ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the unstable and evolving relation in the nineteenth century America between norm or law and deviance or crime. The Scarlet Letter demonstrates the dynamic relations among the literal and figurative letters of the law. A few months after the novel's publication, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, mandating punishment of individuals hindering the return of escaped slaves. In nineteenth-century America, as a defining cultural flashpoint, slavery serves as a significant prism through which to view the negotiation of normative roles. Assuming a predominant role in American law over the course of the nineteenth century, contract reflected the belief in market economics and in the law as facilitator of private autonomy. Following Emancipation, contract emerged in opposition to slavery: it functioned as the manifestation of the status of freedom and autonomy, both as a transaction and as a social relation grounded in notions of "self ownership, consent and exchange".
