Hawthorne, Hester and the Blessed Virgin Mary

While re-reading Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, a novel I first read as a 14 year old, I was struck by the many references to Hester as a 'saint', 'sister of mercy' type along the lines of the Virgin Mary. Hawthorne writes,

"Hester's nature showed itself warm and rich: a well-spring of human tenderness, unfailing to every real demand, and inexhaustible by the largest. Her breast, with its badge of shame, was but the softer pillow for the head that needed one. She was self-ordained a Sister of Mercy; or, we may rather say, the world's heavy hand had so ordained her, when neither the world nor she looked forward to this result. The letter was the symbol of her calling." (Scarlet Letter, p. 257)

and again, Rev. Dimmsdale call out to Hester,

"O Hester, thou art my better angel!" (Scarlet Letter, p. 292)

"... the scarlet letter had the effect of the cross on a nun's bosom. It imparted to the wearer a kind of sacredness." (Scarlet Letter, p. 258)

These among the many other references (particularly in the concluding paragraphs were Hester's thoughts of a Prophetess, an angel and apostle, of a "new relation between man and woman on a surer ground of mutual happiness" shows her self-consciousness sacred aspect) recount the saintly or divine aspect of Hester and invites the reader to speculate on how Salem would have received Mary whose pregnancy was conceived outside of wedlock and how Joseph would have responded had he been placed on the judgment block of Puritanical Society.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, might have been forced to wear a 'F' (fornicator) had she been transplanted to 17th Century Salem as has Hester/ Jesus' earliest memories could have been of the Salem's women urging for a more severe punishment (death) on both Mary and Joseph (an odd negative of the plan of Herod). Instead another time called her Theotokos, mother of God. Perhaps as Hawthorne is without challenge as the first American artist - novelist, Hester is our mother of virtue, our mother of charity - embodying a new virtue that we have yet to follow.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter. From Nathaniel Hawthorne: Collected Novels (Library of America)