Week Ten - Difficulty Paper and Annotated Bibliography #1

Difficulty Paper:

The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne was extremely difficult for me to read. I just could NOT concentrate on it. When I tried to read a page, I would find myself spacing out and would have to go back and reread it. The repetitive process of having to reread pages and chapters over and over again made reading The Scarlet Letter a very long process. It is very uncommon for me to spend that much time trying to get through a book. I just finished it last week, which has caused me to get behind on my blog posts. Now that I have gone through it, I can write about the difficulties I encountered reading it.

One of the things that made The Scarlet Letter difficult to read was Nathaniel Hawthorne’s writing style. The language is confusing and he often uses uncommon words that I hadn’t heard of, but after the reader gets used to the old English and has a dictionary available, or simply uses context clues to figure out the meanings of the strange words, it is not a major problem. What most made reading The Scarlet Letter boring to me was the amount of description. There is so much description in this novel that I find is completely unnecessary. Many praise him for his exquisite descriptions in writing, but I just found that it just made the story drag along. I found that the main story of The Scarlet Letter itself was rather interesting and moving, especially from the feminist and sociological point of views. If the story was condensed into less description and perhaps more action, it would make a much better read. But that’s just my opinion.

Annotated Bibliography:

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter and Other Writings. A Norton Critical Edition ed. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2005. Print.

The Scarlet Letter is a romance that is about more than just love. It is about the hardships that Hester Prynne, the main character, has to face for committing adultery in a Puritan society. Hester had an extra-marital affair that resulted in a pregnancy and of course, that was evidence that everyone in town could see after a few months, but the father of the child was unknown. Hester was punished by being jailed and forced to wear an embroidered letter A. The A stood for adultery/er and was there for everyone to see, for Hester to be set apart from the rest of the PURE-itan society. Hester was asked to reveal the name of her child’s father, but she refused. When released from prison, Hester chose not to flee the place in which she was looked down upon. Rather, she chose to stay because she felt that staying and bearing her punishment was necessary to purge her soul. As the years pass, Hester notices that her child’s father becomes weak with guilt, and proposes that they leave the past behind, move and start their lives over. They agree to it and they feel much better. However, when the father, who is Dimmesdale, the town minister, finally reveals to everyone that he committed adultery with Hester Prynne, he passes away. Hester and Pearl moved away, but the story ends with Hester returning and ultimately being buried next to Dimmesdale’s grave.