Another View of Hester and the Antinomians

ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTER AND THE ANTINOMIANS Sarah I. Davis * Nathaniel Hawthorne's biographical sketch of Anne Hutchinson opens with a commentary on woman as a domestic creature increasingly entering public life, especially in the field of literature. Only after more than six hundred words does this introduction give way to a oneparagraph summary of Anne Hutchinson's English background. In the third paragraph, however, there is a scene of some dramatic intensity, showing Anne Hutchinson addressing a large gathering in her home on a summer evening. Following a summary of intervening events, the next scene shows the trial of Mrs. Hutchinson. Further summary precedes the final paragraph, which describes a third scene, that of the massacre of the Hutchinson family by Indians on Long Island. In form as well as subject matter, the germ of The Scarlet Letter is present in the brief biographical sketch of Anne Hutchinson,1 the central character in each work not only embodying the conflict of "domesticity" with public life but also participating in three pivotal dramatic scenes alternating with passages of interpretation. The scenes in the sketch resemble the scaffold scenes in The Scarlet Letter the more in that they are public events involving key characters, Puritan authorities, and the generality of townspeople. Further, the cast of characters in the first scene of the sketch anticipates that of the novel; in a room crowded with townspeople, Anne Hutchinson sits behind a table between young Governor Vane and John Cotton: "Others of the priesthood stand full in front of the woman, striving to beat her down with brows of wrinkled iron. . . ."z With alterations in age and role, the three parallel Hester between Dimmesdale and Chillingworth in the first scaffold scene. In the second dramatic scene of the sketch, set in a public meeting place closed against the "sleety rain of November" rather than in her own home open to the summer evening, Anne Hutchinson stands before the "blessed fathers of the land" (p. 223), the center of all eyes, on trial. Again the arrangement of main characters, townspeople, and authority figures suggests the elaborated scenery and symbolism of the scaffold scenes of the novel. The two male principals of the first scene have been accounted for in the summary: Vane, voted out of office as a result of Winthrop's legal maneuver, returned to England; John Cotton saw "that light in regard to his errors, which will sometimes break in upon the s'Sarah I. Davis, Professor of English and American Studies at Randolph-Macon Woman's College, has published on Hawthorne in American Transcendental Quarterly and Studies in Short Fiction. She is currently working on a study of Hawthorne's awareness of logical positivism. 190Sarah I. Davis wisest and most pious men, when their opinions are unhappily discordant with those oí the powers that be" (p. 222). The third scene describes the fate of Anne Hutchinson. Although the presentation of the massacre is non-dramatic, the scene nevertheless anticipates the weight given in the novel to the fate of each of the three principal characters. Although meeting place and season suggest the opposition of domestic to public life, no unifying symbol binds the scenes of the sketch, for the search for meaning in Anne Hutchinson's experiences in the Puritan colony is no more than minimally rewarded, in the introduction or in the story of the heretic. Anne Hutchinson in the sketch came to the new land bearing "trouble in her own bosom" (p. 219); her mien at the hearing suggests the "carnal pride" which, unknown to her, is concealed beneath her sense of a "celestial errand" (p. 224). Women shudder and weep at her teachings, while young men become "fiery and impatient, fit instruments for whatever rash deed may be suggested" (p. 221). Seeking to resolve in the colony an unnamed conflict originating beyond the sea, she is the type of the main character of "The Hollow of the Three Hills"; the outcome for both is death. The biographical sketch "Mrs. Hutchinson" appeared, in fact, in the Salem Gazette in December, 1830, a month after "Hollow" was published in the same journal. A reinterpreted Anne Hutchinson appears in Grandfather's Chair...