The Scarlet Letter: Part 4

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It was well written (even though the time period speech took some getting used to), the characters were well developed, and the ending concluded things well. I was pleasantly surprised by the end of the book and the turn it took. I hadn't been reading this book as if it were a love story, such as the ending would suggest, and that may have caused me to miss a few things that would've led to me predicting the ending.

After where I left off in my last post, Reverend Dimmesdale and Hester decided to run away together with Pearl on a boat and finally be together as a family. Dimmesdale has one last sermon to give, and Pearl and Hester come to listen. It's his best sermon yet, and afterward he brings Hester and Pearl up on to the pillory. He rips off his shirt in front of the whole congregation to reveal that he has an "A" on the skin on his chest, and then he promptly collapses and dies, only after Pearl is given permission to kiss him, which is their first ever public interaction.

The story comes to an end with Chillingworth dying and leaving Pearl with a large inheritance, and Pearl going off to marry a rich man in Europe. Hester leaves the colony, but eventually comes back and still wears her scarlet "A". Eventually, she dies and is buried next to Dimmesdale, and they share a headstone with and "A" engraved on it. This was the final mention of the "A" and tied up that motif.
The fact that Hester continued to wear the "A" once it was no longer required says a lot about her as a person. It suggests that, with the exception of her adultery, the she is an honorable woman who sticks by her morals and does what she's told.

The "A" on Dimmesdale chest was a bit of a shocker to me, but it makes sense when I think about it. Most of the time, when he was mentioned in the book, he was "holding his heart" or "clutching his chest", but the question becomes, how did it get there? There were some who believed that it was a sign from God, since he had never fully admitted to his sins. I personally believe that it was self inflicted, based on the amount of guilt he felt, and the fact that he had inflicted physical pain on himself in other situations as a form of self-punishment. This conclusion really tied up the motif of him and his chest pains in a way that satisfied me as a reader.

The way Dimmesdale revealed his secret and died and then when Hester was buried next to him suggests that this was a sort of love story, which I didn't expect. If I had known, I would have read the book through a completely different lens. The ending did a really good job of tying up the lose ends from the story, and satisfied all of my questions and concerns.

One theme that I was able to get from this book was that your decisions can affect you for the rest of your life, and even into death (as evident from the "A" on her headstone). She made the decision to commit adultery and cheat on her husband, and that decision followed her for the rest of her life, both emotionally and physically. Reverend Dimmesdale made the same choice, and even while he didn't have a child or a letter on his clothes, he still dealt with the guilt emotionally and it eventually drove him to the point of death.

O'Connor and Nabokov had the strongest influence on how I read this book. Every time a detail was mentioned, I had a little Flannery O'Connor voice in the back of my head reminding me that that was intentional and deliberate. I also kept in mind the things that Nabokov said make a good reader and tried to actively do those things, and I think using those methods helped my understanding and comprehension of this book.

I would definitely recommend this book. It's well written with an interesting plot and compelling characters. I wouldn't recommend it to people who don't like time-pieces, since it is written in an old-timey fashion and focuses on themes and morals of the period, and at times isn't very relatable to modern society. But nonetheless, I enjoyed it a lot.

The Scarlet Letter: Part 3

This section of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne reveals a lot about the true underlying personalities behind some of the key players in this book. I love how Hawthorne adds so much depth to these characters, and really gives them a lot of, well, character. HIs depiction of them really helps bring the story to life and adds new meaning to the story.

We learn a lot about Roger Chillingworth's character in this section. He becomes the town doctor, and Reverend Dimmesdale becomes one of his regular customers. They seemingly become friends, but Roger Chillingworth has an ulterior motive. He believes that Dimmesdale is Pearls father, and the sickness Dimmesdale is feeling is guilt for what he’d done. He is described as being in pain, and always holding his hands over his heart. Eventually, the townspeople convince them to move into a house together, and Chillingworth spends all of his time torturing him and badgering Dimmesdale in hopes of finding out the truth behind his sickness. At one point, Hester and Pearl happen upon their house, and Pearl points at Chillingworth and warns Hester not to go near “The Black Man”, which is another name for the devil. This whole scene shines a whole different light on Roger Chillingworth’s character.

Reverend Dimmesdale gets more depth in this section, as well. He still delivers sermon, even though he is a sinner, and even telling the congregation that makes them feel that his sermons are even more powerful. His guilt becomes so prominent that he gets in the habit of punishing and whipping himself, and see’s images of Hester and Pearl and his parents. He is so filled with grief that at one point, he goes out on the pillory (the same one Hester had to stand on at the beginning of the book) and screams, hoping some people will come. This is a very relatable feeling for most people, even if the situation itself is a little far-fetched. Hester and Pearl come and find him, and they all hold hands as a meteor shoots through the sky, illuminating a letter “A” in the sky.

In this section, I began to notice a motif of Reverend Dimmesdale holding his heart in a sort of pained manor. Not so much physical pain, but a heartache kind of pain. This is most likely connected with his guilt and sympathy for Hester and the fact that she’s forced to wear this letter embroidered on her chest. This sympathy shows a lot about his character. One of my favorite examples is when Dimmesdale is publicly advocating for Hester, and he says, “‘She will not speak!’ murmured Mr. Dimmesdale, who, leaning over the balcony, with his hand upon his heart,

had awaited the result of his appeal. He now drew back with a long respiration. ‘Wondrous strength arid generosity of a woman’s heart! She will not speak!’” (Hawthorne 109).

The Scarlet Letter: Part 2

As I continue to read The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, I remain impressed by his writing style and intricacies.

As Flannery O’Connor said, authors don’t put in details without an explicit purpose. There were many details that I found, and it was interesting to think about how they played into the overall purpose of the story. One example I noticed was with Pearl, Hester’s daughter. After Hester and her baby were released from jail, they went to live in a secluded cabin in the woods (understandably so, given the fact that when they were in public they were constantly ridiculed and that’s really no way to live). While they were living here, to pass the time, Hester made clothes, mostly for the poor. What she didn’t make for the poor, she made for her daughter. She always dressed her in red, and more specifically, scarlet. I found this interesting because of the fact that her adulterous actions were what caused her to need to wear the scarlet letter on her clothes, and she chose to dress the result of her adulterous actions (her daughter, Pearl) in that color may foreshadow some resentment for her daughter that will present itself later in the story.

I found the interaction between Hester and her husband, who goes by the name of Roger Chillingworth, very interesting. On her last night in jail, he comes to visit her, posing as a doctor. In short, he basically said he forgave her for cheating on his, but asked that she not tell anyone that he was her husband. He also says that he will find out who the man she cheated with was, but not necessarily in a vengeful way. The interaction didn’t seem very heated, as one would expect from a conversation with an adulterous spouse. Instead it seemed rather disconnected, which may have been a result of the time period and its norms, or my misinterpretation, or an explicit choice by Hawthorne.

Another thing that I found interesting was the scene with the governor. When Pearl is about three, Hester hears that people think Pearl should be taken away because supposedly Hester is a bad mother. Hester immediately brings her to governor, who begins to ask her question about religion, as if that fact alone was a legitimate way to judge Hesters ability to be a good parent to Pearl. At first I was a little surprised, but then I realized that this was probably very common and appropriate at the time. Reverend Dimmesdale then appeals to the governor and claims that Hester was given Pearl to save her soul, and since Pearl looked like the scarlet letter, Hester is using Pearl to remind her of her sin. I found this whole exchange fascinating, because something as simple as the color she was dressed in convinced the governor to let her keep her daughter. I definitely experienced some culture shock during this part.

I’m still really enjoying this book, and I can’t wait to see how it continues to unfold.

The Scarlet Letter: Part 1

Even though I have not read too much of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, there is still much to say about it. Within the first fifty pages, pivotal characters (or, what I can assume to be pivotal characters, are brought to life and given shape. Before the infamous Hester Prynne is even introduced, a group of townswomen gossip about her and the mystery that surrounds her existence (although, if a reader has any knowledge of this book previous to reading it, they would know exactly why Hester is such a hot topic). And then, we meet Hester.

From the town gossips, readers would gather that Hester is not someone who should be admired. One of the women actually says  "'At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne's forehead'" (Hawthorne 47). Clearly, she's not someone these women are fond of. Most readers know before hand that this book revolves around adultery, which was handled back then with a form of public humiliation. In Hester's case, she was put on display before the general public in town square with her child and a red "A" embroidered onto her clothes (the  scarlet letter referenced in the title, for those who haven't caught on). Nathaniel Hawthorne chose not to portray her as a woman who has done something wrong (although at this point, readers still don't know who the father of this child is and therefore the severity of the adultery), but as a strong, independent woman who is living with her decision. When she walks to present herself and her "A" and her child, the women are in an almost awe-inspired shock from her elegance and grace under the circumstance. In fact, one of them even compliments her embroidery work.

Obviously, the red "A" is a motif, but not just on the surface level that it appears. Clearly, it represents her adulterous actions, in addition to being something meant to publicly shame her. But, on a deeper level, red is a color of strength and is often associated with femininity and womanhood, all things that would represent Hester Prynne's character. I'll be curious to see how the letter "A" and the color red are presented in other areas of the book.

So far, I'm very impressed with Hawthorne's presentation of Hester's character. She just as easily could've been a weak women who was ashamed of her decision and living in regret, but instead he chose to make her an empowered, proud woman, which i commend. I'll be very curious to see how her character continues to develop, and the development of the others alongside her.

I'm also a big fan of Hawthorne's writing style. It's appropriate for the time period in which it's written, yet still understandable and descriptive in a way that someone like myself, a suburban high school student, can still comprehend without too much additional effort.