ABSTRACT
With this, its eighth chapter, American Literature and American Identity turns to gender relations, taking up Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne does not appear to be concerned focally with nationalism. Rather, his main interests are spiritual and moral. However, these topics are inseparable from social and political life in Hawthorne’s conception; as such, they require attention to the nation. A central ethical precept suggested by The Scarlet Letter is the necessity of self-criticism as the antidote to the fundamental sin of spiritual pride. It is crucial that this is self-criticism, not criticism of others. Fundamentally, the sexual asymmetry of patriarchal society means that men more readily escape self-criticism, with spiritually and socially degrading results. Hawthorne develops the unexpected spiritual consequences of the sexual double standard through the course of the novel. In the end, he suggests a radical restructuring of society that rejects this double standard, which can be achieved in part through the work of prophetesses adumbrated by Anne Hutchinson and Hester Prynne—thus, a society that could perhaps begin to be truly universal and egalitarian.
