Though many readers would likely find few obvious similarities between "The Scarlet Letter," and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," the similarities between the two novels' central characters, although complex and difficult to pin-down, are many.The idea that each of the characters represents a "rebel" within their respective societies is sound enough but somewhat superficial. While each of the characters does suffer the ostracization of their societies, and each of the characters becomes aligned ironically with "evil" according to the mores and social dogmas of their societies, the characters are less "rebels" than they are emblems of individuality and the sanctity and necessity of individualism.The early indicator in "Huckleberry Finn" that individualism, and not rebellion against convention, per se, or for its own sake, is the key theme of Huck's characterization in the novel is given when Huck considers the tale of "Moses and the Bulrushers" (Twain, 5) and concludes that while the story was somewhat interesting.
But when the widow Douglas informs Huck "that Moses had been dead a considerable long time" (Twain, 5), Huck loses interest in the story because he didn't "take no stock in dead people" (Twain, 5).The contrast between Moses, who was obviously a visionary social reformer (if not a genuine prophet of God) and Huck, who is merely an earthy, self-determinant boy-philosopher is not only rich with irony, but shows that Huck, while standing outside of social convention, neither sees himself as a reformer or a radical or even a rebel.The most important fact to keep in mind while studying the character of Huckleberry Finn is the enduring innocence the character displays and how this essential innocence and hearty individualism allows Huck to become a more socially productive person, rather than an "outsider" as is believed by those who view him from the vantage point of social mores. Throughout the course of the novel, each of the characters that Huck encounters on his picaresque journey shows a degree of estrangement from social convention and the restrictions of human society.Jim is a runaway slave, the King and the Duke are free-booting swindlers and criminals, the lovers, Sophia Grangerford and Harney Shepardson, and even Colonel Sherburn all represent individuals who have for one reason or another fell into a confrontational relationship with human society.
In reviewing the relative sympathy the author has for each of the characters, it is necessary only to check the degree of irony to which the characters are subjected.The complexity of the theme of individuality that is part of "Huckleberry Fiin" is presented through the various characters and situations encountered by Huck and Jim throughout their river journey; however, the novel's true thematic climax happens not with the actual rescue of Jim by Tom Sawyer and Huck, but simply when Huck decides quite consciously that his individual sense of morality, loyalty, and love are far more important than the abstract "laws" of human society. Huck first writes a note to Miss Watson to tell her where Jim, her runaway slave is; then, listening to his "conscience," Huck decides to tear up the letter:It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I'd got to decide forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it.
I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:"All right, then, I'll go to hell" -- and tore it up. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel "The Scarlet Letter," a similar thematic complexity underpins the novel's central character, Hester Prynne. In the case of "The Scarlet Letter" the ironic reversals of morality and innocence which gave to "Huckleberry Finn" a sense of joyous liberation and (at least momentary) escape from the injustices and skewed vision of human society, are turned to icily conveyed and tragic observations regarding the fear and hatred of individuality in American society.In "the Scarlet Letter" the gaffes and injustices, the cruelties and crimes committed against the individual are regarded not as adventurous obstacles that will help to define one's individuality, but as nearly elemental forces of human nature which have, as their intended aim, the utter destruction of the individual. When Hester is released from confinement:Her prison-door was thrown open, and she came forth into the sunshine, which, falling on all alike, seemed, to her sick and morbid heart, as if meant for no other purpose than to reveal the scarlet letter on her breast. Perhaps there was a more real torture in her first unattended footsteps from the threshold of the prison than even in the procession and spectacle that have been described, where she was made the common infamy, at which all mankind was summoned to point its finger.
Both Hawthorne and Twain are attempting to embrace an aspect of American society which they see as being central to defining the essential American experience. For both writers, the promise of freedom, self-determination, courage, creativity, and moral surety are derived from the core-promise of individuality and freedom from blind social-persecution.Such a belief in the essential positivism of American culture rests on the idea that people are essentially moral and that the movement toward individuality and individual expression is inborn and given by Nature. even in Hawthorne, such a bold optimism is made clear in the scene in "The Scarlet Letter" where Pearl (unwittingly) changes the scarlet "A" from a badge of shame to a badge of Self and natural growth.
