A is for Aura: Migraine and Crip Time in The Scarlet Letter

Abstract: This essay considers the ways in which Sophia Peabody Hawthorne’s experiences of and writing about migraine headaches provide an important context for examining her husband Nathaniel Hawthorne’s writing of The Scarlet Letter . Specifically, it shows how Sophia’s experiences of visual disturbances, head and nerve pain, fatigue, and euphoria, among other migraine symptoms, are mirrored in the pain that Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne suffer at key moments in the novel. It also explores the ways in which the narrative structure of The Scarlet Letter parallels aspects of the looping, broken, and suspended temporality that contemporary disability studies scholars term “crip time.” By examining The Scarlet Letter through a disability studies lens, the essay provides new ways of understanding the significance of Hester Prynne’s growing reputation as “able” as well as the shame and stigma that continue to be associated with migraine today.