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The Scarlet Letter (Oxford World's Classics)
Product Group: Book
Publisher: OUP Oxford (2007-09-13)
ISBN: 0199292469
EAN: 9780199292462
Dewy Decimal #: 813.3
Paperback: 272 pages
Edition: New
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Customer Reviews
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I just couldn't warm to it
Rating  (3)
Date: 2007-11-22
This book is very 'American'! By that I mean that it is one of the great classics of American literature, and has all the hallmarks therein, albeit with a twist. The key to understanding the foundations of American literature is man's great battle with nature and the wilderness, in which he forges a place for himself, a foothold for civilisation and becomes even more of a man than before. It is a theme that crops up everywhere from Moby Dick to Last of the Mohicans and beyond. Unfortunately it doesn't really do it for me.
This book tells the same kind of story but from the point of view of a woman wronged by the civilisation that is being created around her. It is interesting that Hawthorne uses this to subvert and question what civilisation is, and indeed if it can be called civilisation if it does this to innocent people.
The vehicle by which he explores these themes is the character, Hesther Prynne. Her husband has disappeared and she has another man's child. Her husband then reappears and proceeds to make hers, his and everyone else's life a total misery by branding his wife a harlot and forcing her to wear a scarlet 'A' on her clothing to remind her and everyone else how terrible she has been.
It is an interesting story, but not one I could warm to. The characters, even Hesther, I found unsympathetic, and although the moral of the story undercuts the morality within the story it was still a bit like reading a very long sermon, but with a twist at the end. I found I had to wait too long for the twist, and that it wasn't worth the effort in the first place.
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Retail Price: £4.99
Amazon.com's Price:£0.01
That's 100% Off!
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