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teresatumminello 's review for:
The Scarlet Letter
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Though I’d reread [b:The House of the Seven Gables|90192|The House of the Seven Gables|Nathaniel Hawthorne|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348244293s/90192.jpg|1483780] not too long ago, I wasn’t planning on rereading this Hawthorne. But, then I read [b:I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem|89526|I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem|Maryse Condé|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1223646894s/89526.jpg|86405] with its powerful, intriguing scene reimagining Hester, along with an author interview in which [a:Maryse Condé|93912|Maryse Condé|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1220159791p2/93912.jpg] says she rereads [b:The Scarlet Letter|12296|The Scarlet Letter|Nathaniel Hawthorne|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1404810944s/12296.jpg|4925227] quite often. Almost immediately after that, I came across this in [a:Louisa May Alcott|1315|Louisa May Alcott|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1200326665p2/1315.jpg]’s [b:Moods|17550|Moods|Louisa May Alcott|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1390107366s/17550.jpg|19105]: As Hester Prynne seemed to see some trace of her own sin in every bosom, by the glare of the Scarlet Letter burning on her own; so Sylvia, living in the shadow of a household grief, found herself detecting various phases of her own experience in others. Okay, okay, I told my books, I give in.
I first read this in high school as an assigned text. Though the prose is dense for high-schoolers, it is short and full of things to talk about, including the recurring Hawthornian theme of guilt. Because I went to an all-girls’ school, I wonder if it was also to be seen as precautionary: girls, you will be publicly shamed if you become extramaritally pregnant; your partner-in-crime, nope. Hawthorne does unite his guilty pair in an iron link of mutual crime; and though the community doesn’t know of the man’s sin, he can’t escape himself.
While the two men of the novel seem more embodied symbols than flesh-and-blood (their names are almost Dickensian), Hester is a much more realized character. Hawthorne grants her an agency the men, stuck within religion and society’s rules, don’t seem to have, …she cast away the fragments of a broken chain. The world’s law was no law for her mind. When Hester could've discarded her badge of shame, she decides not to, wholly owning it in what can be seen as a quiet act of defiance. Hester works for her living as an accomplished seamstress; later, she’s also an unselfish provider of succor to those in need, assuring other suffering women that, at some brighter period, when the world should have grown ripe for it…a new truth would be revealed, in order to establish the whole relation between man and woman on a surer ground…showing us how sacred love should make us happy.
Hawthorne also notes the inequality of women, having Hester contemplate the worth of her individual existence, comparing it to the whole race of womanhood. Though a jealous Hawthorne later fumed in a letter to his publisher about the “damned [American] mob of scribbling women” who was selling “their trash” (i.e., their books were selling and his weren’t), his portrayal of women in his novels is arguably much more sympathetic and fuller than those of his men.
What had remained from my first reading was a memory of Hester and her child on the edge of a forest while danger lurked just inside. The scene isn’t exactly how I’d remembered it, but its atmosphere is. For Hawthorne, America’s (and his own) Puritan ancestors have a lot to answer for in sucking the joy out of daily existence.
I first read this in high school as an assigned text. Though the prose is dense for high-schoolers, it is short and full of things to talk about, including the recurring Hawthornian theme of guilt. Because I went to an all-girls’ school, I wonder if it was also to be seen as precautionary: girls, you will be publicly shamed if you become extramaritally pregnant; your partner-in-crime, nope. Hawthorne does unite his guilty pair in an iron link of mutual crime; and though the community doesn’t know of the man’s sin, he can’t escape himself.
While the two men of the novel seem more embodied symbols than flesh-and-blood (their names are almost Dickensian), Hester is a much more realized character. Hawthorne grants her an agency the men, stuck within religion and society’s rules, don’t seem to have, …she cast away the fragments of a broken chain. The world’s law was no law for her mind. When Hester could've discarded her badge of shame, she decides not to, wholly owning it in what can be seen as a quiet act of defiance. Hester works for her living as an accomplished seamstress; later, she’s also an unselfish provider of succor to those in need, assuring other suffering women that, at some brighter period, when the world should have grown ripe for it…a new truth would be revealed, in order to establish the whole relation between man and woman on a surer ground…showing us how sacred love should make us happy.
Hawthorne also notes the inequality of women, having Hester contemplate the worth of her individual existence, comparing it to the whole race of womanhood. Though a jealous Hawthorne later fumed in a letter to his publisher about the “damned [American] mob of scribbling women” who was selling “their trash” (i.e., their books were selling and his weren’t), his portrayal of women in his novels is arguably much more sympathetic and fuller than those of his men.
What had remained from my first reading was a memory of Hester and her child on the edge of a forest while danger lurked just inside. The scene isn’t exactly how I’d remembered it, but its atmosphere is. For Hawthorne, America’s (and his own) Puritan ancestors have a lot to answer for in sucking the joy out of daily existence.