The Scarlet Letter (Signet Classics) by Nathaniel Hawthorne (Epub)

Description

An ardent young woman, her cowardly lover, and her aging vengeful husband—these are the central characters in this stark drama of the conflict between passion and convention in the harsh world of seventeenth-century Boston. Tremendously moving and rich in psychological insight, this dramatic depiction of the struggle between mind and heart illuminates Hawthorne’s concern with our Puritan past and its influence on American life.

User’s Reviews

Review “[Nathaniel Hawthorne] recaptured, for his New England, the essence of Greek tragedy.” –Malcolm Cowley

Reviews from Amazon users, collected at the time the book is getting published on UniedVRG. It can be related to shiping or paper quality instead of the book content:

⭐ I read The Scarlet Letter in high school and I thought it was one of he driest reads I’ve ever had to muddle through. Although, now that I’m older with adult children, I decided to read it again. This time it was much better and I was able to sympathize with Hester and admire her attitude. She was a strong woman! Being the second time I’ve read this book, I knew the characters and their roles, and I was carefully paying attention to the key players. I was not pleased with one certain male and thought he was a sniveling idiot with no backbone.I’m glad I gave this book a second chance. Sometimes, the classics we are forced to read in school need life experience to appreciate what the message the author was trying to convey. For me, this was one of those classics.

⭐ Hester Prynne is my favorite literary heroine!I know that’s not how others may characterize her but all I saw was a woman of immense internal strength in the face of shame and suffering.I found myself admiring her and suffering alongside this brave and beautiful woman.I never had the chance to read this in high school and I’m so glad I waited. Any book assigned as a school project made me approach it as a prison meal… but this time I was able to approach it as a 5 star banquet spread.I took my time savoring the archaic language and the poetic phraseology. I lingered as Hester was forced to bear the shame of youth and religiosity. I tried to absorb the despair and find the strength that she was forced to find and soon I learned to love her as though I had known her and her agony personally.Nathanial Hawthorne has brilliantly critiqued the human condition and masterfully described the burden of shame, hypocrisy, vengeance and triumph.This book is one for the ages!A must buy if ever there was one.

⭐ Do yourself a favor, and do NOT buy the American Renaissance version of this book. Like others have said, this is poorly formatted with wide pages and small type. On top of that, it begins at chapter 1 and does not include The Custom House introduction like any version of The Scarlet Letter should. And then to top it off, the book started falling apart at the binding as soon as I opened it. Terrible copy. I will not purchase this brand again.

⭐ I heard so many times that this book is incredibly boring, but I decided to give it a chance and it actually isn’t that bad. It’s the story of Hester Prynne, who has an affair and gets pregnant and the way that the Puritan community she lives in reacts to that. She is forced to wear a scarlet “A” on her dress so nobody ever forgets that she’s a sinner.It’s always a bit strange reading books like these in the 21st century. On one hand, I understand that it was a different time and people had different values and I don’t think we should pretend history was any better than it actually was. On the other hand, it makes me so mad when I think of the horrible way women used to be treated and the fact that there are still some places in the world where a woman like Hester would be punished even worse than she was in this book.It’s a short book, though it drags in some places because Hawthorne loves unnecessary details. But he’s very good at making you understand exactly what the characters are feeling. The book is full of his observations about human nature and I’d say it’s worth reading because of that even if you have no interest in the plot.

⭐ I was introduced to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter with horror stories of readers who hated it. Upon reading the first few chapters, I understood exactly why this was the case. To better understand this, let us take a quote from the first chapter:“This rose-bush, by a strange chance, has been kept alive in history; but whether it had merely survived out of the stern old wilderness, so long after the fall of the gigantic pines and oaks that originally overshadowed it,—or whether, as there is fair authority for believing, it had sprung up under the footsteps of the sainted Ann Hutchinson, as she entered the prison-door,—we shall not take upon us to determine.”This single sentence is about as long as a brief paragraph, contains no less than eight commas, and basically says “This rose bush has somehow survived in history, but we shall not determine how.” When you consider that this is more or less how every sentence in The Scarlet Letter is written, you can begin to better understand why some readers hate this book.In my opinion, The Scarlet Letter wasn’t altogether a terrible book. Although the language is “crunchy,” as my language arts teacher likes to put it, and the book lacks action, the storytelling and character development are excellent. Hawthorne explores the inner conflict in his characters and, for the most part, realistically describes the characters as they would act when placed under such internal struggles. For example, Arthur Dimmesdale committed adultery with Hester Prynne and has to live with the guilt of his decision afterward. Yet he is a Puritan minister! As a result, this hypocrisy of being a perfect minister on the outside while having sin in his heart drives him mentally insane and contributes to his untimely death.The story of The Scarlet Letter primarily follows the life of Hester after she committed adultery with Dimmesdale. It incorporates the subplots of the growth of her daughter, Pearl, the rampant desire of Roger Chillingworth for revenge, and the quest by Dimmesdale to free himself of the guilt of his sin. Each of these is intricately woven to intersect at times with the lead story of Hester until they collide at the climax. Through these subplots, Hawthorne further develops the motives and personalities of the main characters. In my opinion, the story itself is strengthened by this. It adds dimension to the story since there are multiple plot lines. As a result, I believe the storyline itself is excellent, but the quality of the reading is diminished by the “crunchy” language and fluff.So I guess this review isn’t a horror story of how I hated The Scarlet Letter, but rather how it has its quirks. The novel is definitely a worthwhile read, considering the themes that Hawthorne explores, yet his excessive language makes it less appealing than it could be. In conclusion, although I enjoyed reading this book, the superfluous wording and lack of action result in The Scarlet Letter not being one of my favorites.

⭐ This edition/version reads as if it were translated into another language and then translated back into English by Google translate. This is an actual sentence from the first page; “The founders of a new colony, some thing Utopia of human virtue and happiness they may in the beginning challenge, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical requirements to allot a part of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion because the website of a jail.” And it doesn’t get better. Words are missing, parts of speech are turned around, and anachronistic language abounds. I am concerned that a high school student will attempt to read this version! There is no copyright page which should have been my first clue.

⭐ I got the mass market paperback and it can exactly as pictures. Near perfect condition, there was some kind of marking on the front. Really great price for what it’s worth. Came quickly. Words are kinda small.

⭐ A masterpiece of 19th century American literature, and a glimpse into the lives of the early Puritans (Boston, 1660s).The prologue, leading to the tale of the discovery of the story (the Scarlet Letter is presented as a story-within-a-story) is long and leaves the reader impatient. Since it pertains to a different location and time from the main story, it is not quite clear how it enhances the tale.The depictions of human feelings are exquisitely detailed, which is fairly remarkable because they are almost invariably gloomy feelings of guilt and shame. The pace, very slow at first, picks up towards the dramatic denouement, followed by a rather unsatisfactory conclusion. One wishes that the author would have thumbed his nose at the Puritans and allowed Hester Prynne a happy life ever after, but Hawthorne does not violate the moral conventions of the age and the conclusion would therefore have satisfied the most moralistic readers. No happy ending here, except for the one innocent character, so everyone who sinned paid the price, amen.Seen in the light of the moral tradition in which the novel is set, and the barely less strict society in which it was written, the quality of the writing serves the purpose of moral edification beautifully. The long sentence, with their complex embedded clauses and dated vocabulary, is sometimes hard to follow, but always limpid once parsed. In that sense it is reminiscent of another moral tale of the age, Melville’s Moby Dick, minus the see and with a different capital sin involved.Overall, this is one of the canons of literature that should be part of the weel-educated reader’s collection.

⭐ Book arrived in a timely fashion. Excellent read but not for everyone. I’d been told this book was hard to understand or rather boring to most audiences. I decided to give it a read and enjoyed it. It took a few pages to get used to the older vocabulary. The story was both sad and encouraging. Hester spends her life branded with the scarlet letter, constantly facing adversity all while trying to raise her child. All while her child’s father lives anonymously amongst the town and is tortured by his silence, but praised by others, not knowing he carries her sin too, but not outwardly as she does.

⭐ Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is despised by many who were forced to read the book in their younger years, and therefore only remember its blatant symbolism and sometimes dreary and dated narration. However, even the seemingly obvious symbolism has tremendous depth and wisdom to a reader who is wise enough to stop and think. Nearly all of the symbols are equivalent: the salient scarlet letter on Hester’s dark bosom, the mother’s wild child in the dark and gloomy moral wilderness, the rosebush by the prison door, the scarlet letter A standing out from Hester’s vast black heart, and finally, God’s grace in the form of the gift of Pearl to the woman who had sinned. In this way, even the scarlet letter has many different meanings: it is not merely a mark of Hester’s sin of Adultery, but also a symbol of her Ability to serve as an Angel and an Apostle to others in the community. In a beautiful and poetic sense, the scarlet letter sets Hester free and gives her strength, much like ‘the effect of a cross on a nun’s bosom’. Hester, who wears the letter until her death of her own free will, is contrasted with Dimmesdale, who does not confess his part in the sin and consequently dies with a scarlet letter imprinted into his bosom after narrowly escaping the devil in the form of Roger Chillingworth.In addition to The Scarlet Letter’s stellar and thought provoking thematic and symbolic content, the book also provides many impactful words of wisdom. This review would be much too long if all of them were included, so I will only share one of my favorites. “…that the outward guise of purity was but a lie, and that, if truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom besides Hester Prynne’s? (Hawthorne 79)”. This passage demonstrates the theme of inherent evil and unavoidable sin in human nature, and states that purity is a lie. We are all sinners, and although we persecute others for wrongs that are considered exceptionally dreadful, if truth prevailed, a scarlet letter of some sort would blaze forth on every bosom.

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