CONSTRUCTING TRAGIC LOVE: NARRATIVE CONFLICT, GENDERED POWER, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL REPRESSION IN NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE’S THE SCARLET LETTER

Abstract

This article examines Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850) as a narrative that constructs tragic love through the interaction of psychological repression and gendered social control. While existing scholarship has emphasized themes of sin, guilt, and moral judgment, less attention has been paid to how tragic love is produced through the convergence of internal psychic conflict and external institutional power. This study argues that the novel does not merely depict a failed romance, but actively constructs tragedy through the tension between private desire and public discipline within Puritan society. Through close textual analysis informed by psychoanalytic and feminist theory, the article demonstrates how Arthur Dimmesdale’s repressed guilt and Hester Prynne’s socially regulated identity generate a form of love that is structurally unsustainable. By situating individual suffering within broader systems of moral surveillance and patriarchal authority, The Scarlet Letter redefines tragic love as a product of both psychological fragmentation and cultural constraint. In doing so, the novel offers a critical reflection on the relationship between emotion, identity, and power, revealing that love becomes tragic not simply because it is forbidden, but because it is shaped by conditions that render it impossible to sustain.