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Megan Marshall on Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

Episode 14

The Forgotten Art of Gaiety

Featuring Megan Marshall

Audio episode · 16 min

Megan Marshall on The Scarlet Letter

Coming out of the forest, the book starts being funny, and Marshall insists the comedy is load-bearing. A minister fighting wicked urges on his walk home, an election-day holiday for a town allergic to joy, and a real witch working the crowd: Hawthorne's irony surfaces exactly where the stakes are highest.

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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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