The Scarlet Letter: A Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Scarlet Letter: A Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne is likely a book you were assigned to read in school. But, for a refresher on the plot, Hester Prynne has been ostracized by her Puritan community for giving birth to a child that was not her husband's. While the child's exact paternity is uncertain, the child is clearly not Hester's husband as he has been away for a long time (and is, for the time, assumed to have died at sea).
Hester is affixed with a scarlet "A" (for adultery) on her chest and is asked to name the father of her child, but she refuses. In the crowd there to shame Hester, Hester spies the mysterious figure of her estranged husband. After learning the details of her sin, he vows to take revenge upon the father of his wife's baby and adopts the name Roger Chillingworth.
Later in her cell, Roger visits Hester and asks more gently to know the name of the child's father, but once again, Hester refuses. Roger says he'll eventually figure it out and swears terrible vengeance on the man who impregnated Hester. Once released, Hester moves to the outskirts of her community and quietly raises her child, a daughter named Pearl. She makes a meager living, but tries to perform acts of charity. Pearl is unnaturally fascinated by Hester's "A," which disturbs Hester. More distressing to Hester, though, is how Pearl is shunned even by other children and grows into a very difficult child. Pearl proves to be so difficult that the community threatens to take Pearl away from Hester. To prevent this, Hester seeks out several men to plead to keep her daughter. One of these men is the minister Arthur Dimmesdale.
Arthur, meanwhile, has slipped into ill health, but Roger tends to him. This closeness between the two men leads Roger to believe that Arthur is, in fact, Pearl's father. After much plying on Arthur's guilt, Arthur's health begins to fail even more. Hester, seeing Arthur grow even weaker, has a private meeting with him where she suggests they run away together with Pearl. Arthur initially agrees, but later he publicly confesses his sins and, shortly thereafter, dies.
Roger feels his vengeance has been satisfied and, within a year of Arthur's death, Roger passes away as well. Surprisingly, he leaves a fortune to Pearl, which Pearl and Hester use to escape their judgmental community. However, years later, Hester returns to her community and once again dons the "A". When she passes, she is buried near Arthur, the two even sharing a tombstone.
The Scarlet Letter: A Romance is a historically important book. It was one of the first mass-produced books in the US and is considered a founding staple of American literature. Furthermore, it is important to note that Hawthorne was the great-great-grandson of John Hathorne, one of the judges who oversaw the Salem witch trials. These are some of the reasons to read the book.
However, the portrayal of how a community can so easily cast someone out for a mistake is a chilling reminder of how we all must treat those who have trespassed against us or others in our community. One aspect that has nagged me since I read this book in high school, however, is how Pearl is portrayed. I felt at the time that Pearl's unruliness was an indication that she was indeed a sin and deserved to be treated with ire. I am sure there are other interpretations of this, but I wanted to note it as a flaw I recall from reading this important novel.
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