in light (truth) rather than darkness (shameful secrecy). Just as the meteor promises, telling the truth allows Dimmesdale and Hester, who "belong to another," to be eternally united in a shared grave.
Related Themes:
