Regulatory Surveillance and Resistive Spaces in Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Foucauldian Reading of The Scarlet Letter and “The Minister’s Black Veil”

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and “The Minister’s Black Veil” – featuring the characters Hester, Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, and Mr. Hooper – explore the themes of sin, punishment, and redemption within the rigid framework of the Puritan society of New England. Although critical works have been conducted from several perspectives, e.g., psychoanalytical, post-structuralist, and feminist, no research has examined these texts through Michel Foucault’s concepts of panopticon and heterotopia. Additionally, gothic elements are typically analyzed to evaluate symbolic meaning and psychological aspects to criticize societal structure. This study, however, uses a qualitative approach and close textual analysis to apply Foucault’s concepts of panopticon and heterotopia in analysing these gothic elements of The Scarlet Letter and “The Minister’s Black Veil” – e.g., the Puritan gaze, the scarlet letter, black veil, prison, scaffold, forest, and meeting-house - to assess the depicted society’s surveillance and spatial control, and the resultant psychological states of individuals. Through such examination of the specified gothic elements under the lenses of Foucault’s postulated concepts, this paper reveals how Hawthorne exposes the panoptically regulative and repressive nature of the rigid Puritan society, as well as individual resistance in heterotopic sites in The Scarlet Letter and “The Minister’s Black Veil.” Keywords: Gothic, Hawthorne, Foucault, surveillance, panopticon, heterotopia