The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
📚 Author and Work Overview
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts. His identity was significantly influenced by his hometown. He was especially troubled by his great-grandfather’s involvement as a judge in the 1692 witch trials. Although he spent his early years in Maine and Boston, Salem was his hometown until 1850.
Hawthorne married Sophia Peabody in 1842. He spent a short time in Concord with his wife before moving back to Salem to become a Surveyor of the Port at Custom House. He was, however, retrenched in 1849 due to a political change. Following this incident and his mother’s death, a bitter Hawthorne referred to Salem as an "abominable city" and left for good.
Hawthorne spent his later years in Lenox and Liverpool as a US Consul under President Franklin Pierce. He died in his sleep on May 18, 1864, while on a trip to New Hampshire. Although he left Salem and referred to it as an "abominable city," Salem was a permanent feature in his identity and a crucial element in his legacy as a writer.
🧐 Summary of the Work
Set in the mid-17th century in a Puritan settlement in Boston, The Scarlet Letter is a classic work of American Romantic literature that portrays themes of legalism, sin, and guilt. The story begins with Hester Prynne emerging from prison wearing a scarlet letter "A" sewn onto her chest. Hester was convicted of committing adultery since she bore a daughter named Pearl while her husband was assumed to have perished at sea.
Under immense pressure from the town magistrates and its minister, Hester refuses to reveal the name of her lover. At this point, Hester's husband turns up in town. He changes his name to Roger Chillingworth and makes it his mission to find out who Pearl's father was. Hester lives on the outskirts of town alone while earning a meager living through her needlework. She turns out to be a charitable person and changes the perception of the scarlet letter "A" to mean "Able." Meanwhile, Dimmesdale, Hester's lover and father of Pearl, suffers from severe guilt. Dimmesdale's condition worsens as he subjects himself to self-mortification. Chillingworth, Dimmesdale's doctor, subjects him to psychological torture upon realizing that Dimmesdale was Hester's lover.
The psychological tension builds up to a climax when Hester and Dimmesdale meet at the forest and decide to escape to Europe and start a new life together. But Dimmesdale soon realizes that he cannot escape his guilt and the revenge of Chillingworth. After a powerful sermon on Election Day, Dimmesdale goes up on the scaffold where Hester once stood and reveals a scarlet letter on his own breast, which is presumably a psychosomatic manifestation of the guilt and the "A" he has carried all along and dies in Hester’s arms.
Chillingworth, without the revenge he had sought all along, dies soon after, and leaves a big inheritance to Pearl. Hester and Pearl leave the colony, but Hester returns years later alone and resumes wearing the scarlet letter by choice and becomes a wise woman and a counselor to the community. When she dies, she is buried near Dimmesdale and under the same tombstone as him, which has engraved on it a description of a black shield with a red-letter A.
✍️ Personal and Critical Analysis
The Scarlet Letter is a work that critically analyzes how stigmatized society was when a woman committed adultery, and how eager people were to cast judgment without trying to understand the context or realizing it wasn't their story to tell.
For the time in which it was written, this masterpiece shows us that society perhaps does not evolve as much as we think; even today, prejudiced comments continue to be thrown around. The protagonist's irreverence demonstrates that doing what is right—regardless of negative opinions—and maintaining one’s convictions was a massive achievement for a woman of that era. While things are not as difficult for women today as they were in the olden days, they are still subjected to social stigma.
🌍 Connection to the Present
Feature | The Scarlet Letter (1600s Setting) | Modern Day (21st Century) |
The Symbol | A physical red "A" sewn onto clothing. | "Cancel culture" and viral social media call-outs. |
The Enforcer | The Church and the town magistrates. | The "Court of Public Opinion" (the internet). |
The Consequence | Physical isolation and public shaming. | Digital footprints, loss of job, and cyberbullying. |
Duration | A lifetime sentence in a small community. | Permanent search engine results (the "internet never forgets"). |
🎬 Multimedia Resource
📖 Sources
✅ Reflection
Nowadays, this book aims the importance when everybody give their opinion without know the context. The society does not change through to the era. The most important highlight is don't change our mind and folows our beileves.
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