The Scarlet Letter
Posted on | July 17, 2010 | 5 Comments
If it were written today we’d call it “The Racy Letter”
Alright, alright, I’m sure 90% of you read this in high school, and the 10% of you that didn’t consider yourself lucky. But it’s American classic – and if you read closely, it’s filled with scintillating details your sophomore English teacher probably failed to point out. For instance, take this paragraph:
The stigma gone, Hester heaved a long, deep sigh, in which the burden of shame and anguish departed from her spirit. O exquisite relief! She had not known the weight, until she felt the freedom! by another impulse, she took off the formal cap that confined her hair; and down it fell upon her shoulder, dark and rich, with at once a shadow and a light in its abundance, and imparting the charm of softness to her features. There played around her mouth, and beamed out of her eyes, a radiant and tender smile, that seemed gushing from the very heart of woman hood. A crimson flush was glowing on her cheek, that had been long so pale. Her sex, her youth, and the whole richness of her beauty, came back from what men call the irrevocable past, and clustered themselves, with her maiden hope, and a happiness before unknown, within the magic circle of this hour. And, as if the good of the earth and sky had been but the effluence of these tow mortal hearts, it vanished with their sorrow. All at once, as with a sudden smile of heaven, forth burst the sunshine, pouring a very flood into the obscure forest, gladdening each green leaf, transmuting the yellow fallen ones to gold, and gleaming adown the gray trunks of the solemn trees. The objects that had made a shadow hitherto, embodied the brightness now. The course of the little brook might be traced by its merry gleam afar into the wood’s heart of mystery, which had become a mystery of joy.
Crimson flush? bursting sunlight? Someone ought to tell the Pastor to keep his little brook in his pants.
This time period is endlessly useful for term papers and research papers. Consider comparing the depiction of the time to Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, or delve into the work of John Demos to put the events in context.
For a no-shame A, I recommend the Nortan critical edition. It comes with critical papers in the back – so you don’t have to back to school library.
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