The overall voice of the narrator seems filled with resignation and reads like a foregone conclusion to the end of the story. Or I could just call it foreshadowing.

"But what is one to do?" she asks repeatedly. Feminist literary critics would have a field day with this one. Marxist feminists would be bouncing off the walls. Even though the narrator is female, there's a strong element of feminine subjectivity. The Marxist reading comes from the power struggle, literally, especially at the end when John is trying to get her to come out of the room. Throughout the story, the balance of power is inordinately tipped towards one side, and as soon as that changes, there's chaos everywhere.

The angle to note is that her only one indulgence is heavily supressed by her husband.

"There comes John's sister. Such a dear girl as she is, and so careful of me! I must not let her see me writing."

I wonder why...

The Portfolio Package

The Venerable Portfolio

If you need help, let me know. I'd be more than happy to oblige.

I like this story, mainly because I think that it falls into one of my favorite fiction genres, i.e., satire. I'm the sort of person who'll pick up a protest sign at the drop of a hat, so stories that allude to problems in the society always appeal to me. The object of satire is just that -- to highlight complications in the world we live in under a humorous light.

"I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is best." That's the first introduction from Melville that suggests the tone of the story to follow. Incidentally, if anyone's ever read Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad, you'll find that Melville and Twain share the same depth of wit.

I think that there's a subtle hint towards the class conflict being made by Melville in this story, especially by the ironic reversal of roles. Does the man with the money always get to call the shots? I don't think so. Talk about social injustice. The notion of hapless dread setting in with the loss of power is very pronounced in the story. There's a sense of loss of control, which is synonymous with a loss of power, which is unacceptable, especially for capitalists.

For instance: "And as the idea came upon me of his possibly turning out a long-lived man, and keep occupying my chambers, and denying my authority; and perplexing my visitors; and scandalizing my professional reputation."

Loss of control, loss of power and loss of social standing. Refuting social customs is a favorite hobby of satirists, by the way. I can actually picture Mr. Lawyer wiping the beads of perspiration off his forehead.

I suppose that my only question is, why is Bartleby's death left unjustified? If a case be made for him, then we could say that he was left starving for compassion because he had to rely on the kindness of strangers (I'm sorry Dr. Jerz. I couldn't resist). But any justification for Bartleby is pure conjecture, so I don't know if it's safe to go there. Just how dark was his life? I think Melville actually tells us.

"...- he whom it would relieve, nor eats nor hungers any more; pardon for those who died desparing; hope for those who died unhoping; good tidings for those who died stifled by unrelieved calamities..."

There's a socialist moral at play here, but I'm definitely not going to spell it out even further.

Turned out, it really didn't matter, as long as the work was getting done. Yet, the question never really left me. As a (semi) writer, I often bounce back and forth between revealing too many of my experiences or avoiding them altogether. And then came Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter and The Custom-House, in that order.

When I first started reading this part of the novel, I had a feeling that I was being set up for a dramatic revelation of the events that led up to the publication of The Scarlet Letter, and boy was I right. Hawthorne writes: "...the author addresses, not the many who will fling aside his volume, or never take it up, but the few who will understand him, better than most of his schoolmates and lifemates" (1).

In the very beginning, he tries to establish a relationship with his readers by making them feel as though they're being initiated into a very intimate and a very elite circle of friends. Incidently, I think that the best way to read Hawthorne is while sitting in a grotesquely overstuffed leather chair with a goblet of wine on one side and a bowl of chocolate on the other. Oh, and the feet need to be propped up on an ottoman because the candles will light up by themselves (how 'bout them enchanted castles, eh?). But that's just me.

It's interesting that so much of Hawthorne's initial discourse reflects the changing time of the era. "Such occasions might remind the elderly citizen of that period, before the last war with England, when Salem was a port by itself; not scorned, as she is now, by her own merchants and ship-owners, who permit her wharves to crumble to ruin..." (3). Even before the novel begins, we're warned of the economic and in some ways, moral, disintegration of Puritan life. So, by conjecture, the "so-called" classics that make it into that category are more or less semi-historical documents. Read: Gone With the Wind & To Kill a Mockingbird.

I have to admit that I've really enjoyed reading The Scarlet Letter, but the first time my knees melted was when Hawthorne talked about food. "A tenderloin of beef, a hind-quarter of veal, a spare-rib of pork, a particular chicken, or a remarkably praiseworthy turkey..." (12). Okay, so aside from the implications of sky-rocketing cholestrol levels, I was in heaven. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love food...my secret plan (well, not so much anymore) is to escape from the clutches of academia, run away to culinary school and set up my own Bed & Breakfast after retirement. Hah. Retirement. That's a whine for another day.

But really....I honestly believe that nothing brings people together like food. There's nothing like a table full of family and friends talking and laughing around mounds and mounda of food. Needless to say, I kinda jumped with joy to see Hawthorne agreeing with me.

If y'all haven't read The Custom-House section yet, I won't ruin it for you. But I promise there's a serious connection between the beginning of my post and the revelation at the end. My closing reaction? For a man who was ostensibly suffering from a writer's block, he sure could go on and on.

But getting on with the reading...The moral is, if you're reading literature and you want to get to the shuddering cold depths of the "intended" meaning, then character analysis ain't it. Stories, by and large, and especially the ones that fall into Literature with a capital "L," very rarely mean to stay by the characters depicted in them. There are issues that lay at the very core of written texts...social injustices, revolutions, change in perspective, treatment of women, apartheid, cultural imperialism...the list is endless. Characters are more or less conduits to get the point across. Not to say that character development, description and analyses are worthless points of discussion. There are extremely close observances being made all over the blog, but lets move on people!

To go back to basics, let's think about the point that Hawthorne is trying to make. Is he talking about how society treats women? Sure he is. He's pretty forward in his thinking that gets relayed across the pages more than once. Hester is very seldom chastised by her creator, i.e., Hawthorne.

For example: "Had there been a Papist among the crowd of Puritans, he might have seen in this beautiful woman, so picturesque in her attire and mien, and with the infant at her bosom, an object to remind him of the image of Divine Maternity," (39 - my text). That's not exactly a finger being pointed at her at this juncture. Hawthorne is definitely trying to control the reader's reaction.

Which is closely connected to the fact that the author is god in his/her universe. Every character, every description, every turn of events is an extremely conscious choice and is very carefully manipulated to lead to the desired end. Think "puppeteer." Is it just a coincidence that Hester happened to be in the "New World" when she committed a sin of passion? Hardly. But the ultimate focus is not so much on her adultery as it is on her being ostracized out of the only community she has possibly ever known. So naturally, the focus shifts from her emotional torture to the society being depicted as the cruel, heartless and unforgiving beast, if you will, for lack of a better word.

Lets consider the concept of Divine Retribution for a moment. Dimmesdale, as we all know by the end, has forever been consumed with guilt for not admitting to his mistake. Is Chillingworth's acquaintance with Dimmesdale Hawthorne's way of giving him his just desserts? Does that mean that the reader is supposed to believe in Providence, regardless of the fruits that one's labors bear? Maybe the book isn't about society at all. Maybe it's about reaffirming one's faith and belief in Divine justice. It's a small world, and what goes around comes around. But ya can't clap with just one hand people. Just some food for thought.

And then there's a whole other notion of human fallibility. Perhaps the message of the book is to make people see each other in a fair and just light. People don't come standardized because they're not cut out from the same mould. How high of a pedestal should we really place people on? How fair is it really for people to put anyone on a pedestal? In the same paragraph that I've cited above, Hawthorne makes this fallibility wholly clear.

"Here, there was the taint of deepest sin in the most sacred quality of human life, working such effect, that the world was only the darker for this woman's beauty, and the more lost for the infant she had borne," (39).

Should they accept her or abandon her? Do people really have a right to judge other human beings without understanding that they might be wearing the exact same shoes some day? These might sound like rhetorical questions, but they've definitely been presented in the book with some clarity.

The story might drag on, the language might be archaic, the literary devices might be over-dramatised, but The Scarlet Letter is a book with many, many layers to it. It's a book that reveals a completely new issue in a completely different light every time its read, which makes it fall under Literature (with a capital L), which in turn means that there's more to the book than the characters. Shouldn't it deserve deeper thought?