That’s not how the ‘scarlet letter’ works
Tiana Lowe Doescher
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I must admit that I have struggled to understand Rep. Nancy Mace’s (R-SC) unprecedented decision to join seven Republicans and the entire Democratic caucus to oust Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as House speaker.
Generously, one could concede that the congresswoman merely attempted to represent her newly redrawn, redder district in South Carolina. Cynically, Mace’s about-face could be read as a personal vendetta against McCarthy, who was formerly a formidable ally for Mace. But Mace’s latest gambit to fundraise off of nuking the GOP’s limited but last mechanism of control over the federal government is simply baffling.
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After Hamas terrorists engaged in the single worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, Mace showed up at the House speaker candidate forum on Tuesday in skinny jeans, a blazer, and a tight white T-shirt emblazoned with a bright red “A.”
“I am wearing the scarlet letter after the week I had last week, being a woman up here and being demonized for my vote and my voice,” Mace said, promising that she doesn’t answer to “the establishment.”
As a political conservative incensed that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and seven other Republicans blew McCarthy’s original budget deal that would have slashed discretionary spending by 8%, I am annoyed. As a friend of Israel who knows Congress must reconvene quickly to supply aid, I am angered. As a former middle schooler who had to read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, I am perplexed, as Mace evidently did not SparkNotes what the book is even roughly about.
The eponymous letter in the book is forced upon protagonist Hester Prynne, a recent arrival to the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony who has a baby despite her husband being presumed dead back in Europe. Hester has to wear the scarlet “A,” shorthand for adultery, for the rest of her life as penance for having a child out of wedlock. Contrary to Mace’s performance of the last few weeks, Hester is significant for her silence, both in her refusal to disclose the identity of her baby’s father and the identity of her husband, who turns up on the Boston shores, not dead after all.
Obviously, as a literal symbol, this just doesn’t work. Unless she knows something we don’t, nobody is accusing Mace of adultery. And while Israeli women and girls are being brutalized on the basis of their race, it’s disappointing to see Mace, who has proudly stood for rape survivors, try to paint herself as a victim specifically on the basis of her gender.
But even figuratively, that just isn’t how the scarlet letter works. In the book, Hester is disturbed by her illegitimate daughter’s preoccupation with the physical letter, and the community is enthralled with the letter itself, even as it wishes the letter was burned into Hester’s forehead.
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At the book’s conclusion, Hester’s beleaguered lover, the self-loathing minister Arthur Dimmesdale, finally mounts the scaffold and confesses that he fathered Hester’s baby, dying in his arms with a visible “A” rumored to be on his chest. The whole point of the letter as a symbol is that it is thrust onto a sinner. Hester, who accepts the letter and lives publicly with her sin, is allowed to build a modest life for herself quietly, to the point that the “A” is regarded as “able.” Dimmesdale’s sin destroys him because he cannot publicly confess to it until it is too late and the letter is physically thrust upon him.
Clearly, I am reading far too much into this, but that’s because I expect politicians to score cheap shots for donations. But bastardizing a great American classic is another level of offense.