The style, unreadable. Here is who I would recommend this book to - people who like sentences with 4 or 5 thoughts, and that are paragraph length - so that they are nearly impossible to understand - because by the time the end, of the sentence, has been reached the beginning, and whatever meaning it contained, has been forgotten and the point is lost.
View all 47 comments. Oct 17, Johntaylor rated it did not like it Recommends it for: Marquis deSade. I found my old high school review of this book. Here's a little bit of my assessment. Apologiese in advance: If there is a hell, Hawthorne is the devil's sidekick, and the first thing you're given after the stark realization that you're in hell, on fire, and this is going to last forever is this book.
And you have to do a 10 page paper praising the wondrous virtues of this massive waste of time. And after you've finished writing in your own blood, mind you your stupid paper, you are given an I found my old high school review of this book. And after you've finished writing in your own blood, mind you your stupid paper, you are given another essay topic dealing with this same insipid book.
Congratulations, this is what you'll be doing for eternity. I did not like either book because my teachers did not do a good job of selling it to me. There was little to no background, no setup, no explanation as to why we should read this--other than "ED Hirsch said you have to, so go read it. I think my teachers disliked both books, and it rubbed off on their students. View all 38 comments. It is considered his "masterwork". Set in 17th-century Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony, during the years to , it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an affair and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity.
View all 6 comments. Sep 09, Eddie Watkins rated it really liked it Shelves: american-fiction. View all 46 comments. Feb 18, a. View all 13 comments. Nov 01, Sean Barrs rated it really liked it Shelves: classics , 4-star-reads. If the only world she has ever known is one when he only parent is considered ungodly, blasphemous and full of sin, then surely she will begin to reflect some of these ideals?
When the Puritans branded Hester with the Scarlet Letter, they also branded her daughter metaphorically speaking, of course. This novel is a political message directly pointed at the Puritans of early America. In their blind devoutness they almost cause the very thing they are actually preaching against. Ultimately, Hawthorne portrays the religious sect as hypocrites who are completely self-defeating in their actions. Actions have consequences, so does unjustified damnation. Indeed, in this the author establishes how some extreme piety can almost cause impiety.
Religion can be taken too far. Christianity is built upon the principals of forgiveness, and repentance, not punishment and the shaming of the guilty.
Well, what the Puritans perceive as guilty. Then there is the entire separate issue of the fact that those men of the cloth can be guilty too. Nobody is completely pure despite what they think. She could have been raped. Their ignorance knows no bounds to the realities of life; they shield themselves with their religious virtue and do not consider that there is a harsh world out there. Men like this are dangerous, and in this Hawthorne establishes his message.
I felt like there were a few passages of convoluted and unnecessary narration. I mean this was short, though it could have been a little shorter.
The middle was drawn out with some irrelevant events thrown in. The result was a very disjointed and hard to read combination. The overall message of this piece of literature is what makes it a worthy read even if its delivery was a little pedantic at times. Overall, though, I do attest that this is a rather undervalued novel. The socio-historical context it provides is tremendous. View all 12 comments. May 23, Peter Derk rated it did not like it Shelves: did-not-finish , reviewed , books-i-drew-schlongs-in.
It's great to finally get back to the classics. It's been far too long since I read a book with careful intensity, noting throwaway lines that are likely to show up on a multiple choice or short answer test that misses the main themes of a book entirely while managing to ask lots of questions like, "In the fourth chapter, what kind of shoes was [character you don't even remember] wearing?
Wrong, wrong, wrong. It's hard to know where to start with this thing. The prose itself is almost unreadable. Let me give you an example of what a sentence in this book is like: A man- who was born in a small town, which bore no resemblance to the town his parents imagined for him when they settled in the area over 40 years ago with every intention of starting a small business selling gift baskets online that sort of petered out after bigger companies like FTD caught onto the whole thing and ran the little guys out with predatory pricing- decided to go for a walk one day.
I shit you not. Whenever I saw a dash I'd skip down to find the second dash, and usually managed to cruise through half a page to find the relevant piece where the prose picked up again. Word on the street is that Hawthorne, who published the book in , actually wrote it to seem EVEN MORE old-timey than it was, which is pretty goddamn old-timey at this point. As far as I can tell, writing old-timey means: 1.
Describing furniture and clothing in such exhaustive detail that royal wedding coverage appears shabby and underdeveloped. Using commas wherever the fuck you feel like it. Structuring the plot in such a way that you already know everything that's going to happen way before it does.
Let's talk plot while we're on the topic. The plot is like Dynasty with all the juicy parts pulled out. I'm serious.
All events could be summed up by video of a guy sitting in front of a sign that says, "Banging people isn't so bad" and winking from time to time. One of the characters is damned, and as she walks through the forest the bits of light that dot the trail through the canopy of trees literally vanish before she can walk into them.
Now this would be fine in a book where the damned character was in the woods, say, leading an army of orcs. But in a book where the sexual and social mores of Puritan society are called into question, it kind of overdoes everything and kills the mood. So it all begs the question: What the fuck is going on with these classics? The Scarlet Letter, according to a recent study, is the sixth-most taught book in American high schools.
It's very popular, and you can hardly enter a Barnes and Noble without seeing a new version with such awesome cover art that it almost tricks you into buying it. I have a frequent argument with my brother regarding what makes things movies, books, whatever great. To him, for example, a movie might be great because it's the first movie to usher in a new era in filmmaking, really redefining an era while paying a loving homage to the past.
Context is important to him, and reading the stuff on the IMDB page is part of the movie experience in his world. For me, I don't really give a shit about context. Knowing that Hawthorne had certain feelings about Puritanism based on his ancestry doesn't really matter much to me. Finding out that the main character was based loosely on the author's wife doesn't really do a whole lot for me. In other words, I demand to be entertained on at least some level, and if the level of entertainment doesn't spur me on to dig deeper, I think that's a failure of the art and not an example of my own laziness contributing to my dislike of the art in question.
Furthermore, when the prose is TOO challenging I am constantly thinking, "This is a book I am reading and here is the next line of this book. I like to think of books as being like magicians. Take a David Copperfield His schtick is to do amazing tricks that appear effortless on his part, which is why they are, well, magical.
David Blaine, on the other hand, performs feats that do not appear effortless whatsoever, and therefore far less magical. It takes a great writer to write a great book. It takes an even better writer to write a great book that appears nearly effortless. One might accuse me of rarely reading challenging books, and maybe it's true.
I find myself drawn to books that compel me to finish them as opposed to those that I feel I have to slog through while other books are sitting in growing piles around my apartment, calling out to me with their promises of genuine laughs, heartbreak that is relevant to me, and prose that doesn't challenge me to the point that it's more of a barrier to the story than anything. Perhaps most telling, at the book club meeting we were discussing this last night, and an older lady asked a pretty decent question: "Why is this considered a classic?
Everyman would say that the book is a classic because it is an excellent snapshot of a historical period. It has a narrative set within a framework that allows us to better understand our roots as Americans.
The issues of people's perceptions of women and rights of women are still very alive today. Overall, it gives us a chance to examine our own society through the lens of fiction, therefore re-framing the conversation to make it less personal and easier to examine without bias. Blah, blah, blah. I would say it's a classic because it was one of the more palatable books that came out during the period when "classics" were made.
I would also point out that the canonized classics are never revised. We never go back and say which books maybe have less to say about our lives than they used to, or which might still be relevant but have been usurped by something that is closer to the lives we live today. I would also say that it continues to be taught in schools because the kind of people who end up teaching high school English are most often people who have a deep and abiding respect for these types of books and identified with these types of books at around that time in their lives.
I think there are a lot of people out there who never liked these books, and rather than making their voices heard about what they think people should read they just drop out of the world of books altogether. My point is, I think this is a bad book. It's got low readability, even for adults. The plot is melodramatic. The characters are single-dimensional crap, the women being constant victims of the time and the men being weak examples of humanity.
Also, a very serious story is halted in places where we are expected to believe that magic letter A's pop up in the sky like you might see in an episode of Sesame Street. It must have been a very exciting book in its time, without a doubt based on its sales. And if this kind of book is your thing, good for you. I don't begrudge you your joy. It's just not a book that I would ever dream of foisting on someone else, nor would I recommend reading it unless you are absolutely required.
View all 33 comments. Adam E. Derk, you are a very good and entertaining writer. I feel kind of silly because I gave it five stars. I just liked the tortured character of Heste Mr. I just liked the tortured character of Hester. It was a dark time to be alive back then if you broke the rules. Anyway, I liked your review. Peter Derk Adam wrote: "Mr. I just liked the tortured chara Adam wrote: "Mr. It was a dark time to be alive back then if Different books hit different people differently.
It's a good thing most people don't all like the same books. Makes the world interesting! But thank you for the compliment. Feb 13, Werner rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: Any reader who doesn't mind 19th-century diction. Shelves: classics , historical-fiction. Actually, I've read this book twice, the first time when I was in high school. Reading it again after some thirty years, I was amazed at the amount of meaning I'd missed the first time!
Most modern readers don't realize and certainly aren't taught in school that Hawthorne --as his fiction, essays and journals make clear-- was a strong Christian, though he steadfastly refused to join a denomination; and here his central subject is the central subject of the Christian gospel: sin's guilt and forg Actually, I've read this book twice, the first time when I was in high school.
Most modern readers don't realize and certainly aren't taught in school that Hawthorne --as his fiction, essays and journals make clear-- was a strong Christian, though he steadfastly refused to join a denomination; and here his central subject is the central subject of the Christian gospel: sin's guilt and forgiveness.
Unlike many moderns, Hawthorne doesn't regard Hester's adultery as perfectly okay and excusable --though he also doesn't regard it as an unforgivable sin. But his faith was of a firmly Arminian sort; and as he makes abundantly clear, it's very hard for sinners mired in the opposite, Calvinist tradition to lay hold of repentance and redemption when their religious beliefs tell them they may not be among the pre-chosen "elect.
If you aren't put off by 19th-century diction, this book is a wonderful read, with its marvelous symbolism and masterful evocation of the atmosphere of the setting the occasional hints of the possibly supernatural add flavor to the whole like salt in a stew. Highly recommended! View all 29 comments. Maybe 2. The 40 page Custom-House introduction was pure pain to plow through, no lie, and there are a lot of slow spots where Hawthorne gets hung up in the details.
So I'll compromise at 4 stars. The Custom-House part which is just a framing device; seriously, I'll skip it if I ever read this agai Maybe 2.
The Custom-House part which is just a framing device; seriously, I'll skip it if I ever read this again tells of a man who finds the fateful scrap of red cloth: a scarlet A, beautifully embroidered with gold thread, along with a year old manuscript telling the story of Hester Prynne.
This man then retells her story In the mids Boston is a Puritan settlement, so adultery was a huge scandal. Hester Prynne is led out of jail in front of a crowd, her baby daughter Pearl in her arms, and with the scarlet A on her dress, standing for "Adultress. Her elderly husband has been missing for years, so it's clear he's not the father of Pearl. But Hester resolutely refuses to name the actual father. What she doesn't realize at first is that her long-lost husband is in the crowd, hiding his identity from everyone.
Boston officials try to take Pearl away from Hester, but a young minister, Arthur Dimmesdale, pleads her case. The popular Dimmesdale has his own problems: a mysterious wasting disease and heart trouble.
Maybe - just maybe - his problems are mostly psychological? And then the secretly suspicious Chillingworth decides to "befriend" Dimmesdale. The use of a scarlet letter on clothing to publicly brand adulterers is a historic fact, but Hawthorne turns it into a potent symbol. I loved this take on it, from an excellent critical review and analysis in The Atlantic : We may realize its value, in the present case, by imagining the book with the scarlet letter omitted.
It is not practically essential to the plot. But the scarlet letter uplifts the theme from the material to the spiritual level. It is the concentration and type of the whole argument.
It transmutes the prose into poetry. It serves as a formula for the conveyance of ideas otherwise too subtle for words, as well as to enhance the gloomy picturesqueness of the moral scenery. It burns upon its wearer's breast, it casts a lurid glow along her pathway, it isolates her among mankind, and is at the same time the mystic talisman to reveal to her the guilt hidden in other hearts.
The entire story - each character, each event, people's appearances, even objects - is filled with symbolism. Light and darkness, sin and secrecy, suffering and redemption, all have a role. It can be a little - or a lot - hard to wade through the old-fashioned language and viewpoint of The Scarlet Letter , but it really rewards the reader who's willing to look deeper. View all 28 comments. Indeed, I think of all the things I see as wrongheaded in the way we teach literature to kids.
Yet, when I entered high school, it did not take long for that love to shrivel like autumnal leaves, there to break and scatter beneath the heels of a succession of well-meaning teachers trotting out their oh-so-familiar-syllabi. Despite being a prolific, above-age-level reader throughout middle school, I doubt I finished more than a handful of titles during those four years.
The reason, at least in part, is Nathaniel Hawthorne, an author who wrote dense prose about complicated themes, with little regard for pacing or dramatic set pieces. It is a style found in many of the titles that make up the bulk of required reading lists.
When you are handed The Scarlet Letter at the age of fourteen or fifteen, and you open those pages, you are not about to enter a realm of wonder and enchantment. Rather, you are thrust into a ruthless psychological excavation, not unlike the dissection of that fetal pig you did in biology. Any book. Lost are any of the simple joys of a well-told story.
Sure, there is good reason to study literature, and the important, lifelong tools you thereby gain such as critical thinking, attention to detail, and sitting still long enough to finish a page especially in this age of constant swiping.
Drug dealers know all about getting their clients hooked on the good stuff. In this area, English teachers are lagging. Furthermore, in the universe in which we happen to coexist, The Scarlet Letter remains a classic, though it grows dustier with each passing year. Thus, it was with a need for catharsis, as well as a sense of unfinished business, that I picked this up twenty-five years after I last set it down.
Full disclosure: I set it down in in order to pick up the Cliffs Notes version. The big surprise here: I sort of loved it. Like all literary masterpieces, The Scarlet Letter requires little by way of introduction. When the novel opens, the heroine, Hester Prynne, is stepping through the prison door, on her way to a scaffold where she is to be publicly shamed. In her arms she bears Pearl, the daughter born of sin. The focus here is not on the sin, but on the sinner, and her road to redemption.
I think not. Nevertheless, I read it, since I am a bit anal about things like that. Anyway, no part of this reading experience brought me closer to my impatient, high-school self than slogging through this unnecessary opening act. Hester refuses to name her partner-in-lust, even after the arrival of her much-older husband, who now calls himself Roger Chillingworth excellent name, by the by.
Chillingworth is a physician who has spent time among the Indians. He uses his clout to defend Hester when he can. He also happens to be wasting away for some inexplicable reason. Despite being just over two-hundred pages long, The Scarlet Letter spans some seven years, as the stoic, isolated Hester proudly bears her shame, and gradually works herself back into the good graces of her community.
Since her community is made up of Puritans, this results in little more than a slightly-less-grim frown as she passes through town.
He tends towards long, clause-studded sentences, in which he uses both commas and hyphens to pack in as much information, digressionary or not, as he possibly can. And of course, there is the Puritan-Speak, especially in the dialogue, which is clotted with thees , thous , hithers and yons. Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media.
That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update. The Scarlet Letter is one of the most celebrated novels in early American literature and is probably the magnum opus of its author, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
It vividly depicts Puritan life in Massachusetts during the mids and explores issues of American morality, religion, and hypocrisy. Its use of symbolism can't be missed. The novel is frequently used in high school and early college literature classes and is a favorite example for discussion on AP tests and the like. Differing views of morality and sin are what drive the narrative of The Scarlet Letter.
Hester bears the public shame for her transgression, but there are others who suffer for it in secret. Hester's unwavering goodness ultimately restores some of her standing in the community. Redemption is available to those who work for it. Although she has committed an act that offends the morals of all her neighbors, Hester remains resolute in her pledge not to reveal the father of her child or to disclose a secret concerning her long-absent husband.
She is a tender and loving mother. She even does charitable work, which allows her eventually to return to the good graces of the townspeople. Illicit sex is, of course, at the center of The Scarlet Letter 's premise and plot. Hester is ostracized because she dares to raise a child out of wedlock and refuses to name the father. She and others come to bear responsibility for their actions. But this being a 19th-century novel about 17th-century Puritans, Hester's affair is not described in any detail likely to offend modern sensibilities.
Parents need to know that The Scarlet Letter is a classic American novel that deals with adultery, sin, religion, and redemption. Hawthorne's prose is dense with irony and symbolism, but readers who persevere will be rewarded by his subtle humor and acute understanding of human foibles.
Add your rating See all 3 parent reviews. Add your rating See all 7 kid reviews. Only the intervention of the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale keeps Hester and her impish daughter Pearl together. When Hester's missing husband secretly returns, posing as a doctor and calling himself Roger Chillingworth, the stage is set for a tumultuous story of sin, tragedy, and redemption.
Hawthorne's prose can seem complicated and stilted to modern ears, but a careful reading reveals his delicious use of irony and symbolism to make his points about American morality and hypocrisy. Written in the mids, The Scarlet Letter is one of the most acclaimed early America novels and is frequently assigned in upper-level high school and entry-level college English Literature classes. It examines issues of sin and redemption and paints a vivid portrait of Puritan life in the mids.
Families can talk about how views about adultery and children born out of wedlock have changed over time. What is it about Hester's attitude regarding her affair that so angers her fellow townspeople? Why doesn't the father of the child come forward? Young Pearl is regarded by some of the villagers as a kind of demon-child.
Does her behavior in the book strike you as normal for a child her age? Do you believe that the sins of a father or mother can be passed along to a child? The Scarlet Letter is noted for Hawthorne's use of symbols. How is the letter "A" used as a symbol? What does it mean in different contexts? This novel is considered a classic and is often required reading in school. Why do you think that is? In setting his novel in the past, Hawthorne comments not only on the morals of a specific period, but contrasts them to both the past and the future.
Ace your assignments with our guide to The Scarlet Letter! SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. Did Hester ever love Chillingworth?
What type of work does Chillingworth take on in New England? What does Dimmesdale believe he sees when the meteor lights up the night sky? How does Pearl react when she first sees her mother without the scarlet A?
What makes Hester and Reverend Dimmesdale finally feel hope about their future?
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