As we began discussing in Thursday's class, Hawthorne really wants to make sure his readers pick up on his use of symbols. As I continued reading The Scarlet Letter, I kept wondering why he so blatantly announces when a symbol appears within the novel. Something we discussed in my creative writing class this semester is the importance of letting your reader figure things like symbolism, themes, etc. out on his/her own. It "makes the reader feel smart" when she recognizes a significant piece of the "literary puzzle" that is a novel or short story. Taking that power away from the reader can may insult or bore her.
And yet, Hawthorne's novel has remained popular for years despite his disregard for the writer/reader relationship. Why don't we care that he makes his symbols so painfully obvious? Why did he decide to identify them so explicitly in the first place?
A theory I have is that Hawthorne really didn't trust his audience. Based on what Onno told us about Hawthorne in class on Thursday, he definitely seems to have held himself in high regard. I wonder if he thought his symbols were so clever, so intelligent that he figured he should make them all 100% clear so that no reader would miss how brilliant he was. This idea reminded me of Cooper using the epigraphs from writers like Shakespeare to illustrate that he was a "serious writer" himself.
It's clear that Hawthorne loves creating symbols. One could almost say that this is what he thinks is the primary mission of the novelist, or "romancer." He's more interested in symbols than in plot, clearly. So his symbols are obvious. On the other hand, I don't think the meaning of those symbols is all that obvious. And he seems very aware of the idea that people will interpret symbols differently. Think of the first scene of the novel, with Hester and Pearl standing before the town, coming out of the prison. They are explicitly symbols for the townspeople, who are their to watch them, shame them, and most of all, read them. Notice how many different interpretations of Hester and Pearl the narrator gives. Far from telling readers what he wants us to think, he gives us too many options, so that we don't really know what the narrator thinks, or what we should think. Does this show respect for the reader, or an attempt to assert his superiority over him or her?
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