The Scarlet Letter
Ratings63
Average rating3.3
yikes this DID NOT age well...... super embarrassed that i used to tell people this was my favorite book
I enjoyed this more then I thought I would. I think that givven the concept and time period this was good.
3 ½
Summary
Hester Prynne, the wife of a man long-presumed dead, is found guilty of adultery and sentenced to wear a scarlet badge featuring the letter A on the front of her dress. Upon exiting the jail in which she spent the last few months of her life, pregnant, Hester is made to stand on a platform in the town square with her newborn daughter in her arms, and is heckled by the villagers for a day and a night. They try to convince her to name the father of the child so that he may suffer his penalty alongside her, but Hester refuses and keeps the knowledge to herself.
Set only a few years prior to the Salem Witch Trials, Hester's story is peppered with mentions of witches, witchcraft, and Satan. Her husband, who mysteriously finds his way back to the settlement where Hester lives, takes on a new name, Roger Chillingworth, and makes it his life's mission to unmask Hester's lover.
Chillingworth, a physician by trade, befriends the town's pastor, a young man named Arthur Dimmesdale, and tries to ‘heal' him from his affliction—a heart problem and overall unhealthiness. Chillingworth has a sixth sense when it comes to the pastor and gradually uncovers the secret that Hester guards so fiercely.
I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I seem and what I am!
Review
The Scarlet Letter
The Scarlet Letter
Hester and Pearl on the scaffold.
I had such a hard time reading this book.
It's story it's probably good, however, because of the way it was written (I am aware of the “age” of this book) but I had to depend on an audio version and even so, it was a struggle.
This is a story of a woman who fell in love with a man who wasn't her husband. She was married, sure, and all signs say she did love and respect her husband, but... for some reason, maybe because... Because Nathaniel Hawthorne was for free love, 1850, when he wrote this book.
...
“She assured them, too, of her firm belief, that, at some brighter period, when the world should have grown ripe for it, in Heaven's own time, a new truth would be revealed, in order to establish the whole relation between man and woman on a surer ground of mutual happiness.”
It's hard to judge and rate the classics but rating them anything below 3 stars only shows how many people truly, genuinely need to read more. High school did not ruin your love for reading, your unwillingness to be challenged did.
Is The Scarlet Letter written in an obtuse way? Yes. Which is why it must be read with consideration for the intent of the author and the time in which it was written.
‘The Scarlet Letter' is hugely critical of the Puritans and could easily be rewritten to be a ‘girlboss' YA novel of half the length with none of the depth. If that is what you seek then maybe you should consider why and do something to challenge yourself.
All the men were bastards. There was no good male character in this book but perhaps the narrator.