Chapter 2: The Market-Place

1. The Crowd

In chapter two, Hawthorne introduces the reader to a crowd of somberly dressed people assembled before the town’s prison. They do little else but stare at the wooden door of the prison, appearing extremely focused. Hawthorne recognizes that their seemingly grim behavior suggests that an infamous criminal is to be punished. However, he goes on to state that,

...in that early severity of the Puritan character, an inference of this kind could not so indubitably be drawn. It might be that a sluggish bond-servant, or an undutiful child, whom his parents had given over to the civil authority, was to be corrected at the whipping post. It might be, that an Antinomian, a Quaker, or other heterodox religionist was to be scourged out of town, or an idle and vagrant Indian, whom the white man’s fire-water had made riotous about the streets, was to be driven with stripes into the shadow of the forest (37).

To an individual that does not live in Puritan society, the unusual attention the Puritans display would most likely lead one to think that someone who had committed terrible crimes would be the one to exit the prison and make their way to be executed. In reality, the “criminal” may simply be a misbehaving child or servant, a trouble-making Native American, or someone who was not a Puritan. This begins Hawthorne’s criticism of the Puritan society. In a sense, he likens a convicted criminal to someone as innocent as a child or servant who shirked their duties, or an individual expressing their own beliefs. He describes the intense, solemn attentiveness of the gathered crowd on the door of the prison, showing that no matter severity of the misdeed, the offender will be met with serious punishment. In fact, Hawthorne describes their seriousness as something that, “...befitted a people amongst whom religion and law were almost identical, and in whose character both were so thoroughly interfused, that the mildest and severest acts of public discipline were alike made venerable and awful” (37). In Puritan society, law and religion were very closely tied, almost to the point of being one and the same. As a result, any misdemeanor would be punished severely, despite the vast differences in potential severity. 

 

2. The Women:
    Interspersed in the crowd are a number of women, who place their own specific blame on Hester. As Puritan women, they are highly offended by Hester’s adultery, and in their opinion’s, it was far too kind of the magistrates to punish Hester by making her wear a scarlet ‘A’ on her clothes. One woman remarks, “‘This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die’” (39). It could not be any more obvious that these women believe Hester has committed an utterly atrocious crime and should receive an equally severe punishment. They worry that Hester will be able to cover the letter and thus live her life without the shame that would otherwise be immediate when people see the ‘A’ on her clothing. It should also be known that the woman who said this was described as “...the ugliest as well as the most pitiless...” (39) During this time period, physical beauty was not exactly something to be proud about. It may lead one to believe that beautiful young women were being used by the Devil to seduce men and make them sin. When Hester finally appears, she is depicted as exceedingly beautiful. It is a clear criticism of Puritan society that the physically attractive woman is the criminal, and the physically unattractive woman is one who believes in the strictest application of Puritan law. The “ugly” woman even goes so far as to claim that it will be the magistrate’s fault if their own daughters and wives stray from purity like Hester did. While this declaration may be slightly extreme, it serves to further the idea that the Puritans were equally strict in their beliefs as well as their punishments.

3. The Scaffold:
    When Hester makes her first appearance, she is met with stony silence. The town-beadle, a lay official who assists with matters of the church, escorts Hester and her child to the scaffold, a large structure placed before the church which functioned as a penal machine. She is forced to stand on the scaffold in front of the entire community, and it is then that she endures a terrible punishment: silence. The crowd watches Hester without speaking or laughing mockingly, which begins to drive her mad:

Had a roar of laughter burst from the multitude,- each man, each woman, each little shrill-voiced child, contributing their equal parts,-Hester Prynne might have repaid them all with a bitter and disdainful smile. But, under the leaden infliction which it was her doom to endure, she felt, at moments, as if she must needs shriek out with the full power of her lungs, and cast herself from the scaffold down upon the ground, or else go mad at once (43).

This hostile silence displays the seriousness with which the Puritans were able to carry out their punishments of others. Had they been less disciplined and ridiculed Hester, she would have been able to shrug it off and perhaps even reply in kind. However, the rigidity with which they maintained their silence was enough to unnerve even Hester, who has already portrayed herself as a rather bold character. Standing before her fellow townspeople in such silence began to weaken her resolve, so much so that she felt the overwhelming desire to scream and jump down from the scaffold in order to relieve herself of the pressures of Puritan society.


Wow Factor:
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

    In J.K. Rowling’s sixth novel in the Harry Potter series, there is a scene between the main character, Harry Potter, and his headmaster, Professor Dumbledore, that bears a certain similarity to Hester standing on the scaffold. In the scene, Harry spoke with Dumbledore about a task he had failed to accomplish, and became very uncomfortable with the headmaster’s response: “A hot, prickly feeling of shame spread from the top of Harry’s head all the way down his body. Dumbledore had not raised his voice, he did not even sound angry, but Harry would  have preferred him to yell; this cold disappointment was worse than anything” (Rowling 428). Both Hester and Harry have a similar response to the disappointment of others. While there is a stark difference between the degrees of disappointment, the idea is still the same- neither is able to bear the weight of silence well; rather, they would prefer yelling or mockery.