The Scarlet Letter, question 1

Edwin Percy Whipple’s review of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” for Graham’s Magazine is mostly focused on praising the work of the author. His first descriptions describe the novel as a “beautiful and touching romance.” He goes one to explain that “The Scarlet Letter” is the longest work of Hawthorne thus far, and basically complements his genius. His next section is devoted to outlining “The Custom House,” the introduction given before the story itself begins. Whipple is impressed with Hawthorne’s ability to entertain the reader here, in a comical sense, in a sharp contrast to the seriousness of the novel that follows. He states that “The Custom House” “show(s) how rich and exhaustless a fountain of mirth Hawthorne has at his command.” Obviously, he was quite smitten with the author’s work.
He next delves into the actual work of “The Scarlet Letter.” Whipple says that while the reader may be ready for a great work, they “will hardly be prepared for a novel of so much tragic interest and tragic power.” He believes that Hawthorne’s work pierced through any trivial matters, right “to the core of things.” Whipple also comments on the fact that Hawthorne must have been feeling great pain as well, to be able to transfer it to his characters so powerfully. In the only negative comment I could find in the article, he believes that “the general impression left by it (Hawthorne’s pain) is not satisfying to the artistic sense.”
Whipple then comments on how powerful the novel is, even going so far as to say that “the most abandoned libertine could not read the volume without being thrilled into something like virtuous resolution.” He describes further the power of the work, telling the reader that Hawthorne more deeply understands the subjects of adultery and seduction, and that his work is “more powerful even than those of Sue, Dumas, and George Sand.” He ends the paragraph by discussing the objectivity of the novel. Whipple writes that the ending was crafted through Hawthorne’s understanding of spiritual laws, and that “there is hardly a novel in English Literature more purely objective.”
At the close of Whipple’s review, he says that he will give the reader a simple plot synopsis, although all he really does is to introduce the four main characters, and complement the descriptive quality of Hawthorne’s writing. He also states that if “The Scarlet Letter” was the result of Hawthorne being fired from the Custom House, that he should be kept unemployed in order to write more genius works.
In my opinion, Whipple is a bit contradictory in parts of his review. He states that Hawthorne’s personal connection, his own pain, makes the novel less artistically satisfying, whereas I think the opposite. He also believes that the novel was objective, yet earlier had stated that Hawthorne had a personal stake in the pain of the characters. I viewed the book as more of a critique on Puritan society, where Whipple believed it to be more of a beautiful work describing the society. I agree with much of Whipple’s praise, but I think he gave too much attention to the details of the Custom House, and not enough to the character development and moral dilemmas Hawthorne creates in his work. I most agree with his thoughts on the impact of the novel. In the 19th century when “The Scarlet Letter” and this review were both written, the novel definitely influenced the reader’s moral views. Today, society is very different, but I think that even today Hawthorne’s characters, as Whipple puts it, “pierce…to the core of things.”

Whipple, Edwin Percy. "Ninteenth Century Reviews of The Scarlet Letter, from Graham's Magazine." The Scarlet Letter, and Other Writings. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2005. 239-241.