Sharma 1! Mira Sharma Ms. Sidle English III AP, Period 7 2 October 2014 Spiritual Versus Scientific Puritan society is infamous for the mindsets of its members. In “The Scarlet Letter romantic medicine,” Jane F. Thrailkill assesses the contradictions between the mindsets of scientific people and spiritual people, establishing that the two groups possess conflicting ideas regarding the significance of uncommon and unknown entities such as medicine. The author provides substantial evidence to demonstrate that spiritual people interpret events as signs from God and confide in Him, while scientific people view events as strings of mere coincidence and trust in medicine. Thrailkill incorporates different authors’ views to contribute to the credibility of her stance.While Thrailkill acknowledges various aspects of The Scarlet Letter, she accurately concludes that Nathaniel Hawthorne’s main purpose is to express the different mindsets of scientific people and spiritual people. Given the Scarlet Letter’s setting in the seventeenth century, many people lacked sufficient knowledge about medicine. Thrailkill correctly explains how the lack of knowledge in medicine contributes for the reasonings people acquire for the subject of illness. When Roger Chillingworth learns of herbs’ healing properties, he combines “life of the mind with empirical knowledge of the world” (Thrailkill 5) Chillingworth roots his beliefs in science; accordingly, he is one of few people who attain knowledge needed for a scientific understanding of human illnesses. Armed with this knowledge, he understands that herbs and medicine can cure illnesses, and does not need to trust God as the soul source of healing. When Arthur Dimmesdale claims the physician’s medicine is ineffective, he comes to the realization that “the actual source of the
Sharma 2! minister’s affliction lies in the realm of the spiritual” (Thrailkill 10). As a religious man, Dimmesdale believes that medicine can only treat an illness to a certain extent before a superior being must intervene to mend the rest. The minister is unfamiliar with the herbal remedies Chillingworth uses, and thus, does not trust them. Dimmesdale is uncertain whether the illness is “to be the soul’s disease, then do I [Dimmesdale] commit myself to the one Physician of the soul” (Hawthorne 91). Lacking medical knowledge and expertise, Dimmesdale retreats to what he finds comfortable- trusting in God. In order to strengthen her stance, Thrailkill references and recognizes other critics’ analysis of The Scarlet Letter. Historic critic, Stephanie Browner deduces that Chillingworth “fixes the object of his scrutiny with the “blank, unassuming, and yet knowing gaze of a new [scientific] medicine,”” (Thrailkill 2). Thrailkill includes the thoughts of other authors to provide a second opinion. Chillingworth, a man of science, continues to put his faith in medicine despite facing scrutiny from the townspeople. Thrailkill indicates that, because people in the community interpret life events using either a scientific or spiritual perspective, different community groups support conflicting views on Chillingworth’s arrival. The spiritual community depicts Chillingworth’s arrival as a sign from God to save Dimmesdale from death. In contrast, the scientific community perceives the advent as a coincidence. Those in the spiritual community “understand the physician’s arrival in religious terms” (Thrailkill 6) and believe that he “had been chosen for his spiritual guide the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale” (Hawthorne 80). To some in this community, Chillingworth’s arrival can be interpreted only spiritually; no other explanation beyond pure fate would suffice. The spiritual and scientific communities also seek to describe the meteor event in
Sharma 3! ways that align with their respective community frameworks. The spiritual people “encounter the solitary human mind battering itself against a material world it can never actually know, a dualistic realm in which the representations gesture impotently to things… they can never adequately embody” (Thrailkill 11). Upon encountering the meteor event, the spiritual, Arthur Dimmesdale, believes the phenomena is a sign from God. As the meteor lit up the sky, the shape of the letter “A” appeared as well “with no such shape as his guilty imagination gave it” (Hawthorne 102). Spiritual people seek reason in God regardless of circumstance; and strive to find religious meaning in unnatural or supernatural events; while the scientific tend not to scrutinize these events as carefully. Thrailkill recognizes the writings of Stanley Fish which concludes that “a certain kind of theological thinking forestalls interpretation” (Thrailkill 3). The inclusion of Fish’s analysis, reinforces Thrailkill’s conclusion of how spirituals’ depictions are influenced in terms of theological logic. Fish states that spirituals’ ideals are limited due to their faith in God, which reiterates Thrailkill’s argument of spiritual mindsets. Puritan society compromises two types of thinkers, the scientific and the spiritual. Those in the scientific community emphasize the importance of logic, while the spiritual root their beliefs in God. Thrailkill provides significant evidence by illustrating numerous instances in which both parties interpret atypical events and ponder evidence differently.
! ! ! ! ! Word Count: 773
Sharma 4! Works Cited Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter and Other Writings. Ed. Leland S. Pearson. Norton Critical ed. New York: Norton, 2005. 4-166. Print. Thrailkill, Jane F. “The Scarlet Letter romantic medicine.” Studies in American Fiction 34.1 (2006): 3+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 11 Sept. 2014.
