Evil can be defined as, "That which is the
reverse of good, physically or morally; whatever is censurable painful,
disastrous, or undesirable." In the novel
"The Scarlet
Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mistriss Hibbins can also be defined in
those terms. She is believed to be evil by many of the characters. Henry Louis
Mencken once said, "It is a sin to believe evil of others, but is seldom a
mistake." In this novel he was right, Mistriss Hibbins is evil. However,
she is an important character who appears more often than most people realize
and her evilness has a serious impact on most of the characters.
Mistriss Hibbins represents evil in the novel.
She was accused of being a witch. This is a very evil thing in the eyes of the
Puritans. Mistriss Hibbins can also be said to be evil simply because she is
always in the forest, which is an evil place. She is said to go on "night
rides" and attend witch meetings there. "And Mistriss Hibbins, with
some twigs of the forest clinging to her skirts, and looking sourer than ever,
as having hardly got a wink of sleep after her night ride."
The people in town are scared to even be near
Mistriss Hibbins. At the last scaffold scene, "The crowd gave way before
her, and seemed to fear the touch of her garment, as if it carried the plague
among its gorgeous folds." Here, it says that the townspeople were so
scared, that they thought her evil was contagious.
Mistriss Hibbins also effects the way some of
the characters think in the novel. In one part of the novel, Mistriss Hibbins tells Pearl, the daughter of
Hester Prynne, that Dimmesdale, who is her father, is the "Prince of
Air". "They say, child, though art of the lineage of the Prince of
Air!" In this quote she was telling Pearl
that Dimmesdale is the devil. Pearl gets influenced by her and believes
her father is the devil. In one scaffold scene, Pearl yells out, "Mistriss
Hibbins says my father is the Prince of Air. If though callest me that
ill-name, I shall tell him of thee, and he will chase thy ship with a
tempest." This quote proves that she believes her father is evil by
stating that he has the power to create storms.
Just before this conversation with Pearl,
Mistriss Hibbins speaks to her mother, Hester. She tells her that Dimmesdale is
not the man she thinks he is.
She tells her
that he is evil. "Who, now, that saw him pass in the procession, would
think how little while it is since he went forth out of his study - Chewing a
Hebrew text of scripture in his mouth." Mistriss Hibbins tells Hester that she saw him chewing Hebrew text, which
is a terrible sin for a minister. Also, she tells Hester that Dimmesdale wears
the mark of the Black Man on his chest, and that is why he always has his hand
over his heart. The two conversations that Mistriss Hibbins has with Pearl and
Hester occur at the last scaffold scene.
Not only does Mistriss Hibbins affect Pearl and
Hester, but she has an effect on Dimmesdale himself. She tries to make him
think that he is evil, too. Dimmesdale does believe her because he is surprised
he is even talking to her at all. "And his encounter with old Mistriss
Hibbins, if it were a real incident, did but show its sympathy with wicked
mortals, and the world of perverted spirits."
Dimmesdale, if he
were a true minister, would not even want to stand anywhere near an evil person
like Mistriss Hibbins.
Mistriss Hibbins is an important character
because she appears in some
important scenes
where characters express their emotions. She appears at the second scaffold
scene where Dimmesdale admits to his sin. Mistriss Hibbins is one of the only
people in the town to see and hear him. "This venerable witch-lady had
heard Mr. Dimmesdale's outcry, and interpreted it, with its multitudinous
echoes and reverberations, as the clamour of the fiends and nighthags, with
whom she was well known to make excursions in the forest." Here Mistriss
Hibbins gets more evidence that Dimmesdale is evil because his outcries sound
like some evil creatures she knows.
Also, Mistriss Hibbins appears when Hester and
Pearl are returning home after their visit with the Governor. She asked Hester
if she would go with her to a meeting with the Devil in the forest. Hester
responds by telling her that she
cannot go, but if
the Governor had taken Pearl away, she would have went. "I would willingly
have gone with thee into the forest, and signed my name in the Black Man's book
too, and that with my blood." Pearl had saved her from becoming a witch.
"Even thus early had the child saved her from Satan's snare."
In conclusion,
Mistriss Hibbons is a very important character whose interactions which the
characters in the book could very well have changed the outcome.
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