Tuesday, February 24, 2015
The Rules of the Marketplace
The marketplace seems to be a symbol we did not discuss in class that stands for strict adherence to society's rules. The marketplace seems to be the opposite of the forest where the characters could be themselves and not fear punishment (though it could be argued God sees all and therefore punishment may still arise). In Chapter XXII, Hester tells Pearl that "We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest" (581). Beyond her need to conceal the conversation between her and the minister, Hester also seems to be invoking a clear divide between what matters are appropriate for the forest and what is appropriate in the visible, public, Puritan space of the marketplace. Pearl tells her mother than she almost ran to Dimmesdale during the parade to ask for a kiss. Telllingly, Hester responds "kisses are not to be given in the marketplace" (581). Hester doesn't qualify the kisses as specifically ones between the minister and herself or Pearl, but all kisses seem to be banned from the marketplace. The marketplace, the location of the scaffold and adjoining the church, is a sober place without outward emotion where the public eye enforces the rules of the Puritan society. Dimmesdale violates this social construction at the end when he acknowledges Hester and Pearl. When Pearl is finally able to give Dimmesdale his kiss, her tears fall "upon her father's cheek" which is the first time Dimmesdale is explicitly acknowledged as the child's father. Dimmesdale's final actions oppose the accepted rules of the marketplace and allow it, for a moment, to be a place of love and self-expression, which the minister pays for with his life.
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I absolutely agree with your point here. It's interesting how all the settings of the book, upon further reflection, seem to represent something (though I hadn't thought of this one). If the marketplace is emblematic of strict Puritan society, and the forest of freedom and witches, there is also the isolation of Hester's home, and the rather unnerving, dark home of Dimmesdale, in which Satan always lurks. It's almost as if the town is strictly divided between its different purposes, and, as you said, to violate their rules can result in the ultimate punishment. I wonder about the immediate aftermath of Dimmesdale's confession in the marketplace, and how the people's reaction would have fallen in line with this theory about its symbolism.
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