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Book Report
—
The Scarlet
Letter
:
The
Scarlet Letter
,
the shocking
masterpiece written by Nathaniel
Hawthorne,
mainly
tells
the
destiny
of
three
persons:
Hester,
Mr.
Dimmesdale
and
ngworth.
Hester,
a
beautiful
young
woman
whose
husband,
old
ngworth
was
working
in
another
country,
was forced to wear a scarlet letter ”A”
on her chest, for she had a love
affair
with
another
man
，
that
was,
the
eminent
local
clergy
dale. The
letter
”A”
stood
for ”Adultery” , that she must wear
as
a humiliating signal till her death. As she
refused to tell the name of
the other
adulterer,her
husband
was
seized
by
a
strong sense
of
envy,
hatred and
anger . Before long, he found out that dale was
the
very
man
who
had
an
affair
with
his
wife.
He
began
to
pay
back
by
afflicting the clergy’s weak soul day
after day and, as the clergy couldn’t
endure
the
torment
of
his
own
anonymous
crime,
he
finally
acknowledged the fact in front of the
public who had always trusted him;
he
died as soon as he finished his confession.
However, because of the
fire of revenge
besieged ngworth, he became badly ill and died a
year later. At the same time, Hester,
who had already been forgiven by
people, went on leading her
impoverished life in obscurity.
al
feelings:
1
After
reading
The
Scarlet
Letter
written
by
Hawthorne,
I
was
deeply
impressed by the four
main characters, namely, Hester,dale,
ngworth and Pearl.
At the
beginning of the story, Hester was portrayed as an
immoral,
frivolous woman, for she did
such a bad thing as having a love affair with
the
other man and having an
illegitimate child “Pearl”; however, people’s
vie
ws may well be changed as
they continue reading. Although Hester’s
disgrace and the
mark----
letter “A” had always been
teased and derided,
she turned out to
be a really kind woman, for she always helped
people as
much as she could while she
herself was leading a poor life with her
daughter Pearl. As time went by, people
came to accept her and forgave
her. Her
courage of admitting her own guilt finally won
people’s respect.
Maybe she was too
kind, for she would rather die than corrupt
her lover’s
reputation, from
which we can learn that Hester must be deeply in
love
with Dimmesdale. Love was the very
reason that made both fidelity and
betrayal coexist on Hester. It was
pretty unfortunate that her husband was
not the one she loved and her true love
was not the one she should love.
Next,
let
us
come
to
the
clergy
my
personal
persepective, he is
indeed a hypocritical man. Though he is
“suffering his
own condemn
of conscience”
all the time,
and “fluctuate in the
dilemma
of
admitting
or
denying
the
guilt”,
the
9-year-long
progress
of
that
fluctuation
clearly
shows
us
how
snobbish
and
timid
he
is.
Comparing
2
him with Hester, the woman he loves, he
is not half as brave as her! His
sin
against Hester and Pearl is that he will not
acknowledge them as his
wife and
daughter in the daylight. He keeps his dreadful
secret from all
those under his care in
the church for seven years for fear that he will
lose
their love and will not be
forgiven. He is too weak to admit his sins. Nine
years passed, when Hester had finally
regained
people’s respect
and when
the actual figure “A” on her
chest seemed to evaporate in people’s eyes,
the same scarlet letter that dale
avoided, was deeply engraved
in
his
heart
.Though
the
public
was
totally
ignorant
of
the
fact.
He
himself knew it, Hester
knew, ngworth knew, and the god knew.
He could never ever get rid of his
inner guilty. The terrible affliction was
so unbearable that he admitted the
truth at last.
Another
man,
ngworth
was
even
much
worse.
After
Mr.
Dimmesdale’s
death,
no
one
changes
more
in
appearance
than
Roger
Chilling
worth.
All
his
strength
and
energy
has
been
used
to
harm
his
patient,
that
is,
dale.
This
unhappy
man
has
made
determination
in
his
life
to
revenge
by
adding
to
the
suffering
of
the
young minister. When the evil old man
no longer has such a purpose, the
devil
takes him back to the hell. It is really a curious
subject to be noticed
that
either
hatred
or
love
may
take
a
great
deal
of
emotion
and
energy
from one person and
the two feelings seem basically the same, except
that
one is smiled upon by God, while
the other is worshipped by the devil.
3
W
hat I really want to say is
about the little child, Pearl. I’m
also
interested in this character. Her life
was low, obscure, miserable, and for
this, she should be sorrowful and
resentful; but she did not feel like that.
She expressed
her feeling in
her own way, in a child’s way. Things turned
out that she seemed to be more than
just a young, ignorant child. She
didn’t say anything on purpose, but her
words always shocked Hester a
lot and
made her face turn pale; she subconsciously
refused her mother to
take off the
scarlet letter on her, refused her dad Dimmesdale
to kiss her
for he
hadn’t
accept
ed her, refused even to talk with
ngworth.
She always expressed her anger
for her mother who made great efforts to
hide the truth. She could speak out the
truth easily as she was an innocent
child. For me, I think that Pearl was
an angel, an angel sent by the god.
Her
pure spirit must be combined with the god’s great
spirit, it made her
know what was right
and what was wrong. Especially when the clergy
accepted her in front of the public,
this little wild creature was unusually
ta
me, that she “kissed
her
father in
tears…”
.The scene touched my heart
and also moved me to tears for this is
the moment dale had
expected for nine
years. Here I would like to quote a short
paragraph
from the book presenting you
the scene. Here is the quote from the
book:
“He withdrew his dying eyes from the
old man, and fixed them on
the
woman and the child.
?My little Pearl,? said he, feebly and
there was a sweet and gentle
4
smile over his
face, as of a spirit sinking into deep repose;
nay, now that
the burden was removed,
it seemed almost as if he would be sportive
with the child
—?dear little
Pearl, wilt thou kiss me now?
Thou
wouldst
not, yonder, in the forest! But
now thou wilt??
Pearl kissed his lips. A spell was
great scene of grief, in
which the wild
infant bore a part had developed all her
sympathies; and
as her tears fell upon
her father?s cheek, they were the
pledge that she
would grow up amid
human joy and sorrow, nor forever do battle with
the world, but be a woman in it.
Towards her
other, too, Pearl?s errand
as a messenger of anguish was
fulfilled.”
(Chapter 24)
So
far
as
I
know
from
the
book,
Hester
is
publicly
ashamed
and
forced by the people to
wear a badge of was truly brave
and
loyalty in pursuing her true love of the priest
even under the harsh
realities. She
strives for her true love. She is a soldier
struggling against
the established
social norms. The Scarlet Letter
’
s heart,
stood
for
pain
and
hope.
She
made
a
choice
which
produced
her
hope,
satisfying
her
love,
and
also
gave
her
years
of
pain.
The
book
said
the
scarlet
letter
at
last
stands
for
angel,
if
that
was
true,
how
painful
angel she is, and
how little hope that average human could become
angel.
On the other hand, Hester is
really a kind-hearted woman. Despite her
love
affair,
which
in
other
’
s
opinions,
is
an
inexcusable
sin,
she
still
manages
to do good to the society and help others through
her seamstress
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