Schofield 1
Lynn Schofield
IB English A1 HL
World Literature Assignment 1
28 April 2006
References to Roses in The Scarlet Letter and The Great Gatsby
Roses, flowers associated with nature, love, and perfection, play an important role in both Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Rather than refer to roses throughout the novel, Hawthorne’s narrator makes the most important mention in the very first chapter to make a commentary on the action that unfolds later. The rose only appears again in Chapters 7-8, reminding the reader of its initial appearance and connecting to the characters. In contrast, the rose appears throughout The Great Gatsby, the most significant reference coming in the penultimate chapter, right before Gatsby’s death. This pattern allows Fitzgerald to create a climax of rose allusions that gathers all of the previous references for the reader into a final suggestion of meaning. This essay will closely examine how each author’s deliberate placement of roses affects the reader’s interpretation.
The first, and most significant, reference to the rose in The Scarlet Letter appears in the last few paragraphs of Chapter 1. After introducing the novel’s Puritan setting, the narrator contrasts the prison, an unpleasant “black flower of civilized society,” with the rose bush, which displays gorgeous “delicate gems” (33). Because the rose bush is “wild,” we see a distinction between the ugliness of society and the beauty of nature. While Puritan society, known for its rigidity and religiously sanctioned laws, builds the prison to punish those it deems wicked, nature plants the rose-bush to show that its “deep heart . . . could pity and be kind” to the condemned (34). Through this juxtaposition, Hawthorne suggests that Puritan society is too harsh in its treatment of offenders and instead should follow the example of nature. When the action begins a page later with the opening of Chapter 2, we immediately apply this suggestion to society’s treatment of Hester.
The possible origin of the rose bush also suggests a criticism of Puritan society. After introducing the rose bush, the narrator mentions that it could have “sprung up under the footsteps of the sainted Ann Hutchinson,” connecting the pleasant imagery of the rose bush to a figure exiled by the Puritans for heresy. Since she is “sainted,” a person of exceptional holiness, clearly the narrator sympathizes with her and not with the Puritans, even suggesting that they possibly violate God’s will in condemning her. We can also see the rose bush as a creation of God, as it comes from “Nature,” a word Hawthorne chooses to capitalize. As this chapter gives the reader a guide for reading the whole novel, when we see Hutchinson’s name come up again in connection with Hester in Chapter 13, we see that Hawthorne also sympathizes with Hester, and criticizes the Puritans for their harsh treatment. Perhaps they violate the demands of nature (such as when they put her on the scaffold and ostracize her from human companionship), and even the demands of God, as he calls for mercy and forgiveness, while Puritan society fails to supply either until Hester has proved herself through acts of self-renunciation and charity.
Finally, Chapter 1 cements the significance of the rose as a guide for interpretation, as the narrator overtly addresses the reader and offers the rose as “some sweet moral blossom” (34). Clearly, because this chapter serves as an introduction, and the action itself does not take place until the next chapter, we are meant to apply all the positive connotations of the rose here to the rest of the novel. Thus, we infer that throughout, Hawthorne wants us to take a moral lesson from the tale as a whole, but specifically from society’s harshness in contrast with nature’s sympathy.
The rose appears only once more in Chapters 7-8, where we see the rose in three different ways. First, the Governor’s garden contains roses that remind Pearl of the prison rose-bush, and second, the Reverend Wilson calls Pearl “Red Rose.” The third comes when, in response to Wilson testing Hester’s education by asking her origins, Pearl perversely says she came from the rose-bush and not from God (75-77). All three remind us of our initial introduction to the rose. Naming Pearl a rose and her own claim of kinship with roses connect her to this symbol of nature. Also, the idea that the Puritans violate nature comes in their using Pearl’s petulant reply to justify their removing her from Hester’s care. What is more unnatural than separating a mother and child? As well, the narrator asserts in a previous chapter that her misbehavior is a direct result of her being a “born outcast” (64). We see immediately that the Puritan ostracism of Pearl and her mother contributed to her misbehavior in this scene. Roses show us that Pearl is a natural being capable of sympathy, but distorted by the Puritans’ violation of her.
In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald also includes rose references, but for him the rose is rarely central to a scene; rather, it appears in passing throughout the novel. Therefore, the reader can see a subtle association between it and themes brought out by major characters. One of these is Daisy’s superficiality. In Chapter 1, she charms Nick with her thrilling voice, gushing that he resembles “an absolute rose.” He instantly recognizes the falseness of this statement: “This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose.” Nonetheless, this empty, flirtatious remark charms him with its “breathless, thrilling” words (19). Another rose allusion linked to Daisy appears later when we see her turn from waiting for Gatsby to new prospects, despite their love. This return to society involves the “artificial world” of wealth and beauty: “fresh faces drifted here and there like rose petals blown like sad horns around the floor” (158). Yet an emptiness underlies the luxury connoted by a carpet of rose petals, as it is compared to mournful music. Something is missing here, a trueness, perhaps, that she felt with Gatsby, but let go in impatience and selfishness. Thus, rose references reveal this world’s true vacuity.
Roses are also associated with Gatsby’s shady attempts to gain wealth to recapture Daisy’s love. First, they appear in gossip about his being “a bootlegger” juxtaposed with the request “reach me a rose” (65), and second, in the name of a dead gangster intimately related to Gatsby’s friend Wolfshiem, “Rosy Rosenthal” (75). Both references suggest that he engages in illegal activities to gain his wealth, all confirmed by the novel’s end. Thus, even Nick’s hero, the great Gatsby, resorts to immoral actions to reclaim his love, love lost due to his lady’s superficial attractions to wealth, as we saw earlier. Also, in the scene after Tom realizes that Gatsby and Daisy have renewed their affair, roses come up again as he takes Gatsby outside to have “‘a look at the place,’” and their “eyes lifted over the rosebeds” (124). Here, Fitzgerald foreshadows Gatsby’s inability to keep Daisy, as Tom uses his beautiful property to intimidate his rival and assert his superiority.
This connection between the rose and Gatsby’s failure, developed through his lover’s superficiality, his own moral lapses, and Tom’s power to claim Daisy, climaxes in the scene of his death. After Daisy murders Myrtle with the car, and Gatsby does all he can to protect her, she retreats back into her rich house and marriage, leaving Gatsby “nothing” (153). Thus, Nick speculates about Gatsby’s vision the moment before his death, when he must have recognized his failure: “he found what a grotesque thing a rose is” (169). This ironic last image of the rose suggests a deeper meaning to Gatsby’s loss, through the reversal of the traditional association of roses with romantic love. Surely Gatsby’s love has failed, but even more significantly, roses represent “completion . . . consummate achievement and perfection” (Cirlot 211). Gatsby sees in the final moments of a dying dream that the rose is “grotesque,” something perverted or distorted. When we put this failed achievement together with the images of perfection associated with Gatsby’s dream, such as his “Platonic conception” (104), we see that Fitzgerald finally comments on the failure and emptiness of all dreams to achieve the perfection we desire. He does so again at the end of the novel when Nick reflects that all our dreams “elude” us, but we still “run faster” in the hopes of achieving them (189).
As we have explored, each author’s method of referring to roses contributes, either directly or by implication, to the meanings they create. Hawthorne’s using it as a “moral blossom” to guide the reader brings in not only a criticism of Puritan society’s violation of nature, but also his understanding that nature, though wild, contains aspects worth integrating into a definition of morality. Instead building a kind of culmination, Fitzgerald’s roses comment not only on the hollowness of society, but also the universal futility of human dreams. Hawthorne, then, sees more hope than Fitzgerald—his rose bush has “been kept alive” (34), while the latter gives us only monstrous, withering petals.
Works Cited
Cirlot, J. E. A Dictionary of Symbols. New York: Philosophical Library, 1971.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. 1925. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. 1850. New York: Dover, 1994.
Word Count: 1500