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The Scarlet Letter (Bantam Classics) (平装)
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
| Category:
American Literature, Fiction, Classic |
| Market price: ¥ 68.00
MSL price:
¥ 68.00
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MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
The novel is immersed in Gothic elements and in typical Hawthorne symbolism which deal with man's struggle versus sin and good versus evil.The theme of the violation of the human heart is the real strength of the novel. |
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AllReviews |
1 2   | Total 2 pages 13 items |
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Matthew Yau (MSL quote) , USA
<2007-03-12 00:00>
One of the American classics, The Scarlet Letter tells of a woman named Hester Prynne in late 17th century who committed the then-unforgivable sin of adultery. She had been living in Boston for two years and had been found guilty of bearing a child (Pearl) by an unknown father. As punishment for her sin, Hester was forced to wear a scarlet A (adultery) on the bodice of her dress and to stand on a public scaffold before Boston's townspeople.
The opening chapter "Custom House" seemed irrelevant to the rest of the novel the first time I read the book. It was not until a couple of years later I found it not true when I re-read the novel. I do have to admit that Hawthrone's writing style can drag at times, the once-seemed boring opening chapter significantly set the mood for the rest of the novel.
"Custom House" does not seem to be an integral part of the story; yet the passage in which Hawthrone tells of having discovered, in the Salem Custom House, the faded scarlet A and the parchment foolscap sheets containing the facts which he says he used as the basis for this novel. The two landmarks mentioned at the beginning: prison and cemetry, point to the central themes of punishment and death, which will be combined in the climax of the novel. Prison might symbolize how Hester Prynne, who wore that scarlet A on the bodice, was forever locked in by her sin.
This entire tale is filled with symbolisms. The prison is described as "the black flower of the civilized society". The tombstone at the end of the book implies that crime and punishment may well bring about the death of such civilized life. The most popular and conspicuous symbol that is well sustained throughtout the book is the scalet A that is worn by Hester Prynne. Initially it is a red cloth letter which is a literal symbol of the sin of adultery. But the author makes the symbol A much more richly symbolic throughout the rest of the tale. The scaffold is not only a symbol of the stern Puritan code, but also a symbol for the open acknowledgment of personal sin. Night and day are symbols for concealment and openness. The sun symbolizes happiness and freedom of guilt. The list goes on and on...
Arthur Dimmensdale, Roger Chillingworth, Hester Prynne, and Pearl themselves, are symbols as well. They reflect certain view of sins and effects on humans and society. The book might take strength and effort to read; but it's not quite a bad read.
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Melissa Galyon (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-12 00:00>
I re-read The Scarlet Letter for an American Literature class I'm taking this semester, and I have to admit, it hasn't lost its charm since the first time I read it over ten years ago. Nathaniel Hawthorne had an amazing ability to bring truth into his fictional offerings, in his many short stories and particularly in The Scarlet Letter. I highly recommend this affordable edition of the novel, a quick read, complete with introduction and bibliography.
The novel opens as Hester Prynne accepts punishment for an adulterous affair with an unknown secret lover. Her husband sent Hester over to Boston township a few years prior to the novel's beginnings, but until her sentencing, had not been heard from. Hester has been sentenced to the adornment of a letter "A" on her attire, signifying the adulterous affair. The young Reverend Dimmesdale, a sympathetic observer, turns out to be more than a friend, when it is discovered that he was in fact, Hester's secret love. As Hester is forced to stand on the town's scaffolds with her young infant, Pearl, an unknown man enters the crowd, and Hester realizes that it is her husband, finally arrived in Boston. The man calls himself Roger Chillingworth and pretends to be a physician rather than admit connection to the sinful woman.
As the novel progresses, Hester raises Pearl alone, a precocious child with an inquisitive nature. Banishment from the town fades as the years pass by, and though Hester still wears the letter "A", the town eventually accepts her as an eccentric member of the community. However, Reverend Dimmesdale has held all his remorse of the sins internally, resulting in external illness and loss of character. Roger Chillingworth wreaks vengeance upon the Reverend, ingratiating himself into Dimmesdale's household and encouraging Dimmesdale's degradation.
This short novel was a joy to read and to re-read. If you're in the mood for a little adultery, a little vengeance and a little redemption, this is the novel for you.
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-12 00:00>
I enjoyed reading The Scarlet Letter. I was not forced into by a Literature teacher; I picked it up on my own because I heard it was a great American classic; and, indeed, I have to agree. It is truly timeless. It has been almost five years since I have read this book and I can remember the scenes and words so vividly. Hawthorne's dizzying imagery provides an adventure into the life of a Puritan woman, Hester Prynne, that one does not soon forget.
Hester, practically abandoned by her husband is left to take care of herself in a lonely new world. She is flesh and bone with desires and passions like any other human being. Hester commits adultery and is found out by a cruel, judging community. She must wear a Scarlet A on the front of her dress; A for Adultery. Hester refuses to give the name of her lover Dimmesdale so he goes free and untouched by the damning society, but must face the tortures of his own conscience.
Hester is humiliated and must suffer the consequences for her actions but she is not a broken woman. She stands, brave.
Dimmesdale comes through in the end and admits his role in the dangerous game. Hawthorne takes the readers on a spinning ride to get to this point. Read it and know the exact ending for yourself. I recommend it; highly.
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David Litton , New Zealand
<2007-03-12 00:00>
I imagine that people who read this book in the days it was first published had mixed views pertaining to the story of a woman who is scorned for committing adultery. There were those who likely condemned the book (priests, conservative high-class citizens), while others heralded its many themes and praised its originality (women, other authors, and open-minded beings). I give this book five stars for Hawthorne's ability to move people to so many feelings, including myself, with his diction, his syntax, and his endless use of literary devices to convey Hester Prynne's suffering, the downfall of a minister loved by his parishioners, and a man whose lust for revenge feeds on itself time and again. Speaking from experience, in reading this, one must look over each sentence very carefully and shred it to pieces in order to gain the fully intended information which Hawthorne wished for readers to digest. While not the easiest read of one's life, it is certainly one of the most enlightening, with its naturistic and societal themes that set it apart from other works of any time period. This tapestry of Puritan life stands as a brilliant example of a novel that will touch many more in years that follow.
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Tenordan (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-12 00:00>
This is for all the kids out there who have had to read this book for school and then written awful reviews of it here. Take a few years and please Try again! You will not be sorry. Hawthorne is a wonderfully subtle author, and while his writing might seem tedious at first, it will reward you. This is not just a book about adultery punished by a repressive society - it is about guilt and love, secrets and integrity, personal demons and responsibility. The story has true relevance in today's world. And Hawthorne's language is amazing. If anything he writes seems obvious, look again. He may not have said what you first thought. He often shows many sides of a situation and lets the reader draw his own conclusions. I never had to read The Scarlet Letter for school, but I have read it twice and will probably read it again soon. It is one of the few books that have really stuck with me and made me think. Like other great works of art, it will keep coming back to you. What it lacks in swift and exciting action, it more than makes up in the author's great understanding of and compassion for his characters.
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Charles Sutherland (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-12 00:00>
I remember reading this novel back when I was in high school, and again recently when there was another film version of it done. It really is a classic tale, set in early America. However, the moral of the tale is rather timeless - it deals with sexual morality, but more importantly it deals with honesty and corruption in society, and how we can really harm ourselves by trying to live up to what society wants from us.
Hester Prynne is the main character. In a Puritan community, she breaks her marriage vows by having an affair, with the new preacher no less, Reverend Dimmsdale. This affair results in a pregnancy, something that is impossible to hide in the small community. Reverend Dimmsdale becomes both her lover and her chief accuser, given the status he has in the village. The entanglements that Dimmsdale and Prynne have with each other, in public and out, make for fascinating reading, and shows that people remain the same essentially no matter how technology and history may change.
The title, the scarlet letter, refers to the big red "A" Hester Prynne is required to wear, identifying her as an adulteress. Interesting, of course is that while the whole community is full of sinners, because Puritan religion believes this of all people, they single her out. This also shows times don't change, because even today sexual "sins" are often considered worse than far more bloody or violent ones.
This is a well written book, not really easy but not really difficult to read, and a fascinating look at both early America and how people interact.
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-12 00:00>
The Scarlet Letter is one of those books you start out reading because you had to finish it for a class assignment; or because you never got around to reading it in school but you feel you should because it's a so-called "classic", and end up getting hooked and realizing it's a classic for a good reason: it's a timeless story that resonates as much in our own time as when it was written, centuries ago. At the center of the book is Hester Prynne, a young wife in puritan New England, trapped in a loveless marriage with a man old enough to be her father, sent ahead of him to the new world while he takes care of business in the old. But before he can join her, she falls in love and into an affair, and nine months later, the result is born for all to see. In colonial New England, where religion controls every aspect of everyone's life, Hester and her lover have committed a horrendous crime, never mind a sin, for which they could both be executed; the powers that be feel they are being lenient with her by condemning her to wear a scarlet letter A, for adultery, prominently displayed on her clothes. Hester shocks the whole village by embroidering the scarlet letter with gold thread and wearing it like a badge of honor. Is this her way of spitting into the eye of the village, or is she making her public dishonor deliberately more shameful as a penance?
And who is Hester's lover? The village demands he show himself; Hester, out of pity, love, or contempt, or more probably a mixture of all three, isn't saying. We know early on it's the reverend Dimmesdale, a young preacher beloved and respected by all, but if he doesn't have the courage to come forth himself, Hester will keep his secret. The story isn't a whodunit, who done it is obvious almost from the beginning. The book is about love vs. lust, courage vs. cowardice, and the hypocrisy of public piety covering up a shameful secret. Reverend Dimmesdale can flagellate himself all he wants in private; we can't help but feel contempt for him for not having the guts to share Hester's public humiliation.
But as bad as things are for Hester and Dimmesdale, they are about to get infinitely worse with the appearance of Hester's husband, Roger Chillingsworth, who arrives in the new world to find he has been cuckolded by his wife, who has given birth to another man's child, and wants his honor avenged.
Hawthorne tells a compelling tale which captures our imagination as much as it did when it was written. We realize these star-crossed lovers don't stand a chance in the uptight society they lived in. The book moves slowly, but in doing so it gives the reader time to think about the timeless issues of love, betrayal, deception, and the social mores that controlled the protagonists lives. Hawthorne raised plenty of questions; the readers will find their own answers.
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Erika Vause (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-12 00:00>
You go Sharon Eisenberg! Reading some of these comments on one the most profound reflections on the American psyche, I came close to weeping tears of frustration and anger for what seems to be yet further evidence of the "dumbing of America." Perhaps high school is too young to grasp the full content of this book; a book that should be about more than just "finding" the literary characteristics of Romanticism, a book that should become part of one's everyday life as all pieces of great literature should. The Scarlet Letter is a beautiful and wonderfully moving piece of work that skillfully analyzes sin, guilt, and redemption in four characters. How some of the reviewers can say such negative things about the character development is beyond me - I know that I quite personally sympathize with Dimmesdale. This is not some big action flick or some trashy teen romance novel... this is a work of bona fide genius... which is I suppose why some people can't handle it. All in all, The Scarlet Letter is a must-read for anyone who wishes to better understand the human psyche... and who has the ability to understand and reflect on what they read.
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Brian Nielsen (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-12 00:00>
I just finished The Scarlet Letter in school. Hawthorne does an excellent job of describing every nuance of this story, and that is why at times it is a little hard to follow. But the very heart of the story is one that we all can compare with. Hester Prynne has committed a terrible sin, and bears The Scarlet Letter on her breast. This classic tale begins with Hester on the gallows platform, alone with her baby, Pearl. Throughout the course of thise novel, Hawthorne weaves his way through characters so that you feel you are a part of this story, and by the end you have no doubts in your mind how you feel about each character. This is a book that you will either love or hate, and it really depends on when you read it. Try to take your time through the book the first time you read it, then everything will make much more sense, and you won't throw down the book in disgust. On a side note, you can really skip the introduction chapter entitled "The Custom House" because it has little to do with the rest of the book.
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-12 00:00>
The subject matter, infinitely grim and distasteful, is not enjoyable in any way. It centers on the nature of morality, sin, corruption, hypocrisy especially concerning morality, and all that hackneyed bag of themes. You probably already know the general plot of the novel, so I need not reiterate it. Ironically, while criticizing the hypocrisy and sternness of the Puritans, Hawthorne seems very puritannical himself, and displays those same characteristics, including a kind of absurd self-righteousness and a pompous, austere, rigid, very Christian sense of morality. I got endless irony out of this; it seemed as though he, as the narrator, was condemning the Puritans for their harsh, hypocritical actions while endorsing Puritan principles and expressing views just as severe and ridiculously religious, if not more so, than theirs. I have to warn you that it's pretty disgusting the way he is wholly obsessed with the ideas of sin and guilt. Honestly, I think all he wrote about in his lifetime were Puritans, morality, sin and how we are all horrible sinners, etc. I imagine he could have been a fire-and-brimstone-preaching evangelist if he hadn't chosen the path of literary genius instead. And yes, despite all this, he is still a literary genius.
What makes this such a wonderful piece of classic literature, and one of my favorites, is how beautiful, eloquent, gorgeous, and sophisticated the language is. Rarely have I seen such an astounding mastery of the English language and literary devices, with perfect fluency and coherence, depth, insight, passion, intensity, and power of expression. Of course, I'm sure the style of prose is not for everyone; but I find it remarkable, magnificent, admirable. I loved the rampant symbolism, the ingenuity of little metaphors found everywhere. I loved the character Pearl, who is so strange and otherwordly and complex. Dimmesdale is, well, so very pathetic; he is the epitome of the once-righteous-now-fallen, guilt-torn, utterly miserable, wretched, squirming, feeble, tortured soul, and his abject, wallowing despair adds to the overall gloomy and tormenting atmosphere of the novel.
I know I ranted quite a bit in this review, but honestly, it's a superb work and triumph of English-language literature, and you should at least be able to appreciate it to some degree, in some aspects, and concede its exceptional use of language. I have a feeling that a lot of the reviewers expressing negative opinions are malcontent high school students grumbling about a "stupid, boring book" assigned to them for class. I myself had to read it for my junior-year English class, but I am very glad I was forced to do so.
For those whining about how "verbose" it is - please get over your own short attention span or lack of taste or whatever it is that impedes you from recognizing and appreciating good literature. An example of verbosity is: "I waded along the flooded bank of the river that had overflowed its banks and along which I now waded in flood water," not a sentence of graceful structure and expressiveness like (randomly selecting): "Continually, indeed, as it stole onward, the streamlet kept up a babble, kind, quiet, soothing, but melancholy, like the voice of a young child that was spending its infancy without playfulness, and knew not how to be merry among sad acquaintances and events of sombre hue."
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