The Scarlet Letter: the rest of the book

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I have to say, out of the entire book my favorite chapters had to be 17 and 18.  These chapters are basically the embodiment of every classic love story.  The people of the town do not want them to be together, but they are going to defy all odds and show their love for each other.  In short Dimmesdale and Hester have decided to run away together!  As you can tell from the below quote…

“”Alone, Hester!”

“Thou shalt not go alone!” answered she, in a deep whisper.

Then, all was spoken!’ (Page195)

At this point all I could think about was man, this sounds an awful lot like Romeo and Juliet… hmmm, I don’t think that this is going to work out very well for anyone in the story.  Seeing that Chillingworth hates Dimmesdale’s guts I seriously doubted that Dimmesdale could pack all of his things and go anywhere without his roommate stopping him. 

After this in chapter 19, Hester tries to introduce Pearl to her father and tell her that he will love her like she loves her, but before she can get Pearl to come and meet him she refuses to come to her.  Before Hester even realized it I thought “man this little girl is so mean, she won’t go to her mom unless she is wearing the scarlet letter.”  This can also be connected back to the first few chapters when baby Pearl would recognize her mother’s scarlet letter before her face.  Which I thought was interesting.  Pearl’s littler temper tantrum doesn’t end there, when Dimmesdale is trying to be nice to her and gives her a kiss on the forehead she runs to the water and washes it off!  Not only this Hester just goes back to talking to Dimmesdale, please Hester discipline your child!  That is super rude, and if I did something like that I wouldn’t be leaving my room for a week.  Maybe that is why your child is crazy!

Going back to my thoughts from chapters 17 and 18, in chapter 22 Hester finds out that Chillingworth will be on the trip with them. Yay! ??? At this point I know there are only 2 chapters left and I’m just thinking that they will get on this boat and Chillingworth is going to kill all three of them and throw their bodies overboard and no one will ever know.  Thankfully this does not happen!  But some even crazier events take place and it’s literally mind-blowing!

At this point all the feces hits the rotating oscillator.  Dimmesdale gives his speech and everyone loves it, yay wonderful yippe!  But where is the action, oh wait a minute.  Dimmesdale gets Pearl and Hester to join him up on the scaffold, and I am basically cheering as loud as I can (in my head so my family doesn’t judge me as we drive home from our Thanksgiving party) I love this little family moment even if they are going to be judged by every person in the crowd.  And I’m thinking that this is going to be awesome and they will leave on the boat and be in love forever.  And now Chillingworth won’t get to “out” them and he won’t get that satisfaction, because he is evil and makes me mad.  Dimmesdale says God brought him there, you see an A branded into him and then they live happily ever after!!!!

(Ouchie boo boo)

 

Wait a minute, is there something wrong with that… Oh that’s right, Dimmesdale basically just drops dead.  You have got to love The Scarlet Letter!..... Or not. (but it was good, I just don't like that he died)

*tear*

Why can't they be a happy family!?!?!?!?!?

*another tear*

so sad... I strongly dislike Nathaniel Hawthorne.

This might be worse than when Dobby died...

 

 

Chapters 9-12

Possible Spoiler alert....

If my guess is correct.

Every time I see Dimmesdale's name all I can think of is this guy from Fairly Odd Parents.

     But on a more serious note, After reading this far in the book I think that it is "fairly" obvious who the father of Hester's child is.  He is basically the only person who has not appeared to do something right out to hurt them.  If you could not already tell, I think the baby-daddy is Mr. Dimmesdale.  Ever since he defended Hester and helped her keep Pearl in her care I have wondered about this guy. But not I am willing say it out loud.  Not only did he help Hester keep Pearl, but at the beginning of the book on page 49, a woman said that the reverend “takes it very grievously to heart that such a scandal should have come upon his congregation.” (49).  Then again on page 65 Dimmesdale is telling Hester to say who the father of Pearl was if it would put her soul at peace.  And he also tells her not to take pity on him just because she has feelings for the man (also known as himself). 

     Along with this When Dimmesdale gets sick he says that he does not want any medication.  (From whom of all people, Chillingsworth).  Dimmesdale believes that if he is sick it is by God’s will that he would die.  Although Chillingsworth says he is being too harsh on himself, Dimmesdale does not feel the same way.  Which I think is a clear indication that he feels like he is a sinner and a bad person in the eyes of God.  Dimmesdale even says that if he were a better person he would feel more inclined to take medicine and stay on the Earth to help people. 

            

     What then seems to be even more ironic is that Chillingsworth who said he would like to kill the man who  is Pearl’s father, is the one who is trying to take care of Dimmesdale!  The two of them even shared a house so that Chillingsworth could be close to Dimmesdale for treatment.  But it did say that the people in the town had been seeing a change in Chillingsworth since his first arrival… So could he be catching on to Dimmesdale (if he even is the father)?

      If Dimmesdale is the Pearl’s father then Nathaniel Hawthorne must have a since of humor.  But if he does not have a sense of humor Hawthorne could be trying to convey a message that is really deep.  Hawthorne could be trying to say that although people do things that are not socially acceptable, or that they regret, that were bad along with many other thing, it does not make them bad people.   On mistake or slip up does not necessarily define a person and their life.  When Hawthorne shows that Dimmesdale is not afraid of or opposed to death he also shows that people are can feel their own burden and shame without public scrutiny, and that it is not always our place to say what others are doing wrong with their lives.

A lot of people in probably all of our lives, including myself, can probably relate to that piece of advice and attempt to live by it more in the future.

                                                                                                                                            

Scarlet Letter!!!

Hey Everyone!!!

I know we all love this book right now!!! Yah!  But I also know that reading a book by yourself can be kinda dull.  I'm not sure if it will help any off you but i went on iTunes and got the audio-book for The Scarlet Letter. (Multimodal text anyone?)  The one I bought was only $3.95 and I thought that was really reasonable since most of the time they are about $20.  I think this guy is very interesting and I like reading along in the book at the same time.  It’s really awesome and I hope this helps someone!!!

This is the picture it has.

The Scarlet Letter: Chapter 4 to 8

       All I could think about through these last few chapters is my second favorite animal. (Behind the elephant of course)  And if you could not already tell from the attached video, this animal is the honey badger.  I felt that Hester Prynne, although she moved away from the main town did not seem to care what the people of the town thought, which automatically reminded me of this video!  Hester continued to be a part of the town and their community, leading me to believe that she was not concerned with what the people of the town were saying about her.  In this way Hester reminds me of myself.  No matter what people say about me I can be a strong confident woman and believe in myself.  That is why (as many of you Harry Potter fans may understand) my older sister says that my Patronus is a honey badger.

      My initial reaction to the chapter Pearl was very mixed.  There are a thousand things going through my head and I am not sure my fingers can move fast enough. 

      To begin with Hester named her daughter Pearl… This is all well and good with me until I get the reasoning.  I understand that Hester treasures her daughter over everything else in the world, but naming your child Pearl because that is also something to be treasured makes no sense to me.  I think that Hester should have picked a more normal name, something simple like Sarah or Lucy or Jane.  It might just be because my mother picked simple names for her kids, but I just think this was odd.

Along with this, all I was thinking about Hester’s child Pearl through this chapter was is this chick bipolar?  I know she is a child but I felt like one minute she was calmly walking beside her mother through the town and the next she was throwing rocks and a group of kids. Also he mother was right there, so why would not she stop her kid from attacking the neighbors?  What kind of mother does that?  And what kind of mother says to their toddler, “’Thou art not my child!’” (Page 95).  All I could think about during this part was how crazy Hester and her daughter were becoming from their isolation. 

Hester should really help her daughter find some friends; although Hester is an outcast from society she should not bestow this upon her daughter.  If all Hester can think about, as exemplified in the chapters, is how Pearl should have some kind of fault that God will give her to help punish her mother for her previous crimes, Hester should not be raising her.  Children need all the love and care they can get, and if a kid’s mother is always looking for her personal downfall in her child, and keeping them at an arm’s length, that child should have a different parent.

       Overall I felt like the relationship between Hester and her daughter Pearl is very dysfunctional.  While Hester loves her daughter she believes that there must be something wrong with her, and this worries me.  A mother should never think that way about their child.  Rather I believe that Hester should think of Pearl as her redemption instead of her punishment.

I love this picture!!!

The Scarlet Letter Chapter 2

                                                          The Scarlet Letter Chapter 2

It is surprising how a novel written such a long time ago can be relevant to our everyday lives.  In the novel The Scarlet Letter we meet the person wearing the scarlet letter in the second chapter.  We are told that she is about to leave the prison and take a walk through the town to stand on a platform where the people of the town will be able to look upon her and basically judge her and make her feel bad about herself.  Before she goes to this platform she is met by a crown outside of the prison.  In this crowd there are many women, and like the women in the twenty first century, these women love to gossip. 

The women in this group cannot help but talk about Hester Prynne, the woman who is shamed with the scarlet letter.  These women in the group are saying that if they had the power in the town and were able to make decisions about things such as Hester Prynne’s fate, Hester would have a much more severe punishment than the one she had.  If this were not enough, another woman in the group says that she believes that rather than having to wear a scarlet letter on her clothes, which she could easily cover-up, Hester should be branded.  This woman says that they should have taken a hot iron to Hester Prynne’s forehead.  This woman thinks that she should never be allowed to walk on the streets with her head held high again. 

The first two women who are seen speaking are extremely cruel and show no sympathy for Hester.  On a different note the third woman who speaks says “let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart.” (Page 49).  Until this point all of the other women wish to punish Hester more, but this woman says that she will always have her shame no matter if it is shown outwardly or not.  By committing the sin the town has punished her for she will be punished by her personal shame and by God.  This can be taken two ways, either as a kinder approach to Hester’s perceived sin or as the worst accusation and idealized punishment by any of the women so far. 

Even after this the next woman seems even crueler.  She says that by committing her sin, Hester has not only shamed herself, but she had shammed all the women of the community.  This woman does not care where of even if Hester shows her sin to the public.  She believes that Hester does not deserve to live.  This woman believes that there must be a law somewhere in the Bible or in the settlement’s law that says Hester must be killed for the sins she has committed.

These women are not much different for the women and girls in the twenty first century.  The girls today gossip about nearly everyone they meet.  They talk about people who are often right there, and could probably hear ever word they are saying.  The women in chapter two literally call themselves “gossips” (page 50) shedding some light on the term we use today.  With all the criticism that Hester Prynne is enduring from her peers it is very surprising how dignified and upstanding she is depicted as while she is walking through the town.  This shows me that Hester is a strong woman, despite any criticism she gets, and this makes me really admire her.

So far I really like this book! Let me know what you all think!