Choice Novel Post

I chose to read The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne as my book of choice. I chose this novel because the Salem Witch trials and that whole time period of the early settlements of Massachusetts really interests me. This novel was interesting to me, though it was hard to understand what was going on at times due to the dialogue, because of the plot and how it tied into the time period.. My favorite passage from the novel is, "She knew that her deed had been evil; she could have no faith, therefore, that its result would be for good. Day after day, she looked fearfully into the child's expanding nature; ever dreading to detect some dark peculiarity, that should correspond with the guiltiness to which she owed her being" (61). This is my favorite passage being it shows how serious the sin of adultery was to them and their faiths. If a person committed adultery back in that time, they were shunned for life. But now, in present time, adultery is something that happens everyday and it has little to no effect on the people who are committing it and our society as a whole. So this leads me to wonder, why was this such a huge deal to them and why were the people committing it, so shamed upon? I also wondered why Hester's daughter Pearl, the result of the affair Hester had with Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, is thought to have been evil just because of the way she was brought into the world? Another passage from the novel that stood out to me was, "'What do we talk of marks and brands, whether on the bodice of her gown, or the flesh of her forehead?' cried another female, the ugliest as well as the most pitiless of these self-constituted judges. 'This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die. Is there not law for it? Truly there is, both in the Scripture and the statue-book. Then let the magistrates, who have made it of no effect, thank themselves if their own wives and daughters go astray!'" (36). This passage stands out to me because it also shows how serious adultery was to everyone else, not just people who were highly religous. Because Hester committed adultery, the other women of the settlement felt that they had also been shamed upon. Overall, this novel had a great plot and story behind it, but it was difficult to understand what was going on at times, so I don't think I would recommend this novel.