Product Description

A stark and allegorical tale of adultery, guilt, and social repression in Puritan New England, The Scarlet Letter is a foundational work of American literature. Nathaniel Hawthorne's exploration of the dichotomy between the public and private self, internal passion and external convention, gives us the unforgettable Hester Prynne, who discovers strength in the face of ostracism and emerges as a heroine ahead of her time. As Kathryn Harrison points out in her Introduction, Hester is "the herald of the modern American heroine, a mother of such strength and stature that she towers over her progeny much as she does the citizens of Salem."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37737 in Books
• Published on: 2000-09-19
• Released on: 2000-09-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From School Library Journal

Gr 8 Up-Actress Elizabeth McGovern reads this acceptable abridgement with precise, clear diction. Her expressive voice is pleasant, effectively using breath sounds and pauses to recreate dramatic moods. Her usually quick tempo keeps the text from being ponderous, but it can be slower when necessary. Given the time period of the original work, her formal tone is appropriate. Her speech changes slightly for the different characters, but there is not much dialogue. The abridgement retains the continuity of the story. Consider purchasing this version for special education students who can't handle the longer, original text.-Claudia Moore, W.T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review
"[Nathaniel Hawthorne] recaptured, for his New England, the essence of Greek tragedy." --Malcolm Cowley -- Review

Review
"[Nathaniel Hawthorne] recaptured, for his New England, the essence of Greek tragedy." --Malcolm Cowley

Customer Reviews

The first masterpiece of American literature
"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," might well be Nathaniel Hawthorne's theme in The Scarlet Letter. Certainly, by all community standards Hester Prynne's adultery is a sin. Worse yet Arthur Dimmesdale has triply sinned since he has had carnal knowledge of a member of his flock, and through a deep and abiding cowardice has failed to acknowledge his sin; and what is even worse yet, he allows Hester to bear the weight of public condemnation alone.

However the worse sin of all belongs to Roger Chillingworth, Hester's husband who is not dead at all, but returned in disguise as a physician who has learned the efficacy of various medicinal concoctions from the Indians during his captivity. He pretends to befriend Dimmesdale in order to extract his long and torturous revenge. But it is Chillingworth's character itself more than anything that marks him as the worse of the sinners. He lives only for revenge and to give pain and suffering. He cares nothing for his wife and her child. He cares nothing for anyone, not even himself. He lives only to avenge.

Dimmesdale's sin is that of a weak character. In a sense Dimmesdale is Everyman, the non-heroic. We see the contrast between the proud bravery of Hester and the all too human weakness of Dimmesdale who cannot bring himself to confess his sin, but looks to her strength to do it for him. We see this in the first scaffold scene as he pleads along with Chillingworth for Hester to reveal the father's identity. "Reveal it yourself!" we want to say.

While some have seen Chillingworth as the devil incarnate--and indeed I suspect that was Hawthorne's intent--it might be closer to the truth to see him as the vengeful God of the Old Testament with his lust to mysterious power and his desire to see the sinful suffer. At any rate, Hawthorne's masterpiece--and it is a masterpiece, one of the pillars of American literature, to be ranked with such great works as Melville's Moby-Dick and Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn--is about sin and the effect of sin; and this is only right since the central tenet of Christianity itself is sin and the forgiveness of sin.

By employing and investigating deeply three types of sin--Hester's from love and even something close to innocence; Dimmesdale's from lust, pride, neglect and cowardice; and Chillingworth's from hate--Hawthorne came up with a most felicitous device for examining the human soul.

The Scarlet Letter is regularly taught at the high school level, but surely this is a mistake. The novel is difficult and challenging even for honors students. The architectured sentences, with their points and counterpoints, their parallel construction, their old school rhetorical cadences are strange and even wondrous to the modern eye. It is a good practice for the teacher and for the student to read aloud Hawthorne's prose so as to grow accustomed to his words the way one must for Shakespeare. If this is done and the edifice of Christianity and especially the fatalism of the Puritan mind brought to bear, then with leisurely pace and a steady concentration, the terrible beauty of Hawthorne's novel might be made immediate.

Although the story itself is compelling, and the prose rich and poetic, the real strength of this great novel is in its characters. How true to life are all of them including even little Pearl who is defiant and willful in her beauty and her promise, so like a heroine-to-be of a modern novel. And how despicable and loathsome is this bent old man who embodies the very soul of the despised! And how attractive on a superficial level is this pretty young pastor whose actions are not the equal of his looks. And how strong and faithful and heroic is Hester who invites both envy and admiration, something like a flawed goddess of yore.

What stuck me when I first read this, and remains with me today, is that it is those who presume to punish sin who are the real sinners. Chillingworth's life is one devoid of human feeling, devoid of any real joy as he lies in the stone cold bed of hatred and revenge. And to a lesser extent so it is with Dimmesdale who cannot forgive himself, who secretly flagellates himself so that his life becomes a hell on earth. On the other hand there is Hester who finds forgiveness and love with good works and in the joy of her beautiful and precious Pearl and in her unstinting love for Dimmesdale and her hope and faith that a better life will come.

This is a deeply Christian novel although it is usually seen as a criticism of Christianity in the sense that the Christian community condemns the least of the sinners while the hypocrisy of its clergy is made manifest. Looking deeper we see that it is forgiveness of sin and the redemption that comes from good works that is exemplified. Hester knows the joy of life because she is a loving and giving person; and on another level she is forgiven because we the reader forgive her. How could we not? And most of the Puritan flock also forgave her since it came to be said that the scarlet "A" she wore upon her person stood not for "Adultery" but for "Able."

It is also good to realize that when Hawthorne published the novel in 1850 the scene of the story was nearly two hundred years removed. Thus Hawthorne looked back at Puritan America from the standpoint of a more secular society greatly influenced by Jeffersonian deism and the transcendentalism of Emerson and Thoreau. In some respects, Hawthorne's brilliant treatment of the ageless theme of sin, guilt and redemption was a serendipitous, even unconscious, artifact of his literary skill. No artist composes a masterpiece without some deep talent at work independent of his conscious efforts.

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.

most importan novel found in American Literature
Hawthorne's novel of sin and the quest for utopia is sublime. The language is rich, and the novel is filled with religious symbolism. No work of American literature quite captures America's search for 'the Holy Land' while showing the affect that such a myopic quest can have on the individual. Hawthorne, while roundly criticizing the more zealous of his faith, never leaves us wondering whether or not forgiveness is possible for the penitent. Through the strength of the lead character, Hester Prynne, the author conveys to us the power of love that exudes those of us who have recognized our own faults and worked to heal the wounds our ill deeds have caused. This book is a must read for anyone who is interested in American literature.