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Megan Marshall on Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

Episode 4

She's Not Going to Say

Featuring Megan Marshall

Audio episode · 15 min

Megan Marshall on The Scarlet Letter

Hester stands on the scaffold with her baby and refuses to name the father. Marshall reads the scene as an inverted Madonna and child, follows the gold-embroidered A from brand to badge, and watches the men take charge of a woman's silence. Her margin note on the young minister: gender roles, gender fluidity.

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What Does the A on Hester's Chest Actually Mean?

The A never holds still: adulteress at the scaffold, able and armor at the cottage, awe by the end — Marshall tracks a symbol its makers couldn't control.

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Two Kinds of Nonconformity

Hester breaks the world's law in her mind; Thoreau breaks it with his feet. Marshall and Kaag on what deciding your own law actually costs.

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Is The Scarlet Letter a Feminist Novel?

Yes, Marshall argues: Hawthorne put Margaret Fuller's feminist theory in Hester's mind, atoning for a family history of silencing women — blind spots and all.

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Did Hester Prynne Sin Alone?

No — and Marshall reads Hawthorne's suspended question as widening the guilt past Dimmesdale and Chillingworth to the whole community standing in judgment.

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