The Scarlet Letter
Finally finished this book written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It was not as good asI expected to be honest. The characters in it like Hester, Dimmersdale, Chillingworth, and even the little child Pearl were too implicative written in my opinion. Besides, the story was happened in New England during the puritan period, all of which was honestly not my taste. The stigma and ignominy that Hester had toendure, let alone the scarlet letter “A” she had to wear all the time whenever she went to, was ridiculous. It seemed to me in this specific period thePuritan doctrine pointed everything humane and natural to ridicule.
Among the four main characters, I have respect for Hester most. She, rather thantelling on Dimmersdale, endured all the punishments placed by local churches; and she dared to think what Dimmersdale, as a man, couldn’t even relate to, and
shouldered the obligation, dutiful or undutiful, when her man was too coward to
be entrusted with. Even when she confessed her mistakes, by concealing the secret about Chillingworth, she had to take the lead to calm the man down and direct
him to ideas and possible alternatives.
In this book, I didn’t see anything great about Dimmersdale or Chillingworth, though the former was much less vicious than the latter. Dimmersdale, faithful and respectable preacher in public, committed adultery and was tortured by his conscience ever afterwards. Here you run across a heart without been distorted. He
could have hid the secret into his tomb but he didn’t. His conscience didn’
t allow him to do so, for which I am sympathetic toward him. Though he did sermons and redeemed guilty people, he was a human being after all.
Then about Chillingworth, I didn’t like him the first second he appeared in thenovel. He was too revengeful to deserve any compassion. In the whole book he was only an embodiment of devil in my opinion. His overdone revenge made his oncemisfortune more like something he should have deserved. I guess if you are merciless toward others, you can’t expect any mercy in return.
Anyway the novel was enjoyable in its own way. Some parts of it, unrelated to the plot itself, were resonated with my feelings at some past moments. For instance, there was one part when Dimmersdale and Hester met and sat down together by the dell after seven years, the writer wrote: When they found voice to speak, it
was, at first, only to utter remarks and inquiries such as any two acquaintancesmight have made, about the gloomy sky, the threatening storm, and next, the health of each…So long estranged by fate and circumstances, they needed something slight and casual to run before, and throw open the doors of intercourse, so thattheir real thoughts might be led across the threshold…Those lines reminded me
of a time, which I wish I wouldn’t need to experience again, and which I guess only people who experienced could understand.
