In the mid-19th century, the young American establishment seemed to have overcome the instability of its formative stages. The citizens of what was originally a disorganized and ineffective alliance of thirteen different territories managed to cultivate a nationalist pride in the fate of their great democracy. A new generation recognized the devastation of a distant revolutionary war and the struggles for unity that followed as mere specters of history. However, beneath the appearance of harmony and contentment, currents of discord threatened to plunge the United States into ruin and collapse. Racial tensions had remained at the center of public attention for much of the previous century, attracting widespread attention since the controversial issue of slavery first became a subject of federal division in 1808. Say No to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay Unsurprisingly, the subject of ethnicity constitutes a primary subject in a substantial portion of the literary canon of the period. The outdoors inevitably had an impact on human psychology, and many works dating from the period in question chronicle the interactions between Caucasian settlers and other peoples who populated the vast American landscape. In many of these accounts, the individuals recently mentioned are of African descent, but the prejudices the Anglo-Saxons harbored toward their black slaves were rivaled by white paranoia toward American Indians. . In its forced relocation policies, the federal government reacted to various fears about Native Americans, chief among which was miscegenation and the pollution of American culture by primitive savage influence. Nathanial Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter illustrates the extent to which this obsession with preserving lineage shaped national ideology and took root in the intellectual productions of the 1800s. The nuances of the narrative are evident immediately after the beginning of the plot. A rose bush outside the prison forms the focal point of the first chapter. Signifying the elements of passion associated with the inmate, the flower serves to illustrate by contrast the sadness of the strictly civilized Puritan community and the encroachment of the surrounding wilderness on the austerity of the city. Like the dangerous but seductive plant, the forest and its inhabitants simultaneously attract and repel the sensibilities of devout Christian pilgrims. From the first paragraphs of the story, the connection between the heroine's pregnancy and the sphere of the Indian is clearly traced. As Hester stands atop the scaffold, her display of defiance is interrupted by the recognition of her longtime spouse, on the periphery of the crowd gathered to watch the spectacle. Next to “an Indian in his original costume stood a white man, dressed in a strange disorder of civilized and savage costumes” (Hawthorne 53). Suspicions about the paternity of the child Prynne are thus projected from the beginning of the story onto the man who could and should have been the father of the young girl. The conclusion reached by the community involves an even more serious transgression than that of faith. It is possible that Hester, stubborn in her refusal to name the partner in her crime, ignored the final boundary: that of race. Considering the seriousness of the religious offenses in question, the townspeople cannot know how far the sinner's depravity extends. His infidelity may have been perpetrated with one of the native pagans of the foreign New World. The mysterious doctor isthe outlet on which the fantasies and horrors of pale men are expressed. His “heterogeneous habit” (53) is an amalgam of rumors, truths and terrors that the Salemites have constructed to satisfy their curiosities and preconceived ideas regarding the scandal in question. Likewise, Hester's movement toward the dilapidated cottage is an active advance toward the primordial chaos of the wilderness. The heroine associates herself all the more closely, both physically and metaphorically, with the Red Man's way of life. Hester's decision to move to the outskirts of town is not a decision for independence but a decision for marriage, a choice in which she joins in all the dark possibilities and suggestions of the woods. In the eyes of the society she is trying to escape, such behavior is indeed suspicious. The connection between the fruits of the protagonist's adventure and the nomad's realm extends throughout the book. The child is endowed with a set of properties that make him the mortal approximation of the titular seal of shame. Pearl is such an apt product of her mother’s lawlessness that she “was indeed the scarlet letter in another form; the scarlet letter endowed with life! » (91) The little girl has a red appearance, not only in the fact that she is the incarnate emblem but also in the singularity of her personality. The seven-year-old girl behaves with a behavior that oscillates between tantrums and docility: “Above all, the war of Hester's spirit, at this time, was perpetuated in Pearl. She could recognize his wild, desperate, defiant mood, the lightness of his character, and even some of the cloudy forms of sadness and despondency that smoldered in his heart. They were now illuminated by the morning glow of a young child's temperament, but, later in the day of earthly existence, they could be prolific in storms and whirlwinds. (81) This disconcerting pattern of unpredictability reflects notions that could easily conjure up an image of a bestial Indian incapable of exercising the necessary repressive devices that characterize civilized culture. Such a sense of unease is created by the ethereal sprite that "Hester could not help but wonder, at such times, whether Pearl was a human child." (82) The city from which the outcast was ostracized fully agrees with this doubt. Pearl doesn't have a father, but, more importantly, she doesn't have a white father. The child does not have the legitimacy of verifiable Caucasian heritage and, in the absence of racially intact family predecessors, it is incomplete. The narrator can therefore only describe her as an “evil imp” (83) and “demonic offspring” (88). Dimmesdale's failure to publicly assume the responsibilities he assumes privately reiterates the importance of the effects generated by this mystery of authorship. Until the uncertainties surrounding her lineage can be resolved, Hester's daughter is as irredeemable as the pagans. When the young girl declares: “I have no heavenly Father!” » (87), this statement is not ironic. This progression of ideas is underlined by the evolution of Chillingworth. Although initially welcomed by the village, the old doctor quickly loses favor with the majority of Salem. Compelled by the same intuitions that reflected the doctor's ties to the disgraced Hester in the third chapter, members of the congregation begin to view the former relative in a decidedly pejorative context: To summarize the matter, this view became widely held. that the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, like many other personages of particular holiness, in all ages of the Christian world, was haunted either by Satan himself, or by Satan's emissary, in the guise of old Roger Chillingworth (114)...