books:

	The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne Pocket, 2004 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 7 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

BY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIP

Hawthorne's classic treatise on morality, judgment, and exile in Puritan America.

EACH ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES:

? A concise introduction that gives readers important background information

? A chronology of the author's life and work

? A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context

? An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations

? Detailed explanatory notes

? Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work

? Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction

? A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience

Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full potential.

SERIES EDITED BY CYNTHIA BRANTLEY JOHNSON

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This is when I fell in love with Nathaniel.......


Just look at a portrait of him as a young man, note the noble brow, the handsome features, the sensitivity, how romantic......... Curl up with this book and let Nathaniel tell you his tale in his beautiful poetic language . This is a book to be read quietly, alone, not in an airport lounge or on the subway, but preferably in a beautiful garden or sunroom with the windows open. Let the beauty of his language flow over you and transport you back in time.

It is over 200 years since Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem Massachusetts, his great great grandfather officiated at the Salem Witch Trials. He was both disturbed and intrigued by his ancestry. One day when working at The Custom House in Salem to make ends meet as a struggling young author, he discovered in one of the upstairs rooms some dusty old boxes, on opening them he found them to contain relics from the past, long since forgotten. Yellowing documents and an intriguing piece of embroidery, a scrap of faded and torn material with the letter A embroidered on it. He picked it up, and while wondering what it was, he held it up to his chest, and at that moment he claims to have felt a burning sensation which caused him to drop the piece of cloth. It gave him inspiration for this story along with documents he found about a woman called Hester Prynne.

The scene he sets so vividly is somewhere around 350 years ago 150 years before he was born. In a time when behavior to which we can hardly be bothered to raise an eyebrow was in that day considered a punishable sin. A disgrace for life. Branded by having to wear a scarlet letter on the chest for all to see.

It is a feminist novel, (Nathaniel Hawthorne supported women's rights). Briefly, the protagonist Hester Prynne has a child from an adulterous relationship and refuses to name the father. Her husband a physician much older than she has never been a "proper" husband to her so she had looked elsewhere for love. The husband vows to find the father of the child, and in exchange for her freedom makes Hester swear she will never disclose who her husband is. Her husband being a physician quickly deduces who the father is from the way he is wasting away under his burden of guilt. He sets about a long period of torment of the young man of which Hester is aware but can say nothing because of her promise. Finally she has had enough and decides to come clean, shaming the devil, (her husband) and redeeming the young man. I do not want to spoil anything by divulging the name of the father of the child in case you do not know.

This is such a simple and brief account it would make Nathaniel wince to read it. There is so much more to the story. It states in the blurb that it is a psychological novel before there was a science called psychology. The way the characters in the story interact with each other, the symbolism, the different values of the day from Nathaniel's day, and then again to this day. The religious aspect in Puritan times, the emotional ups and downs as you empathize with first one and then another of the characters. It is a wonderful story and well deserving of its position as one of America's great classics.

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A true classic for me

I was always skeptical when teachers used the term "classic" when referring to a book. It always seemed to me to be a term to describe books I had to read that were going to suck. The Scarlet Letter was a happy exception; one that actually has meaning today as it did when written.

I really enjoy historical fiction. Hawthorne easily puts a reader into the time period by laying out the facts of puritan life and laws, the dress of the time, as well as with the old-fashioned dialog. Hestor's husband is "away" at sea and she has become pregnant. Normally, adultery would carry a very severe punishment, but the town can't prove her husband is alive. So, she is forced to wear a scarlet "A" (for adultery) on her chest whenever she's in public. This stigma will pass on to her daughter, despite her innocence in the matter. Hestor's stoic perseverence in the face of this humiliation is even more poignant when you learn who the father of her baby really is. This tale of a town forcing its morality on a person is still valid today. Women aren't forced to wear a scarlet A (at least in the US), but we still label people who are different or don't conform to our values.

Unfortunately, at the time this was written, authors were paid by the number of pages in their books. Readers can easily guess this caused uncessary bloating in stories and this book suffers the same. There is a lot of description and fluff that I found myself skimming over, but the heart of the story is still excellent. This tale is powerful and meaningful. Highly recommended!

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wonderful book filled with insightful knowledge

In this powerful and moving piece by Hawthorne, he reveals the presence of societal pressures which affect character judgment. Set in the late 1840s and published around that time, Hawthorne's story takes place in Salem and Concord, Massachusetts. He writes in an omniscient point of view, revealing the thoughts and prejudices of each character while interjecting his opinion along with the side.

After the rather boring and tedious introduction which made me almost not want to read the book, the story opens with Hester Prynne holding an infant begat by immoral means emerging from the prison door and onto a scaffold for all to bear witness to the letter "A" for adulteress on her chest. Throughout the story, the focus will be on this symbol, and how it evolves over time with different perspectives.

I won't get into much detail as that may ruin the book for your readers, so I'll move on to Hawthorne's awesome and abundant use of imagery used as symbols for the hypocrisy of the times and so forth. With his use of imagery, he criticizes the mankind for their ignorance In addition he adds transcendentalist views into the story the show the ability of nature being able to outlast and survive over some of the whimsical presumptions of man, such as what the symbol represents.

Much of the book rely on symbols and what the characters represent. Reading and deciphering their meaning is not hard, but is not entirely obvious. What makes Hawthorne so clever is the way he shows the attributes of each character that define their symbol.

Initially, I almost gave up on the book due to the rather long and tedious introduction about the narrator of the story, but I stuck through since it was part of a reading assignment for my reading class. When I finished, I can honestly say that I thoroughly enjoyed it, as I provides an insightful view of mankind's ways and our faults. Hawthorne created a timeless masterpiece and I suggest you guys to read it.

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The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne - EBOOK

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a great American novel!


A Passionately Written Book, But It Does Happen to Bore Me

The Scarlet Letter shows Nathaniel Hawthorne at his finest. The imagery is quite wonderful, but there's only so many times you can say the same thing. The images in this novel stretch out far longer than needed.

I nearly couldn't make it through. I do like to see every detail given it's fullest attention but even this is too much.

This book is one that is very vivid and quite pleasing to understand, but hard to read and not as easy to follow. Sometimes there's only one resourceful fact in a half a page paragraph.

Recommended.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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