3 MORAL VALUES OF MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY IN THE PURITAN ERA: A STUDY ON NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE’S THE SCARLET LETTER Didik Rinan Sumekto didikrinan@unwidha.ac.id English Education Department, Widya Dharma University, Klaten Abstract: This study aimed at revealing and discussing the life of Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne as depicted in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, which adopted the moral values set in the past nineteenth century Massachusetts society. The research used the historical qualitative method by focusing on empirical facts found in the research site in accordance with the structural society existence in a particular period. Data collection and interpretation technique was applied systematically by explaining and describing the actions and events of the story with facts about the Puritan dogma. The findings showed that the moral values had described the life of Arthur and Hester, as the major character via (1) the satirical outline on the actual world of morality within Massachusetts society; (2) the degree of Puritan morality, hypocrisy, guilt and final painful expiation to Arthur and Hester, to which they had condemned, violated, and led to a consequence of punishment upon their moral hazard, since the law of God and the man–made law treachery were seductively done on behalf of love; and (3) the empirical understanding of the consequence and positive implication of life in struggling for honesty, honor, dignity, strength and endurance. Key words: Puritanism, moral values, treachery. Abstrak: Kajian studi ini bertujuan mengungkapkan dan membahas kehidupan Arthur Dimmesdale dan Hester Prynne seperti yang digambarkan dalam novel Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter dengan mengadopsi nilai-nilai moral yang hidup pada abad kesembilan belas di kalangan masyarakat Massachusetts. Studi ini menggunakan 160 Celt, Volume 14, Number 2, December 2014, pp. 159-175 metode penelitian historis kualitatif dengan berfokus pada fakta empiris yang ditemukan di lokasi penelitian sesuai dengan eksistensi masyarakat pada periode tertentu. Teknik pengumpulan data menggunakan teknik evaluatif yang diterapkan secara sistematis melalui pengungkapan dan pendeskripsian atas temuan fakta-fakta tersebut. Hasil studi ini menunjukkan bahwa nilai-nilai moral yang menggambarkan kehidupan Arthur dan Hester, sebagai karakter utama dalam novel tersebut terkait (1) ungkapan secara satir pada dunia menyangkut moralitas di kalangan masyarakat Massachusetts; (2) perlakuan yang tidak mengenakkan kepada Arthur dan Hester di kalangan masyarakat Puritan terkait dengan moralitas, kemunafikan, rasa bersalah dan penghianatan yang begitu menyakitkan atas pelanggaran hukum Tuhan dan manusia, serta konsekuensi hukuman yang mereka terima atas pelanggaran nilai-nilai moral yang berlatarbelakang cinta; dan (3) pemahaman empiris terkait implikasi positif dari kehidupan yang mengedepankan bagaimana kejujuran, kehormatan, martabat, kekuatan dan daya tahan hidup dibangun. Kata kunci: Puritanisme, nilai-nilai moral, penghianatan. INTRODUCTION It was noted that people of England became the first American pioneers that came into the virgin new world and opened the first permanent white settlement in the continent of the 1607s (Lemay, 1988, p. 4), so that they have become the first American frontier settlers in the colonial period. History recorded that America had undergone a long era of frontier experience from 1607 to 1890, when newcomers from all over the world established the continent into civilization (Buchel & Gray, 1994, p.131), within so brief a span of time that the growing nation started to lose their innocence image and freedom in nature as it had in its earlier periods (Rubin, 1979, p. 199). Winthrop (1639) as cited by (Winthrop, 1985) Heimert and Debanco (1985, p. 87) preached a lay sermon to the men, women and children who were gathered in Southampton to accompany him on a voyage to America to actualize an order to go into the wilderness where they planned to erect a New England in March 1630. These emigrants were Puritans, departing England because of their belief that the assault on Godliness was being mounted by the king’s bishops and would only increase in vigour. Thus, according to Coffey and Lim (2008, p. 127) they had decided to uproot themselves and their families in order to find a colony where they could not Sumekto, R.D., Moral Values of Massachusetts Society in the Puritan 161 Era: a Study on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter only preserve the religious reforms they had managed to achieve in their native land, but also to further advance the purification of worship and belief. The relationship between self-abasement and divine power in Puritan theology, according to Porterfield (1992, p. 39) had important implications for many aspects of Puritan life. Gatta (2004, p. 76) pointed out that in some respects, first Puritans generation tried to armour themselves against the wilderness, to wall out the untamed and seemingly ungodly forces that surrounded them with the Puritan theology that would have fared differently if the New England founders had landed first in other regions rather than on Plymouth Rock. What became important matters were about the interrelation among the historical, religious, socio-cultural, and civil perspectives about American Puritanism that initially begun in 1607 to the early nineteenth century, like depicted in The Scarlet Letter. LITERATURE REVIEW A. Historical and Socio-Cultural Background In their long journey beginning from old England to New England, considered as the land of hope, many Puritans were called by the English pilgrims to reach the new world and dwell the colony of Plymouth in 1620 and Massachusetts in 1630. They sought for freedom of religious conscience and economic security and/ or opportunity. During those years starting from 1620 to 1640 the Puritan had spread along the coast from Maine to what was suburban New York. By 1640, when Virginia had 8,000 white people, the area of New England had 14,000, chiefly in Massachusetts. For the next half century, the hardly and prolific Puritans were free to develop their town government, economy, and way of life virtually undisturbed by the authorities in England (Baugh, 1967). In the Puritans’ first settlement period, they were far from democratic in politic and philosophy disturbance and the governmental system aligned was mainly intended to Calvinism in Geneva, henceforth, Puritanism began to tower in the New World. But by this time, according to Foerster (1962, p. 3) they had given to New England a special character which in some respects was evident to the present day. According to Miller and Johnson (1963, p. 380) Puritans resulted from a way of life, and determined certain qualities of behavior peculiarly. Clearly, the Puritans believed that in the Bible lay all true and proper laws for governing human conduct, if they voluntarily 162 Celt, Volume 14, Number 2, December 2014, pp. 159-175 discontinued to magistrate and minister the power of interpreting the code, before conceiving the doctrine of laissez faire. In other words, his, Puritanism was reached from a social and economic point of view, to having been a philosophy of social stratification, which placed command in the hands of a properly qualified and demanding implicit obedience from the uneducated. From the religious point of view it was the persistent assertion of the unity of intellect and spirit faced from a rising tide of democratic sentiment suspicious of the intellect and influence of the spirit. Puritanism held that the intellectual realm of holy subpoena was to be expounded by the right reason, within the social realm of the mentors of farmers and merchants. Miller and Johnson also emphasized that it was in the realm of logic that the revolt against scholasticism left the most important mark upon Puritan culture. The Protestant, reinforced by the humanist, or rather by his own humanism, found that scholasticism had become a stagnant and unproductive way of thinking. It had become smoother, irresponsible, and formal with the new learning demanding that rational men were about thinking straight forward and commonsense terms. They thought directly to the point and kept out of the tangled network of scholastic involutions. The scholastic way of settling this inquiry would have been through the syllogism; a schoolman might argue, for example, with all temporal things that were made, accordingly for the existence of the world. B. Civilization and Religiousness The earliest English Puritans were religious members of the Church of England and had no desire to produce a disagreement among nations. They wished to simplify of “purify” faiths and rituals, in order to diminish the authority of the bishops. Unfortunately, no official break was intended because in early New England during the Puritan period, there was no available leading, powerful and well-trained clergymen (Bradley, Beatty, and Needleman, 1962, p. 132). At this moment, the meanings of Puritanism could be distinguished, as follows: (1) Puritanism signified an idea and practice of moral, religious, and other spiritual as well as material purity or purification, such as thoroughness, retreat, rigor, perfection, skilfulness, holiness, sanctity and sainthood, absolutism, or totality, including total, and methodical control or absolute self-control. In the sense of methodically seeking and attaining purity or perfection in respect to human sins, misconduct, or evils, most ethical and religious systems were to some extent puritan values (Bell, 1977, p. 431); and (2) Puritanism in the sense of puritanical simplicity and self-control, and Puritans as moral saints and master count also assume various non- or quasi-religious forms, elements, Sumekto, R.D., Moral Values of Massachusetts Society in the Puritan 163 Era: a Study on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and faces, as in antireligious ideologies or secular “religions” (Zafirovski, 2007, pp. 1-2). Yet, the Puritans in general were lovers of life, their clergy were well-educated scholars; they developed a pleasing domestic architecture and good arts and crafts on American soil; they liked the drink even if they hated the drunkard, since they feared both ignorance and emotional evangelism, made of their religious intellectual discipline (Bradley, Beatty, and Long, 1962, p. 6-7). Puritan theology often reflected a preoccupation with sexual feeling and behaviour, the self-regulation it promoted was not comfortable to sexuality. Sexual impulse was only the primary arena of self regulation in Puritan culture, and Puritans controlled and gratified their impulses in other arenas as well. Puritan thirst for adversity was part of a larger strategy of self- regulation that persisted and spread beyond the theocracies of seventeenth- century New England at least partly because of its effectiveness as a means of economic and political success (Porterfield, 1992, p. 89). Another point of view, Bremer (2009, pp. 35-36), said that the challenge for all men and women of faith had a particular revelation of the essence of God as the difficulty of explaining to others something totally beyond their experience. Puritans often spoke of God by drawing analogies to man’s experiences, employing terms that might be used of human agents, using masculine pronouns, and speaking as if divine decisions were made in the same way as human ones. One reason for their opposition to painted, carved, or sculpted images of the deity was that such objects fixed in people’s minds a specific and therefore limiting view of God. Puritans had a lot to say about the nature of man and the relationship between God and his creation. In the beginning, they asserted, God made humans, male and female, after his own image. They believed that God entered into a conditional promise– referred to by many as the “covenant of works”, which referred to Adam and Eve, offering them eternal life and happiness in paradise in return for their perfect obedience to God’s commands. Man was created as a moral agent with free will. Born with their understanding corrupted by original sin, which was embedded in their nature, men and women would commit their own violations of God’s law. On given occasions the individual chose to do that which was forbidden by the law, choosing what promised self- gratification rather than obeying the law of God. Baugh (1967, pp. 25-34) exclaimed that Puritans believed that nothing they did could influence whether they would spend eternity with God in heaven or damned in hell, it was extraordinary that they devoted the attention they did to behaving in a godly fashion. The simple explanation 164 Celt, Volume 14, Number 2, December 2014, pp. 159-175 was that they believed that God gave his law to be obeyed, and it was their duty to do so irrespective of any rewards they might receive. Puritans who believed that they were numbered among the elect further explained their ability to adhere to God’s wishes by claiming that grace had made them more capable of perceiving God’s will and more successful in carrying it out. He continued to give a brief picture about Puritanism that were five points of Calvinist theology from which Puritanism took its clues, namely: (1) total depravity–this asserts the sinfulness of man through the fall of Adam, and the utter inability of man to work out his own salvation. God was all; man was nothing, and was the source of evil. God meant all things to be in his confusion, and deserve nothing but to be cast away; (2) unconditional election–God, under no obligation to save everyone saved or elected whom he would, with no reference to faith or good works. Since all things were presented in the mind of God at once, he knew before-hand who would be saved and thus election or prohibition was predestined; (3) limited atonement– Christ did not die for all, but only for those who were to be saved. If he did not die on the cross, none could be saved; and thus we had another evidence of God’s love toward mankind; (4) irresistible grace–God’s grace was freely given, and could neither be earned nor refused. Grace was defined as the saving and transfiguring power of God, offering newness of life, forgiveness of sins, the power of resist temptations, and a wonderful peace of mind and heart; and (5) perseverance of the saints–those whom God had chosen have thenceforth full power to do the will of God, and necessary conclusion of the absolute sovereignty of God. Puritans heartily believed that God so all- powerful. His true nature was incomprehensible to man, and yet He left many clues and hinted in His own holy word, the Bible, and it was the duty of man to search the Old and New Testaments for a more exact knowledge of the will of God toward man. Daily life was to be lived in strict conformity to the rules and regulations to be found in the Bible, and all that man does, was to be done with the utmost intensity and zeal to the greater glory of God. In the social life, Foerster (1962, p. 5) verified that Puritans were married young, though by no means so young as often supposed. The average age for first marriages in early New England strikingly parallels that of today. Girls were almost never given in marriage under eighteen, and more often not until they had passed their twentieth or twenty-first birthday. Men were usually somewhat older. The average held true for the colonies as a whole; certain classes, ministers’ children, for instance, or those whose education was longer pursued, sometimes were well along in their twenties before they assumed the responsibilities of matrimony. Some had concluded that Puritan Sumekto, R.D., Moral Values of Massachusetts Society in the Puritan 165 Era: a Study on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter families were not very large, and it was true that no very great number reached maturity. The marriage ceremony was simple and regarded as a civil, not a religious-rite; banns or weddings announcement were published and after a brief but appropriate interval the intending couple appeared before the magistrate. Definitely, Hawthorne (1987, pp. 389-393) pointed out that Elopements were uncommon, and divorces were less so among Puritans. People who raised large families did not have time to humor their expectation; besides, a man was the master and a woman would be his helpmate; death so often separated partners that, in this particular case, men and women often married twice, thrice, and sometimes even oftener. The choice of mate was by no means exclusively as a parental matter, besides they found excuse as well for private merrymaking in baptisms, weddings, funerals, barns-raisings, corn-husking, quilting-parties, church-raisings, house- raisings, ship launchings, and, in truth, ministers’ ordinations as well. METHODOLOGY A. Type of Research This research was intended to be a historical research upon Arthur Dimmesdale’s and Hester Prynne’s life as part of a Puritan society dwelling in Massachusetts Bay Colony. According to Anderson and Arsenault (1998, p. 101), this research might be defined as a past-oriented research which seeks to illuminate a question of current interest by an intensive study of material that already exists. It used the systematic collection and evaluation of data to describe, explain, and thereby understand actions or events that occurred sometime in the past (Fraenkel and Wallen, 2009, p. 534) and its alignment had been defined as well as the systematic and objective location, evaluation and synthesis of evidence in order to establish facts and draw conclusions about past events (Borg; 1963; Cohen, Manion, and Marrison, 2007, p. 191). This research agenda had attempted to discover primary and secondary data and to describe what happened through the existing data sources provided (Anderson and Arsenault, 1998, p. 101). B. Data Collection and Analysis According to Hockett (1955; Cohen, Manion, and Marrison, 2007, p. 193) historical research must deal with the data that already existed. This data collection relied on primary data source and ensured that sufficient sources were in order to address the problem. The primary source, reviewed as bibliography on The Scarlet Letter were examined merely to see what 166 Celt, Volume 14, Number 2, December 2014, pp. 159-175 general descriptive information existed about the people, places or events being researched. Meanwhile, the secondary data source were books, theses, articles, and encyclopaedia as the research’s relevant sources (Anderson and Arsenault, 1998, p. 104). Data analysis were done by focusing on the stories by means of a narrative analysis approach. Herein, this analysis attempted to identify the content, structure, and form of life stories based on the available data from The Scarlet Letter novel, as an exploration of the meaning of life events within a broader sociocultural context (Ary, Jacobs, and Sorensen, 2010, p. 466). RESULTS A. Arthur Dimmesdale’s Background Profession These documentary-based results had mainly confirmed with the great work of Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter which referred to his undoubtedly prompted critical satire in the rigors of Puritanism. As revealed in the novel, Arthur Dimmesdale who was the Puritan minister has committed adultery with Hester Prynne, a wife of Roger Chillingworth. Arthur was a conscience- stricken-minister when the tension was tightly drawn between the Puritan respect for law and conscience and the romantic insistence upon the supremacy of the private impulse. Hawthorne also determined that Arthur was the protagonist and the resolution of the tension which was brought about by the confession of guilt before his assembled parishioners. The sense of Arthur’s protagonist character shown in The Scarlet Letter was his long physical and mental pain or conflict within himself to surrender his own will to the divide will. Arthur’s actions were consistent with the Puritan society’s moral standard which should be strictly obeyed by all society members in order to create and maintain a harmony life-stability. In the case of reverend Arthur, it was shown that he was obviously feeling a conscience- stricken for doing wrong due to his capacity as a human being and a Puritan minister. He also heartily realized for his whole life a deep sorrow for which have haunted him for years. In his illness with no clear symptom, Arthur attempted to reveal his sinfulness by standing on the scaffold and regretting to God, whenever no one could see him. As described by Hawthorne (1959, p. 167) in the useless show of his expiation, Arthur was seen with a great horror of mind, since the universe gazed at his scarlet token of his naked breast, whilst shrieking aloud with an outcry that turned pealing through the night, in which he also had made a plaything of the sound and was disseminating it to and fro. Arthur finally exclaimed, “It is done! By covering Sumekto, R.D., Moral Values of Massachusetts Society in the Puritan 167 Era: a Study on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter his face with his hands. The whole town will awake, and hurry forth, and find me here!” (Hawthorne, 1959, p. 223). In the case of Arthur Dimmesdale, Hawthorne provided clues throughout the whole contents of The Scarlet Letter before revealing explicitly at the conclusion that the scholarly young reverend Arthur was the biological father of Pearl, Hester’s daughter. Even some Puritan community still could not believe that their beloved and esteemed minister was guilty of doing committed adultery after this revelation. In every part of his sermon, Arthur repeatedly emphasized his sinfulness and unworthiness during the spam of his religion services to the Puritan community. Nevertheless, in his real life, Arthur remained to put his unlawful relationship with Hester aside from the public concern. It meant that Arthur never openly took responsibility for the illicit affair with Hester and never admitted Pearl as his biological daughter. He had hidden from his adultery sin behind a rhetorical dogma of intrinsic sinfulness that the Puritans believed to all mankind. So far, Arthur’s hypocrisy flew to the very deepest heart of the inner tension within the Puritan theocracy between beliefs in original sin that it has impacted on the individual’s faults and sins, which could only be saved by God’s grace. Another point of view, could be focused on the condition of the illness that Arthur had suffered from, to which he eventually tried to tell the truth to what he had done with Hester within seven years ago. Only by the public acknowledgment and confession, Arthur could find the peace that his silence denied the truth, and it was not until the end that he declared the truth in the same market place where Hester’s punishment began. However, he had such a possibility to declare it in front of public. Arthur’s confession began with a deep sorrow when he thoroughly thought that the silence over years would not solve his problem and the committed adultery was considered as a serious guilt. Here was the testimony of him directly cited from Hawthorne (1959, p. 103): People of New England !” cried he, with a voice that rose over them, high, solemn, and majestic, yet had always a tremor through it, and sometimes a shriek, struggling up out of a fathomless depth of remorse and woe, “ye, that have loved me ! that have deemed me holy ! Behold me here, the one sinner of the world! At last! At last! I stand upon the spot where, seven years since, I should have stood, here, with this woman, whose arm, ore than the little strength wherewith I have crept hitherward, sustains me, at this dread full moment from groveling down upon my face ! Lo, the scarlet letter which Hester wears! Ye 168 Celt, Volume 14, Number 2, December 2014, pp. 159-175 have all shuddered at it! Wherever her walk hath been, wherever, so miserably burdened, she may have hoped to find repose, it hath cast a lurid gleam of awe and horrible repugnance roundabout her. But there stood one in the midst of you, at whose brand of sin and infamy ye have not shuddered! On the other hand, Arthur’s confession might be beneath us to offer another perspective upon Hester’ position, in which within seven years he brought about her life into public mockery in the Puritan society. However, as known from the above testimony, there was a personal interest involved between Arthur and Hester. In one case, they had broken the law of God and the man–made law was the result of their committed adultery, whilst in another side, Arthur depended upon the fact that Hester was not guilty. He claimed to the people of New England in Massachusetts that Hester did not deserved to be shuddered and blamed, which was why she wore the scarlet letter of “A” alphabet on her breast as her immortal stigma. B. Hester Prynne’s Background Profession The Scarlet Letter depicted a clue about the stigma that was a brand, a punishment, an ugly thing that had been attached to the dress of the malefactors of Hester Prynne. wherewith the stigma on Hester, as part of the Puritan society, she was forced to take all risks on her activities during the rest of her life, such as being ignored by others and having her individual and social access in the public affairs limited, as this was the consequence of breaking God’s rules and since there was no precise decision from the city’s authority when she should put her letter “A” off from her dress as well. Hester was described as a tall young woman with a perfect elegant figure, when seen on a general measurement. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes. She was lady-like, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days, characterized by a certain state and dignity. Hester was also foretold as a self supporting woman, of which she had the feeling of self-confidence without any dependence on the other people, although people of Puritan in Massachusetts walked away from her and nobody helped her when she needed it. Fortunately, she was given the gift to overcome the kind of problems she was faced with. On this perspective, most people of New England in Massachusetts had badly claimed Hester as a fallen woman, that Hester was regarded as a being not deserved to live Sumekto, R.D., Moral Values of Massachusetts Society in the Puritan 169 Era: a Study on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter amongst the people. The talk of Hester as the fallen woman had spread over the public area like on the Market Place, as cited by Hawthorne (1959, p. 79- 81): … this woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die. Is there not law for it? Truly there is, both in the Scripture and the statute-book. Then let the magistrates, who have made it of no effect, thank themselves if their win wives and daughters go astray! But out of this stigmatization as a fallen woman, her ability to be autonomous was greatly supported with perseverance, hard work, and initiative. These could be reflected from a piece of the story in The Scarlet Letter (Hawthorne, 1959, p. 122) which stated: Lonely as was Hester’s situation, and without a friend on earth who dared to show himself, she, however, incurred no risk of want. She possessed an art that sufficed, even in a land that afforded comparatively little scope for its exercise, to supply feed for her thriving infant and herself. It was the art-then, as now, almost the only one within a moment’s grasp-of needle-work. She bore on her breast, in the curiously embroidered letter, a specimen of her delicate and imaginative skill, of which the dames of a court might gladly have availed themselves, to add the richer and more spiritual adornment of human ingenuity to their fabrics of silk and gold. But as the consequence of having committed adultery with Arthur, the law of the Puritan society remained to furnish her a sentence. The sentence which she should receive as her guilt was that she should stand up for a certain time every time on the Platform of the pillory, situated in the entrance way of the market place for three hours. As not infrequently in other cases, her sentence of standing at a certain time upon the plat from seem to not scare her as she continued to show her perseverance by trying to be gentle and held her head high. Unfortunately, she did not find any peacefulness in doing so. Her unhappy culprit sustained herself as best a woman might, under the heavy heaviness of many unrelenting eyes, all fastened upon her, to focus upon her bosom of which the letter “A” was written. Hester had stood up alone in the Puritan world, without any dependence on society, and only with her little Pearl to be loved, guided, and 170 Celt, Volume 14, Number 2, December 2014, pp. 159-175 protected; nobody helped her in the hope of retrieving her better position. Hester imbibed this spirit, as she assumed a freedom of speculation that would have been held to be a deadlier crime than that was stigmatized by The Scarlet Letter (Hawthorne, 1987, p. 182). From the main story of Hester Prynne that had been exposed above, Hawthorne (1959, pp. 211-213) expected to maintain his readers with Hester’s condition through the dialogue revelation between both of them as follows: O Arthur, cried she, forgive me! In all things else, I have striven to be true! Truth was the one virtue which I might have held fast, and did hold fast through all extremity; save when thy good, _thy life, _thy fame, _were put in question! Then I consented to a deception. But a lie is never good, even though death threaten on the other side! Dost thou not see what I would say? That old man! _the physician! _he whom they call Roger Chillingworth! _he was my husband! (p. 211) I might have known it murmured he. I did know it! Was not the secret told me in the natural recoil of my heart, at first sight of him, and as often as I have seen him since? Why did I not understand? O Hester Prynne, thou little knowest all the horror of this thing! And the same! _the indelicacy! _the horrible ugliness of this exposure of a sick and guilty heart to the very eye that would gloat over it! Woman, woman, thou art accountable for this! I cannot forgive thee! (p. 212) Thou shalt forgive me! cried Hester, flinging herself on the fallen leaves beside him. Let God punish! Thou shalt forgive! (ibid) Wilt thou yet forgive me? she repeated, over and over again. Wilt thou not frown? Wilt thou forgive? (p. 213) I do forgive you, Hester, replied the minister, at length, with a deep utterance out of an abyss of sadness, but no anger. I freely forgive you now. May God forgive us both! We are not, Hester, the worst sinners in the world. There is one worse than even the polluted priest! (ibid) What would be the ultimate concern relating to this dialogue was about Hester confession, too. It was truly undeniable that, in fact, Arthur might have ignored Hester’ marital status or at the first time, he did not have sufficient experience before meeting and falling in love with Hester. This Sumekto, R.D., Moral Values of Massachusetts Society in the Puritan 171 Era: a Study on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter unpredictable condition should have made Arthur know and realize about it, since he was one of the young brilliant scholars and great clergymen of the time. Yet, on the other hand, Hester did not tell the truth to Arthur about her marital status. Herein, the moral values of being honest and loyal to obey have revealed for both Arthur and Hester that they failed to honor the Puritan tradition and show their dignity in the law of God. In reflecting to Arthur’s background profession as the Puritan Reverend, he should have no continued the forbidden relationship (e.g.: illicit love) in order that he would not have committed adultery with Hester, who was the wife of Roger Chillingworth. When realizing about Hester’ status, Hester should have been also strict in her self-control and should have maintained honor when deciding with whom she should have personal relationship, particularly in the name of love. Referring to the dialogue above, Hester began to regret with her deep sorrow to Arthur due to her absence not to tell the truth and really felt sorry about Arthur’s physical condition implicitly. She attempted over and over again in gaining forgiveness from Arthur as she thought she had put him into deep liability and broken his life and career in terms of another individual and professional point of view. At the end of their dialogue, as a human being, it was noted that Arthur finally conveyed his forgiveness to Hester, but Arthur also realized and expected that God would merely forgive their sinfulness. Unfortunately, nothing can amend about Hester’s condition, which had broken her own lovely life and brought along with it its obligations for a whole seven years of outlaw and facing public embarrassment or ignominy. One clear thing her, was that Hester did not keep her loyalty as a wife of Roger Chillingworth. This condition was an important notice for everyone, particularly for women who should deeply realize about disdainful relationships with other men. Moreover, as depicted in her life’s journey, Hester had secretly kept silent for the illicit love affairs she had with Arthur, by covering it up from everybody who was willing to know, that he was the father of Pearl. However, when she was sentenced on the platform, she was no longer reluctant to keep it secretly from the public domain In the chapter of “Another View of Hester,” Hester was exposed with the effects of her seven long years of discrimination on her life experience. Implicitly Hester seemed to have accepted her punishment dutifully and with humility. She remained nearly invisible within the community, never figuring out from drawing attention to her and devoting herself to the care of the sick and poor people who were living in the Puritan circumstance. She 172 Celt, Volume 14, Number 2, December 2014, pp. 159-175 appeared to have heartily accepted and regretted with such grace, about how most people in the community have changed their view of her. Hester was no longer seemingly holding the epitome of sinfulness and erotic transgression, but she was rather a humble servant of the community. The Puritan society was no longer interpreting the letter “A” written on her breast as the consensus meaning of “Adultery”, but they certainly put a meaning as the symbol of being “Able”. The other view of Hester in which she had decided to return back to Massachusetts was considered inspirational as it showed her ability of being responsibility as the single parent for Pearl thereby she had the freedom to live wherever she chose to go. The reasoning for this was firstly related to the moral and political motives of her return. Hester returned back to Massachusetts to devote herself to the people who disposed her circumstances. She decided to provide her services as a part of her moral obligation and duty as a human being by helping her community with a sheltered housing, comfort, and counsel for those who had suffered under the Puritan community’s unpleasant moral strictures, particularly its strictures on the erotic affairs about her belief that the relation between men and women would ultimately move toward a greater degree of complementarily and equality between the sexes. Second was about Hester’s understanding on her penitence that was unfinished. The Puritan community was no longer imposed of this penitence, thus she chose it for herself. Her decision suggested that her self- understanding was deeply connected with the people. Hester’s spiritedness and independence of mind, which contributed to her erotic rebellion, were displaced, and in many respects irrelevant, away from this specific moral community of faith, till she grew older and seemed less ambitious about radical reforms of the Puritan community. Therefore, Hester’s return to Massachusetts was viewed as the signals her recognition of the deep interdependence between her self-understanding and the Puritan community. Third, she still kept her romantic moments with Arthur as it was on her sense of penitence. This interpretation emphasized that she wanted to return and be closely united with Arthur, even though he had passed away. When Hester died, she was buried near his grave, which strongly indicated of the loyal love she still had for him. In one condition this interpretation could show that Hester’s motive in returning back to Massachusetts was also to find the communion with her lover-in-death, Arthur, since in her real life she could not be engaged with him normally. Sumekto, R.D., Moral Values of Massachusetts Society in the Puritan 173 Era: a Study on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter CONCLUSION From the data analysis and discussion revealed, there would be three points available to emphasize for the conclusion. First, Arthur’s behaviour as an individual and Reverend was consistent with the ideology of Puritan theocracy. The premise that human beings were born with original sin conflicts with the pursuit of moral perfection in this life, would be creating the tension. His struggle was afflicted with all the weaknesses of an ordinary mortal, who attempted the impossible task of living up to his community’s extreme moral demands of broking it with a seven-years immoral action. Second, this conclusion also told us about Hester’s character that highlighted a much more unsettling aspect of theocracy. Unlike Arthur’s personal position faced to the norms of his community, Hester’s understanding of herself on the Puritan theocracy was not dogmatic by her faith as revealed in Christian religion through Hester’s inability as a woman to hide her maternity forces to engage the conflict between moral perfectionism and individual fallibility in the public domain. However, by facing this reality, Hester regarded a far greater independence of mind and moral autonomy than Arthur. In spite of her independence, she had finally chosen to return back to her cottage in Massachusetts and served her criticism of living around with the Puritan community of their faith and moral duty seriousness, even though at the end of her life she was shown to not being able to hide her passion of uniting with Arthur near his tombstone Last but not least, this novel has educated readers about the motives that might be more clearly understood within the constraints of a morally rigorous community. The Puritan theocracy considered seriously as an object of reflection and inquiry in the human life is required a serious subject matter to ponder on, in spite of its manifest shortcomings, that was worthy of inquiry as it influenced a dogmatic belief as well. 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