"A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes."
Description:
"Set in the harsh Puritan community of seventeenth-century Boston, this tale of an adulterous entanglement that results in an illegitimate birth reveals Nathaniel Hawthorne's concerns with the tension between the public and the private selves. Publicly disgraced and ostracized, Hester Prynne draws on her inner strength and certainty of spirit to emerge as the first true heroine of American fiction. Arthur Dimmesdale, trapped by the rules of society, stands as a classic study of a self divided. As Nina Baym writes in her introduction, The Scarlet Letter was not written as realistic, historical fiction, but as a 'romance," a creation of the imagination that discloses the truth of the human heart." -- from the back cover
My thoughts:
I liked this book about Puritan ethics and hypocrisy. I found the reactions of the townspeople to Hester interesting as time goes by.
Date read: 11/10/2013
Book #: 34
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fiction
ISBN-10: 0142437263
ISBN-13: 9780142437261
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Year: 1850; 2003 (this edition)
# of pages: 228
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
LibraryThing page
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