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The Scarlet Letter

By Nathaniel Hawthorne

(384)

| Paperback | 9780140623543

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Book Description

Set in the harsh Puritan community of seventeenth-century Boston, this tale of an adulterous entanglement that results in an illegitimate birth reveals Nathaniel Hawthorne's concerns with the tension between the public and the private selves. Publicly disgraced and ostracized, Hester Prynne draws onContinue

Critics

The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

n updated take on the classicsTitle color is not the only significant thing shared by Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage and Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, two wildly different American novels from different periods of the 19th centu ... (read full critics)

bookpage published on Sun, 12 Sep 2010

3 Reviews

"And I!-how am I to live longer, breathing the same air with this deadly enemy?" exclaimed Arthur Dimmesdale, shrinking within himself, and pressing his hand nervously against his heart-a gesture that had grown involuntary with him. "Think for me, Hester! Thou art strong. Resolve for me!"

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AryaStark said on May 15, 2011 | Add your feedback

Wearing the scarlett letter and bearing the weight of other people's stare and judgement.
Not wearing the scarlett letter openly and bearing the weight of one's conscience that what other people see is not the true you.
Which punishment is more burdensome?

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fran_ces said on May 21, 2009 | Add your feedback

The romance Scarlet Letter reveals the ugliest possibilities and the purest qualities of human nature and this juxtaposition creates an enormous tension which helps the work become immortal. Centered first on a sin committed by Hester and her adultery, the romance details how sin affects the lives o ... (continue)

The romance Scarlet Letter reveals the ugliest possibilities and the purest qualities of human nature and this juxtaposition creates an enormous tension which helps the work become immortal. Centered first on a sin committed by Hester and her adultery, the romance details how sin affects the lives of the people involved. Love, which numerous people extol, turns out to be the source of sin. The sin forces Hester to be isolated from society and makes Mr. Dimmesdale live under the shadow of self-reproach and remorse. Ironically, the sinful people can produce purity, which comes in the form the lively character, Pearl. She represents people’s conscience, especially when she asks Mr. Dimmensdale to stand with her mother and her on the scaffold. She continuously reminds Mr. Dimmensdale of his unraveled crime. On the other side, with the progress of the story, Mr. Chillingworth, who is the original victim, becomes a devil and a man with evil nature. Though he was not involving when the sin took place, he is the one most affected by the sin.
From Scarlet letter, one can see how sin can escalate to encompass a person’s self but can also draw people down to evil. This novel can be a strikingly historical story since the human nature it illustrates still maintains the same. A saint cannot always be a saint, and a sinner can have humanity.

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莫內藍 said on Oct 28, 2007 | Add your feedback