Hester walked across the room. She stepped upon her left foot, her right foot, and then her left foot again. One wonders, why doth she, in this instance of walking across the room, begin her journey upon the left foot and not the right? Could it be her terrible sin, that the devil informeth the left foot just as he informeth the left hand and those bewitched, left-handed persons amongst us? Why, forsooth, doth the left foot of sin draggeth the innocent right foot along its wretched journey from More...

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 More...

Modern society and a number of people seem somewhat confused about our ancestors. On one hand, they're dumbass peasants who attached BYOW (Bring Your Own Witch) to their barbeque invitations. On the other hand, they sometimes imbue them with super mystical intelligence, class and abilities whilst bemoaning how stupid and uncouth we have become in comparison.

The Scarlet Letter allows us to judge that the reality was somewhere in between but mostly sitting on the side of pathological stupidity.


And More...

So I finally got to find out for myself what the majority of American high-schoolers are subjected to, and while I see the importance of a story like this and the ideas it presents in 1850, I think the subject matter is both outdated and irrelevant today. One might, of course, choose to point out that Hester Prynne's antics would still today be considered immoral in certain parts of the world, however the difference is that they probably wouldn't treat her so leniently as this seventeenth-centur More...

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?"

I was thinking maybe it would be nice to read a book like this without worrying about that stuff, just absor More...

This was my third time reading The Scarlet Letter. The first time was during my junior year of high school. I actually enjoyed it, though literature of the nineteenth century was such a mystery to me then that I shied away from the creaky long words and felt proud of myself for succeeding in merely following the plot. When I first read it to teach it last year, I was enraptured. This year was the same. Hawthorne has such an impressive command over language. The eloquence of his language carries More...

The story, not bad. 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.

My second book read that was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) who was said to be the "Shakespeare of the American Literature."

Whoa. I only read one book of Shakespeare but I have an idea of the others. I hope it is not only the use of "thee" and "thou" that lead to the comparison. For me, this book The Scarlet Letter is also theatrical and dramatic. For example, the opening scene where the adulterer and the main female protagonist of this book, Hester Prynne is on the scaffold (stage) More...

Yes, yes, I know, everyone hates The Scarlet Letter.

But I've got a special fondness for it. When I was in tenth grade, our English teacher gave us a list of topics to choose from for our Scarlet Letter Essay. Discuss the changing role of women, analyze the symbolism of the forest, etc. This was the first time I'd been asked for literary criticism.

So I was flipping back through the book and writing down examples, cataloging any appearance or reference to anything supernatural, and trying to figur More...

oh god.

hawthorne is that perpetually needy manchild of a writer, you know the one who peers over your shoulder while youre trying to read and keeps pointing out the parts of his own writing that he finds particularly good and/or moving.

"yeah, see? do you see? see how i talked about how the rose is red, and then i talk about how hesters 'a' is red, too? do you see what im trying to do here, with the symbolism?"

and its like that all the way through the book.

*edit 12 september 2008: im tutoring More...

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 More...

THIS BOOK IS ABOUT A PREECHERS SPERM IT HAS UPTIGHT PEOPLE IN IT

okay, so shoot me, i never read this before. well, i tried a couple times, in high school and college, but the opening part, the introduction about the custom-house, was always so incredibly boring i could never get past it. so this time, i got past it, and now all i have to say is: why the fuck is that custom-house thing there in the beginning?? (although the part where he finds the letter is nice.)

I am a big fan of the Neverending Book Quiz.
It was through this amusing game that I came to see that I have totally missed including one of my favorite books The Scarlet Letter in my list of the books I've read.

This book of symbols, heartache, growth and the ultimate evil adversary opened my eyes (at 16, mind you) to how amazing and multilayered good literature could be.

I'm grateful for an English teacher that unfolded the depth of this book to her students. It was obvious that she loved this b More...

Awesome. I never read Hawthorne before and find his writing style a bit convoluted, with many ideas in one sentence, which slowed down my reading. However, this also improved my appreciation for the language and depth of this story.
Themes: love, hate, revenge, hidden sin, open sin, forgiveness, guilt.
Which gives the Sinner the best chances of redemption: open sin, which is publically observed and punished or hidden sin, which one keeps in one’s soul and suffers alone without any chance of forg More...

Great book. Some false slandering of the Puritans.

Heartbreaking & moving. I first read this in 11th grade & it did nothing for me. I recently reread it & found myself in love. If you don't enjoy the novel when you're young, try it again in a few years. You'll be surprised how much better the book has gotten & how much you'll grow in the process of rereading it!

The Scarlet Letter is set in the Puritan era, where the church and state boundary has not yet been implemented, thrusting the rigid order of the holier-than-thou ministers and magistrates upon society, and one woman's sin the target of harsh public scrutiny. She must suffer the repercussions of such a sin and rely on her inner strength and endurance to promote individualism over the collective, ruthless mind of the public.

As a whole, I was really enthralled by the portrayal of civil society in t More...

Another required read that took me by surprise at how much I enjoyed it. This is a book that delves into the consequences of guilt on a person's psyche. It is very layered in that there are times where you are not sure that what happens is exactly what is perceived. No exactly surreal but written so that there is a little bit of question about supernatural things happening. Such as did Dimmesdale really have that scarlet A branded on his chest from the power of the overwhelming guilt he carried? More...

Of Fatality

To be perfectly honest, I would not have stuck with The Scarlet Letter if it is not reckoned generally to be an American classic. The action is reduced to sketches (typical chapter titles are "The Prison-Door," "The Interior of a Heart," and "Hester and the Physician"), the characters are predictable and unsympathetic, the psychology of hidden guilt is coarsened into symbolism. As for the style, the attendant on the my flight into London hit it on the head, Hawthorne takes fifty words More...

The Scarlet Letter: THE WORST book I've had to read so far. I can't believe Ive actually finished this.
No, Nathaniel, it was not necessary to describe every single leaf on every single tree. you did NOT need talk about every single breeze that blew through the stupid village of those dumbass Puritains. Hawthorne, I will never read any more of your writings. EVER. I hate Puritains.

seriously, I think I would rather read Twilight.

I was falling asleep while reading this. awful, awful.

I might be More...

The author's style of writing greatly varied from any that I have previously encountered. In such, that dialogue wasn't used much at all until the very end of the story. He more described what the characters had gone through, and once he finished, he would skip forward a few months and go through it again. I felt the story moved a bit slow toward the beginning, but once the action started, it hit full force and continued throughout. Everything in this book was constantly changing. The personalit More...

Hawthorne truly interests me. The Scarlet Letter contains two of the most tragic figures of American literature -- Arthur Dimmesdale, driven to lock himself in society's cage after a single terrible transgression; Hester Prynne, who seems to rise above the public scorn in her thoughts, yet who still remains trapped in Puritan Boston, buried next to her cowardly lover, unable to be the prophetess for a novus ordo seclorum.

It is perhaps ultimately a story of comformity, and the frustrating paradox More...

“Siamo a Boston, colonia puritana, non molti anni dopo la sua fondazione. Hester Prynne, arrivata nel Nuovo Mondo prima del marito, ha una figlia fuori del matrimonio e viene condannata per adulterio a portare una A scarlatta ricamata sul petto. Nonostante l’insistenza dei magistrati, la donna rifiuta di rivelare il nome del suo amante e compagno di peccato e comincia a condurre una vita ritirata, additata dall’intera comunità come esempio di scandalo e di perdizione. Alla sua vicenda si intrecc More...

*WARNING* Do not read this book if you are looking for a quick, easy, challenge-free, light, innocent story because this is NOT the book for you. Basically, this story is the exact opposite, it is a difficult, long, detailed, dark, slightly disturbing story of adultery, forbidden love, revenge, and innocence. Honestly, even though most of my friends who have read this book hated it to it's very core, I enjoyed it. Sure, I could only read it in certain moods when I was alone and it was quiet beca More...

Hester Prynne tells Dimmesdale that what we did had "a consecration of its own." Dimmesdale laments his adultery but withholds his confession. He decides to escape his tormentor and Hester's unfaithful husband, Chillingworth, by going to Europe with her and their child Pearl. But he immediately comes under an even more chilling Satanic torment that arises from within. He finally tells Hester that they violated "the sanctity of each others souls" and are suffering for it. The only way of escape i More...

Whenever I go back and reread books that I loved the first time I read it, I get nervous thinking about the chance that I won't like it the second time around. I read The Scarlet Letter for the first time when I was a sophomore in high school, and four years later, quite a lot has changed.

This novel was just as incredible as I remember it to be, though. I realize that this is one of the most despised novels of all time, but I think it has to do with the age at which people have to read it. I th More...