In the book The Scarlet Letter, the author Nathaniel Hawthorne writes his masterpiece about the struggles and life of Hester Prynne. The book follows Hester in the times of new found America where most of law and social code is written by a Puritan society. It starts with Hester being publicly shamed for getting pregnant while her husband is away and being forced to wear a Scarlet A for adulterer and has to hold her baby to the public as proof of her sin. Throughout the book we see her grow into the courageous woman that raises Pearl. Dimmesdale, the reverend of the town helps Hester throughout the novel because he knows what it's like to sin, which separates him from the rest of the reverends and makes him the better one. Hester's husband disguises himself as a doctor in the community only to torment the reverend because he wants revenge for what he did to Hester. Dimmesdale is the one who got Hester pregnant and committed the adultery.
I learned from this reading that the Puritan society is extremely sexist and puts shame on the women in the community only because they bear the children and are seen as people who do not contribute enough to the community. I also learned that the novel shows how the Puritan society bases its law on religion and personal beliefs rather than law, order, and democracy. They show this "chaos" throughout the book by showing how when Hester was on trail the people of the community were shouting and screaming all because she was an adulterer. I learn how my lens changed throughout the book because I constantly saw how the society at the time was all the influence in the book. This novel was a great read and gave me lots of perspective on the subject of new historicism.
No comments:
Post a Comment