The Scarlet Letter

Abstract

Thou and thine, Hester Prynne, belong to me.' With these chilling words a husband claims his wife after a two-year absence. But the child she clutches is not his, and Hester must wear a scarlet 'A' upon her breast, the sin of adultery visible to all. Under an assumed name her husband begins his search for her lover, determined to expose what Hester is equally determined to protect. Defiant and proud, Hester witnesses the degradation of two very different men, as moral codes and legal imperatives painfully collide. Set in the Puritan community of seventeenth-century Boston, The Scarlet Letter also sheds light on the nineteenth-century in which it was written, as Hawthorne explores his ambivalent relations with his Puritan forebears. The text of this edition is taken from the Centenary Edition of Hawthorne's works, the most authoritative critical edition.

Exploration on the Critical Point of Hester’s Repentance

“…However, crowed as it was, of where she stood, "a small vacant areaa sort of magic circlehad formed itself about her". ( [1], pp.…”

“…114). She went so far that she even undid the scarlet letter afterwards and threw it to a distance ( [1], pp. 218) and "took off the formal cap that confined her hair" ([1], pp.…”

“…The indication of it is that she resumed A. She resumed it "of her own free will", never "afterwards did it quit her bosom" when she returned to New England ( [1], pp. 285).…”

“…67) and was isolated from her community after released from the prisonliving segregatedly at the city border and without a friend to talk to. Besides, it is common for her to be followed and teased by children, and stopped and taught at any place and at any time by clergymen ( [1], pp. 90).…”

Adaptation as revision: Transforming makeover narratives from canonical literature to contemporary Hollywood teen film

“…The 1990s and 2000s saw a proliferation of teen film adaptations of canonical texts (Davis, 2006). Never Been Kissed (Gosnell, 1999), Cruel Intentions (Kumble, 1999) and Easy A (Gluck, 2010), adapted from As You Like It (Shakespeare, 1623), Les Liasons Dangereuses (Laclos, 1782) and The Scarlet Letter (Hawthorne, 1850), respectively, are just a few examples. The 1990s to 2010s were the decades of third wave feminism, which looked to empower women and girls, partly by arguing that femininity is empowering (Riordan, 2001).…”