Clothing Imagery in “The Scarlet Letter”
Introduction
Writers use details and descriptions of clothing to help define their characters. Even the smallest of signifiers can become important manifestations of their personalities and perspectives. This is incredibly obvious in the way the Puritans force Hester to wear the scarlet letter as a symbol of her adultery.
Of course, Hawthorne purposely delivers a rich and varied collection of clothes to elucidate the different characters. However, the imagery also reinforces the idea that we should not be so rigid and narrow in our beliefs that we become intolerant towards others who do not share our views. Fashion can change.
The Puritans
Hawthorne opens the novel with a description of the “throng” of Puritans wearing “sad-colored garments” and “gray, steeple-crowned hats” outside the prison while they wait for the spectacle of Hester’s punishment. The pathetic fallacy of “sad” suggests the cheerless temperament of the society and the metaphor comparing the shape of the “hats” to a church “steeple” conveys their determined focus on religious.
Governor Bellingham, in Chapter Three, wears a “dark feather in his hat” and a “black velvet tunic”. As the political leader of the colony, his clothing epitomises its dark hues.
Sumptuary Laws
Sumptuary Laws are an attempt to regulate, for example, the clothes a person can wear according to their rank in society. Historically, they were used for economic reasons, such as manipulating the price of commodities, or to differentiate between the ranks in society. The Puritan’s legislation was more concerned with morality when it passed its own sumptuary laws.
For example, in a session held at Newe Towne in 1634, the General Court threatened the forfeiture of any apparel with “lace on it, siluer, golde, silke, or threed”, decreed that men and women were only permitted to have on “slashe on each sleeue”, and that men were no longer allowed to wear “newe fashions” or have “longe haire”.
These proclamations were an attempt to control the modesty and of its citizens.
According to Hawthorne in chapter five, ostentatious displays of clothing, such as “deep ruffs, painfully wrought bands, and gorgeously embroidered gloves”, were “readily allowed to individuals dignified by rank or wealth, even while sumptuary laws forbade these and similar extravagances to the plebeian order”.
However, in the second chapter, the writer describes Hester’s scarlet letter as “so artistically done” it was “greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony”. Interestingly, the symbol of her crime and punishment breaks the law.
Hester
In Chapter Five, Hawthorne presents Hester’s “dress” as the “coarsest materials” of the “most sombre hue” which was “her doom to wear”. These superlatives describing her clothing demonstrate her strong commitment to the sumptuary laws of the colony and her willingness to repent for her adultery.
Her “sombre” and serious clothing also reassures the reader that her affair with Dimmesdale was not the action of an impetuous and unruly young girl.
However, the “fantastically embroidered” scarlet letter is artistic and brilliant. As one of the female spectators notes in “The Market-Place”, “she hath good skill at her needle, that’s certain”.
At the end of the fifth chapter, Hawthorne describes the “terrific legend” that promoted the idea the scarlet letter was “red-hot with infernal fire”.
The contradictions of Hester’s clothes signify her complicated personality. She is a holy sinner.
Pearl
Hester dresses Pearl with “fantastic ingenuity”. In “The Governor’s Hall”, she wears a “crimson velvet tunic, of a peculiar cut” which was “abundantly embroidered with fantasies and flourishes of gold thread”. In the next chapter, Reverend Wilson calls her a “little bird of scarlet plumage”.
Dressed in red with artistic flourishes of thread, “she is the scarlet letter”!
Pearl, like her clothes, is “beautiful and brilliant” but not “amenable to rules”.
Chillingworth
The villain of the novel is first introduced at the start of the third chapter. He is “clad in a strange disarray of civilised and savage costume”. His clothing represents the “civilised” educated scientist who becomes “savage” in his desire for revenge.
The use of the noun “costume” also hints at the Chillingworth’s decision to hide his true identity because his clothes become a disguise. Chapter nine begins with the statement “under the appellation of Roger Chillingworth, the reader will remember, was hidden another name”. In this way, Hawthorne shows the reader how our identities can change as easily as the clothes we wear.
The New England Holiday
Chapter twenty-one exemplifies Hawthorne’s depiction of clothing because it contains the most variation. Having consistently pesented the Puritans wearing “sad-colored garments”, the writer speculates if historians “exaggerate” their “gray or sable tinge”.
Hester, of course, wears a “garment of coarse gray cloth” while Pearl was “decked out with airy gayety”. Hawthorne admits it is an “outward manifestation of her character”.
He then introduces the “rough figures” from the “forest settlements” who were dressed in “deer-skins”. A “party of Indians” are also wearing “deer-skin robes” but their “savage finery” includes “red and yellow ochre” and “feathers”.
There was an abundance of wildlife in the mighty New England forests, including deer, but no plantations or farms. Therefore, it is important to note that these migrants had to fashion clothes from what resources were available and suited the region’s conditions. The Puritan’s “sad-colored garments” would have been inappropriate in the vast forests, especially in the wetlands and hills of New England.
Similarly, Native Americans wore the animal hides, such as deer and buffalo, from their hunts because it was necessary and efficient. Leather is certainly more durable.
Joining this “throng” to watch the procession are the “rough-looking desperadoes” from the Spanish ship who are wearing “wide, short trousers” with “belts” and knives. Again, it is important to recognise the benefits of “short trousers” on a ship. They ensured the sailors remained dry when they washed the decks or not get caught in the ship rigging. They were “wide” because it helped with their buoyancy if they landed in the water.
The “showy and gallant” shipmaster risked transgressing the colony’s sumptuary laws and “incurring fine or imprisonment, or perhaps an exhibition in the stocks” because of the “ribbons of his garment, and gold lace on his hat” which also had a “gold chain” and a “feather”. He is dressed more ostentatiously because he wants to exude power and authority in the same way the Puritan dignitaries wore “deep ruffs, painfully wrought bands, and gorgeously embroidered gloves” for official state functions and the native Americans distinguished themselves by their colours.
Conclusion
When Hester is released from prison, she must decide where to live. One of her choices, to move back to England, is presented through the simile “like garments put off long ago”. The comparison suggests her old life no longer fits or suits, so she cannot hope to wear it again.
After their encounter in the forest, Dimmesdale returns to the settlement and believes he has changed so much that he the settlers would find their minister “flung down there like a cast-off garment”.
As Pearl notes in “The New England Holiday”, the blacksmith has “washed his sooty face” and is wearing his “Sabbath-day clothes”.
Our identity, like the clothes wear, is not permanent or absolute.