For my first difficulty paper in the Scarlet Letter, I found a few parts difficult to understand. The first was when the author Nathaniel Hawthorn praised the women Hester Prynne of being very pretty and beautiful, but then started to criticize her on her conviction of adultery. Hawthorn stated, “The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face, which besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a market brow and deep black eyes. She was lady-like too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days; characterized by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace, which is now recognized as its indication” (40). After Hester Prynne got up in front of the crowd for the first time in her gown with the big letter A embodied on her chest I am a bit surprised that Hawthorn said all of these things about her. After rereading and highlighting the passage on this page I realized that even though she made a mistake, maybe it does not mean that she should necessarily be thought of as less as a person. I also realized that that was the first time he mentioned Hester, so he needed to introduce her. I suppose it would not be right if he just trash talked her and said she was ugly or a bad person when she might not necessarily be so.
Another aspect of the Scarlett Letter I found difficult to understand was in the Recognition chapter. In this chapter Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale said a prayer for Hester that I found quite confusing. He prayed, “Thou hearest what this good man says, and seest the accountability under which I labor. If thou feelest it to be for thy soul’s peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow sinner and fellow sufferer! Be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him; for, believe me Hester, though he were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee, on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life. What can thy silence do for him, except it tempt him- yea, compel him, as it were- to add hypocrisy to sin? Heaven hath granted thee an open ignominy, that thereby thou mayest work out an open triumph over the evil within thee, and the sorrow without. Take heed how thou deniest to him- who perchance, hath not the courage to grasp it for itself- the bitter wholesome, cup that is now presented to thy lips!” (49). It seems like the Reverend is saying a lot here in this prayer and is mainly confusing because of the tone and the style of language used. He uses words such as thee, thou, thy, thine, and shall, which is difficult for me to understand because it is not used in the everyday English language. The only time that I have seen this style of writing was when I read works by Shakespeare in high school. After reading this prayer over and over again the best conclusion that I could come up with was that the prayer says that whatever happens to Hester will happen for the right reasons. If she deserves to be punished for her crime she will and if God decides she should be forgiven then she will.
Duyckinck, Evert A. “From Literary World” Nineteenth- Century Reviews of the Scarlett Letter.
This criticism introduces Hawthorn’s Scarlett Letter as romantic novel and discusses some of his other works being from a puritan perspective and dark, evil stories like the Ministers Black Veil. His style of the Scarlett Letter is simple and flowing. It focuses on the women Hester who wears a gown with a capital letter A stitched on it standing for adultery, which she committed.
I don't think he's trash talking her. I think Nathaniel is writing about what went on during his time, and in doing so, is scrutinizing the society he lived in by showcasing how they'd blacklist a woman who'd cheated on her husband, and yet leave the man roam the same streets unpunished. I think he writes about her in a good way, in writing about what she went through he makes her a martyr; in doing so Nathaniel is showing his towns people in a negative light to the rest of the world(during his time as well as ours). He describes the extent that people would punish a women who committed adultery, and by the end of the novel I believe those that prosecuted her will be guilty of much worse. We are all guilty of infidelity at some point.
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