The Scarlet Letter- good, not great
I found it hard to stay awake while reading the first 22 chapters of The Scarlet Letter. I thought that Hawthorne overexplained unimportant details. I really enjoyed the last 2 chapters, however, because it seemed more focused and there was some suspense. The novel is set in Puritan New England. Salem,Massechusetts to be exact. The main character is Hester Prynne, an adulteress who is forced to wear a pin, in the shape of the letter "A",made from scarlet colored fabric, hence the title. Her adultery results in the birth of her daughter Pearl. The man responsible for this is none other than the town preacher, although he keeps this secret hidden from his congregation. A complication in the plot is the arrival of Hester's husband from Germany. He is thought to be dead, and uses this to his advantage by disguising himself as Roger Chilligworth and becomes a physician in Salem. He vows to find out who Hester's lover was. The Scarlet Letter relates to Nathaniel Hawthorne's personal life, because of the setting. He spent a majority of his life in Salem, and claimed that the story originated from his discovery of a box containing the actual scarlet letter and a record of Hester Prynne while working in Salem's Custom House. Whether his story is true or not, it made me think of the novel as a real story, so I connected more with it.
Challenging the Norm in Puritannical America
I'm sure most of you have heard of the book by Nathaniel Hawthorne, "The Scarlet Letter". Hawthorne weaves a tale of hardship, struggle, and victory as we follow the life of Hester Prynne, a woman who has had a child out of wedlock, whom she names Pearl. She is shunned from the community, refuses to confess the identity of Pearl's father, and is forced to wear a letter "A" on her dress, the symbol for adultery. Fighting against the stifling and hypocritical ways of Puritan life, Hester rebels in her own way, first by embellishing her letter with fine embroidery. This book gives us a look at what it is like to live in Puritan America from not just a woman's point of view, but a so-called "sinner's" point of view as well. As we read this book, we come to see how the letter becomes a symbol of strength and freedom for Hester, in a fight against facades of piety and hypocrisy. A very good novel, and Hawthorne does a wonderful job in the portrayal of his characters. Another little known fact, Hawthorne's grandfather was a judge at the Salem witch trials and Nathaniel was so embarassed by the affiliation, that he changed the spelling of his last name to distance himself from his grandfather and what he stood for. A very good novel, definitely something that everyone should read. Besides, don't you want to know the identity of Hester's lover? Go and read this book!
(2 reviews)
