Let’s be honest, no one truly liked the Scarlet Letter. Sure, it has its moments; sure, its themes and subjects are plentiful and somewhat deep. Yet, after reading all those pages upon pages of sin, Hester, and Puritans, I can’t say that The Scarlet Letter was enjoyable. Heck, I can’t even say it was tolerable at times. Despite this, I still read all of it, front to back, and feel that now I can give a fair review of its worth. So let’s get to some book bashing, shall we?
First, let’s look at just what encompasses and, what I believe, defines The Scarlet Letter: its themes. The novel touches a lot upon the idea of sin as well as its interpretation in society. Hester, Dimmesdale, and Pearl are all vessels for Hawthorne’s ideas of what sin is, how it affects a person, and how it punishes the holder. The Scarlet Letter’s setting, a Puritan town, only amplifies the importance of sin, making it a very easy theme to pick up on. One could say that Hawthorne saturated his novel with sin, as almost every scenario, character, object of interest, or setting makes reference to biblical sin or punishment thereof. Another more subtle theme I detected in the novel was hypocrisy. As Hawthorne is a man living outside of Puritan culture, it’s easy to understand that the novel is not going to paint the zealous Puritans in a positive light. Rather, Hawthorne goes to great lengths to highlight the underlying hypocrisy of Puritan culture. His protagonists, sinners like Hester and Dimmesdale, only reaffirms this notion as he has made the lowest of the low in Puritan society seem much more holy than their “predestined” counterparts in town.
OK, before I start this next paragraph, let me preface it by stating I’m not trying to be “hipster” or “counter-culture” or whatever you’ll call it; this is what I truly believe. I think that The Scarlet Letter does not deserve to be an important piece of literature. Throughout the novel, I was not impressed at anything that Hawthorne presented. Hawthorn’s writing style is not that notable, aside from its old-English syntax and affinity for tons of description. Both of these traits do not add merit to the novel as the former was standard for the time period and the latter was a defining trait of Transcendentalist writings. Aside from his style, his use of subjects and themes leaves much to be desired. Hawthorne is about as subtle as a machine gun strapped to a T-Rex; he loosely dresses themes and subjects with transparent characters and symbolism. Oh gee, I wonder what Dimmesdale’s confession at the end of the novel represents? Oh, I know! It represents Dimmesdale confessing before God, signifying that every man will have to confess his sins eventually! How do I know? It was easy, Hawthorne practically tells me in the description of the event! I understand that Hawthorne wants to get his points across, but flat-out telling the reader about them is like lobbing a slowball to David Ortiz; it’s silly, lazy, and is going to be hit out of the park every single time.
I can’t hate on The Scarlet Letter too much, though. It did help me in a few areas that have been lacking for me recently as far as reading is concerned. It helped me jump back on the reading wagon which I had been off of for most of the school year. I had forgotten how fun it was to read and interpret a book, and now I’ve begun to read other books. And, as much as I hate to say it, The Scarlet Letter helped me look out for themes and subjects within books. Although it was somewhat easy, deciphering all the symbolism and ideas in the novel really appealed to me, and I look forward to applying the same methods I learned to different books I’ll read in the future. The blogging aspect of the reading also gave me a better understanding of how to communicate my point of view to others, albeit sarcastically.
I’m going to close by saying that while I disliked the book, I think this project was both fun and rewarding. It was a new way to learn, and was very focused on independent study. Thanks for reading my ramblings!
The Scarlet Reader 