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A review by james1star
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
challenging
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
The story of The Scarlet Letter is somewhat okay and the novel does follow a rather straightforward path starting with a women (Hester) and her baby being released from prison where she’s severed a sentence for adultery. She is made to stand on a scaffold baring a scarlet letter ‘A’ upon her chest where the townspeople of puritan Boston, New England gawk at here. The rev Dinsdale pushes her to reveal the baby’s father (who is himself) but she refuses. In the distance of the market place she see’s her husband who was captured by native Americans and he tells her to not reveal his identity. He then visits her in prison saying he forgives her (I think) and reinvents himself into Chillingworth as a physician with the taste of finding out the baby’s father. Hester then moves to a cottage away from the town and decides to make a living doing needlework and helping the poor as her child, Pearl, grows up. More goes on but then Hester and Dinsdale meet in the forest where he shares his guilt and how he’s an unhappy man, they both forgive each other and plan to sail to England to start a life together. Dinsdale makes his way back to town and now Chillingsworh discovers he’s the father. A few days after it’s Election Day and Dinsdale makes a great speech then comes out and onto the scaffold, reveals his sin in public and dies, Hester and Pearl then leave the colony and we don’t know what happens to the child. Hester returns later still baring the scarlet letter and her grave is placed next to Dinsdale but not too close.
I think that’s the plot and is very simplified (unlike Hawthorn) and I think this is generally okay but I do feel it could have been nicer in a sense. How the narrator, Hester and other people talk to and about Pearl such as ‘elf-child’ or ‘witch-child’ and various names is horrible, she’s only a baby and then little girl and her whole life she has been made ‘othered’ so Yhh, I felt she was very disadvantaged and discriminated against - yes at the time children born out of wedlock were viewed as lesser but I couldn’t jam with it at all. It was hailed at the time as quite revolutionary but it’s definitely not as inspiring to women as I thought it was supposed to be. Mentions of morality, sin and ownership of it are again okay but I dunno not for me.
What I disliked most was the writing style with paragraph-length sentences containing a plethora of syntaxes and messages within. It’s not unreadable but is certainly hard to read. I’m an inexperienced reader of classics so it says more about me then Hawthorn. However, I didn’t like it soooo yhh
I think that’s the plot and is very simplified (unlike Hawthorn) and I think this is generally okay but I do feel it could have been nicer in a sense. How the narrator, Hester and other people talk to and about Pearl such as ‘elf-child’ or ‘witch-child’ and various names is horrible, she’s only a baby and then little girl and her whole life she has been made ‘othered’ so Yhh, I felt she was very disadvantaged and discriminated against - yes at the time children born out of wedlock were viewed as lesser but I couldn’t jam with it at all. It was hailed at the time as quite revolutionary but it’s definitely not as inspiring to women as I thought it was supposed to be. Mentions of morality, sin and ownership of it are again okay but I dunno not for me.
What I disliked most was the writing style with paragraph-length sentences containing a plethora of syntaxes and messages within. It’s not unreadable but is certainly hard to read. I’m an inexperienced reader of classics so it says more about me then Hawthorn. However, I didn’t like it soooo yhh
Content Warnings
Moderate: Infidelity and Sexism