The Scarlet Letter -- Chapter 2 - End

I hate to say it, but I just don't have time to get As and read for myself. My American Literature instructor seems to be an expert on all theory EXCEPT Jung, so I don't really get a chance to discuss my ideas about gender with a specialist in the concepts of male and female unity/equality, at least not the ones that I imagine are driving American Gothic in the nineteenth century. So, just to kind of generalize about the concepts I see in this novel, I think I will say that I see Hester as a sort of Mother type who gives birth to a female Messiah. I love the ambiguity of the novel, the way it second, and third, and fourth guesses itself. I'm more of a Melvillian cynic at heart, but there is a beauty in Hawthorne's criticism of idealism -- a reverence for the worst possible fear to be just as true as the best possible comfort--a dismantling of the whole idea of paradox--well. I think the Emerson is getting to me.