Free Essay - Review of Nathaniel Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter :: Scarlet Letter essays

Review of the Scarlet earn The novel opens with an explanation of how the romance of The Scarlet Letter came to be presented as a account statement in its existing form. Having always wanted to be a literary man, Nathaniel Hawthorne talks about his three-year least sandpiper as a Surveyor in the Salem Custom House. Mostly filled with older gentlemen, the workplace was a very political, Whig-influenced environment and charged with Puritan history. after(prenominal) brief character sketches of the personalities in the Custom House, Hawthorne then explains how he came upon a special package among the piles of papers. It contained a red cloth with the letter A embroidered in gold thread and a manuscript by Jonathan Pue (the man who once held Hawthornes job). Finding the story extremely interesting, the author thus retells the story of Hester Prynne from Massachusettss Puritan history.The first chapter begins with Hester being led to the scaffold where she is to be publicly shamed for having committed adultery. Hester is forced to wear the letter A on her gown at all judgment of convictions as punishment for her crime. She has stitched a large scarlet A onto her dress with gold thread, large-minded the letter an air of elegance. Hester carries Pearl, her daughter, with her. On the scaffold she is asked to better the name of Pearls father, but she refuses. In the crowd, Hester recognizes her husband from Amsterdam, Roger Chillingworth.Chillingworth visits Hester after she is returned to the prison. He tells her that he pull up stakes find out who the man was, and that he will read the truth on the mans heart. He then forces her to promise never to reveal his own identity to anyone else.Hester moves into a cottage bordering the woods. She and Pearl live there in relative solitude. Hester earns her money by doing stitchwork for local dignitaries, but often spends her time helping the poor and sick. Pearl grows up to be wild, in the sense that she refuses to obe y her mother.Roger Chillingworth earns a reputation as being a good physician. He uses his reputation to get transferred into the same home as Arthur Dimmesdale, an ailing minister. Chillingworth eventually discovers that Dimmesdale is the true father of Pearl, at which point he spends every moment arduous to torment the minister.One night Dimmesdale is so overcome with shame about hiding his secret that he walks to the scaffold where Hester was publicly humiliated.