Revisiting The Scarlet Letter as a Queer Man

Kyle Labe//Blog Writer

When I first read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, I was sixteen and in the tenth grade. No one enjoyed the novel but me, and for the life of me I couldn’t comprehend why. At the time, no one knew that I was questioning my sexuality and hiding the secret that I was queer. So the notion of a young woman cast off from society, and a guilt-ridden preacher drowning from his secrets was as human as it got. I read it and felt completely understood in a way I never imagined possible. Even though the novel lacks any explicit queerness, Hawthorne seemed to put into words what I had been feeling for most of my maturation. It was so unfamiliar to me, that through an adolescence of misunderstanding, that one author should voice my angst and anxiety.

I was never introduced to LGBTQ literature as a child, so I never had authors or thinkers to whom I could aspire. I was forced to make do with what books I had. That being said, I think a huge reason as to why some of these novels are considered classic is their universality. These stories are like shared experiences of the human species, in all our flaws, mistakes, and woes. The Scarlet Letter is no exception. Feeling alone is nothing that somebody else didn’t feel at one time or another.

The first time I read it, I identified with the plight of Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. The surreptitious father of Pearl, Hester Prynne’s illegitimate daughter, Dimmesdale spends the majority of the novel repressing that fact, and thus avoiding repentance and a chance at family. Closeted, I could understand. I, too, was hiding a secret of my own, one that wouldn’t be accepted by society. If my sexuality came to light, it would be met with reluctance, disapproval, and isolation. Everything was thrashing inside of me until I felt subhuman. I wanted to come clean, yet everything else was stopping me.

Arthur Dimmesdale is eaten alive by his secret, enough that it is implied that the letter A emblazoned itself through his flesh. The evil Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s estranged husband, takes the battered man under his wing, emotionally abusing him to coerce the man to transparency. This internal battle of Dimmesdale’s very much paralleled my own, having this secret seeking to find its way into the world. I very much felt like a liar during that age, but at the same time I wanted no one to know. When you’re young and in the closet, it’s almost as if you’re playing a role that isn’t fit for you. I felt guilty, torn, and scared, and Arthur Dimmesdale was like a solace.

However, the second time I read it through, I moved my identifiability with Dimmesdale to the story’s main protagonist, Hester Prynne. She is the character who suffers the true weight of the scarlet letter, having the stigma sewn onto her wardrobe for all to see, victim to public shame and humiliation. She is thrown onto a scaffold with her infant child to be berated by everyone she knows, and, as a result, she is outcast from all society. Hester bears the weight of isolation and solitude, but through the novel, finds inner strength, compassion, and independence. Her ignominy only imbues a sense of sympathy and kindness in her, rather than a deep hatred for those who had done her wrong.

By this time, I had been out of the closet for over a year. I had embraced my identity, sharing it with the world and taking whatever drawbacks came with it. Being openly queer is a lot like walking around with a scarlet letter on your chest. It’s the same loneliness, the same marginalization, the same disrespect. Not everyone will treat you well, and it’ll be rare for someone to view you as a complete equal; unfortunately, that’s just a reality. No matter what, it’s a fact of the matter you’ll learn to deal with. Sure, it gets better, but that’s only because you learn to deal with things better. And, like Hawthorne writes of Hester: “She had wandered, without rule or guidance, into a moral wilderness…The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers—stern and wild ones—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.” As many setbacks as I’ve had, I’ve tried to practice my life by the strength I’ve been taught.

The fact that Hester becomes a beacon of her community always gives me hope. Through all her mistreatment, she turns into a caretaker, taking in battered women and becoming a seamstress for her peers. As Hawthorne puts it, “She wanted—what some people want throughout life—a grief that should deeply touch her, and thus humanize and make her capable of sympathy.” That’s something I’ve especially found within myself. That no matter how I’m treated in life, I’ve sought to turn that into compassion, so maybe rather than another feeling the way I do, their experience actually may prove easier and, quite possibly, better.