The Black Man's Book

The Black Man's Book is a recurring folkloric motif in The Scarlet Letter, representing the diabolical pact that tempts sinners in the Puritan imagination. It is described as a big, heavy book with iron clasps, carried by the Black Man—a figure synonymous with Satan—who haunts the forest around Boston. According to the superstition of the period, anyone who meets the Black Man among the trees is offered the book and an iron pen, and must write their name with their own blood; in return, the Black Man sets his mark on their bosom. This legend is recounted to Pearl by an old woman in a chimney corner, who claims that a thousand and a thousand people have met the Black Man in the forest, written in his book, and received his mark. Among those named is the bitter-tempered Mistress Hibbins, the governor's sister, who is later executed as a witch.

Hester's Encounter with the Legend

Hester Prynne herself becomes entangled in this folk belief. When Pearl asks her directly whether the scarlet letter is the Black Man's mark, Hester confirms the child's suspicion: "Once in my life I met the Black Man! This scarlet letter is his mark!" This admission, made in the deep forest, aligns Hester's public shame with the diabolical signature of the Black Man's book, transforming the scarlet letter from a legal punishment into a supernatural stigma. The legend thus provides a framework through which the community—and even Hester herself—interprets her sin as a literal pact with the devil.

The Book as a Symbol of Hidden Guilt

The Black Man's Book also serves as a metaphor for the secret guilt that Arthur Dimmesdale carries. Pearl, with her uncanny perception, connects the minister's habitual gesture of keeping his hand over his heart to the mark left by the Black Man. She asks her mother: "Is it because, when the minister wrote his name in the book, the Black Man set his mark in that place? But why does he not wear it outside his bosom, as thou dost, mother?" This question underscores the contrast between Hester's open shame and Dimmesdale's concealed sin, suggesting that the minister's hidden guilt is a form of signing the Black Man's book—a secret pact that torments him from within.

The Book and the Forest as a Realm of Temptation

The forest itself is the domain of the Black Man and his book, a place where societal laws lose their power and where temptation flourishes. When Hester and Dimmesdale meet in the forest and plan to flee together, Dimmesdale feels as though he has made a bargain with the devil. After the meeting, he is assailed by blasphemous thoughts and wicked impulses, and he wonders: "Did I make a contract with him in the forest, and sign it with my blood? And does he now summon me to its fulfilment, by suggesting the performance of every wickedness which his most foul imagination can conceive?" The Black Man's Book thus becomes a symbol of the moral compromise that Dimmesdale believes he has entered into, a pact that offers temporary happiness but leads to spiritual ruin.

The Book's Thematic Significance

The Black Man's Book functions as a powerful folkloric emblem of the Puritan belief in predestination and the visible signs of election or damnation. It externalizes the internal struggle between sin and redemption, offering a supernatural explanation for the scarlet letter and the minister's hidden agony. The book is never physically present in the narrative—it exists only in the stories told by the community and in the guilty imaginations of the characters—yet it exerts a profound influence on how sin, secrecy, and salvation are understood. By invoking the Black Man's Book, Hawthorne weaves the Gothic and supernatural into the psychological realism of the novel, suggesting that the most terrifying pacts are those made not with ink and blood, but with the hidden recesses of the human heart.