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The Scarlet Letter.....

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Hi I'm the tangerine letter okay so my cousin, the [Tangerine letter appears]

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Scarlet Letter gets better press I'm just the guy from the shmoop logo not as

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scandalous so what was so scandalous about Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet

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Letter like this thing has been banned from a ton of schools what did it do [Scarlet letter stamped with banned]

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kill someone embezzle money blaspheme the Pope getting warmer...to discover what got

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people so up in arms about this book let's start by learning a little about [Letter S walking along street]

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the plot and characters quick and dirty summary here we go

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caution spoiler alert we're in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the mid 17th

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century we meet our heroine very early Hester Prynne and she's in jail who [Hester in a jail cell]

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already with the injury why well she's an adulteress ie she got married but

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chose not to take that whole love forsaking all others thing too seriously

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ah adultery it's starting to become clear why some parents didn't want their [Girl reading book and parent takes book away]

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kids reading this book so yeah Hester's a cheater allegedly and as tradition

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would have it in Hester's time and place she's paraded around town as punishment

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with a scarlet letter A, emblazoned on her clothing

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yeah A, adulteress it's not A for ambitious or analytical or ankle-biter [Baby biting an ankle]

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how'd she got caught you asked well she's got a baby daughter Pearl but her

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husband's been gone for two years unfortunately her fellow townspeople

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were pretty good at math well Hester's determined not to drag Pearls dad down

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with her though so she refuses to name him, good thing too

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because Esther's hubby Roger Chillingworth killer name shows up and [Roger appears beside Hester]

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vows to enact revenge on this mystery lover while he concludes that this

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mystery guy is the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale so he starts to stalk the guy [Roger appears from Bush as Arthur walks by]

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creepy when Hester catches wise to Rogers behavior she and the Reverend

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come up with a plan to escape from everyone's prying judgey eyes and run

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off to England because you know adultery is totally cool in England it's not cool

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there but the Reverend gets cold feet

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he gets stricken with a case of Christian guilt confesses his sin to the [Reverend in bed]

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town shows everyone that he's got a scarlet letter of his own burned into

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his chest and then dies from guilt powerful stuff that guilt a year later

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he leaves everything to Pearl now flush with cash Hester and Pearl are [Hester carrying piles of cash and Pearl]

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splitsville from the town not from each other Hester's gone for a while but

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returns years later without pearl nobody knows if the girls even alive or not

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they're not sure why Hester came back either unless she just really felt New

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England with her home or the guilt monster finally got to her Hester dies [Hesters gravestone appears with A emblazoned on it]

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and is buried near the Reverend her gravestone has a scarlet A on it because

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symbolism so there's your story but isn't this story supposed to be in the

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gothic Romantic genre well quick refresher on what Gothic Romanticism

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usually entails remember dreary spooky settings mysterious and supernatural

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elements an element of evil yeah so where is all that stuff more prevalent

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than you might think let's break it down dreary spooky setting well it's not a [Dreary, spooky setting sign appears]

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old rotting cottage in a dark swamp but Hawthorne definitely wanted to paint a

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bleak and dismal picture of New England not a lot of scenes of merry-go-rounds at circus...

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jails, execution, scaffolds, dark roads with creepy people hanging around

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and leering at our protagonist yep check check check so the setting seems to mark

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all our boxes there's also an element of the mystery is Hester really guilty of

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adultery who's the real father how did that Scarlett A show up on the

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reverend's chest when Hester returned from England is

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Pearl still alive so yeah it kind of keeps you guessing as for the [Reverend with A on his chest appears]

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supernatural how did that A get on the Reverend chest did he feel so bad about

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his role in Hester's persecution that he branded himself? Did his guilt eat away at

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him until it physically manifested into a physical sign of his transgression or [A appears on Arthurs chest]

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did he just fall asleep on top of the smoldering campfire and there's an

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element of evil in the creeptastic Roger Chillingworth and in the hordes of [Roger appears from a bush]

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people who subject Hester to such awful public ridicule okay so definitely

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gothic romantic with that business out of the way let's read a bit of this

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thing and analyze four characters and their development hypocrisy sin and

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religious beliefs shame guilt and blame women issues and connections between

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characters in the novel and Puritans so keep all those in mind as you read

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chapters 1 through 3 they're short chapters so it won't kill you....

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fewer than 300 people died last year from reading the chapters......Done

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with the first three excellent okay I'll start by looking at characters and their [Characters and their development highlighted on checklist]

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development well we've got Hester Prynne of course and her three-month-old

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daughter pearl and the chatty gossipy townspeople and finally Reverend

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Dimmesdale who grills Hester about the identity of pearls father which is weird [Arthur asking who the Father is to Hester]

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since he's the Father he is urged to speak by one of his

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fellow clergymen but well you know still guess he just wants her to admit it [John Wilson slaps Arthur in church]

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publicly hmm it's kind of like when you pulled off the perfect jewel heist and

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you know you'll go to jail if anyone finds out but man what a good jewel

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heist it was pearl is three so we don't expect a lot of character development

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out of her and the townspeople are periphery characters so they don't play

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a major role in the story but since Hester and the Reverend are two of our [Hester and Reverend standing on a boat]

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main characters we'd expect to see them change throughout the book granted we're only

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looking at first three chapters here so these pages are more about establishing

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who they are at the beginning of the story rather than revealing any

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substantial development that said we do still see Hester when she first sees the [People chanting against Hester]

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crowd.....devoid of emotion all that inner turmoil is staying uh you

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know inner but when the Reverend asked her to reveal the father's name she

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stares straight at him and says I'm talking about her Scarlet Letter....

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Hawthorne also informed us that she turns pale as death so we see that [Hester looking sad]

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this whole experience is not easy for her you're trying to stay strong but

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she's starting to break well we see some hints that the Reverend is having a

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tough time of it to make sense you know knowing whatever you know as he implores

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Hester to spill her guts his voice is described as sweet rich

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deep and broken why deep and broken well seems like he might have some skin in [Letter S discussing Reverends voice]

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the game and then when Hester refuses he draws back with a long respiration like

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a sigh of relief his inner dialogue here might be along lines of she's not giving

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me up thank the good Lord and baby Jesus what do we see here in the way of

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hypocrisy well let's go right back to the Reverend railing on Hester he's

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basically encouraging her to unburden her soul everyone knows she did this bad

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bad thing but well he does the same bad bad thing so uh why doesn't he practice [Hester appears in bed with a sleeping man]

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what he literally preaches why isn't the Reverend announcing to town that he had

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something to do with that little girl up there on the pillary... [Arthur and John standing together]

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definitely be some hypocrisy there then again maybe he's just respecting

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Hester's wish that the baby's father remain anonymous what do you think

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should we give him the benefit of the doubt here hmm okay moving on sin and

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religious belief well sin is pretty much represented by Hester herself and

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religious belief can be seen in everybody else townspeople, the

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clergyman even Hester herself who knows she isn't innocent [Hester lying next to man in bed]

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in fact she even accentuates The Scarlet Letter she's forced to wear on the

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bodice of her gown by stitching little flourishes on to it to draw even more

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attention to the letter she's clearly feeling so guilty that she wants to [Hester holding the letter A in a jail cell]

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serve her penance she could have tried to hide or disguise the letter but nope

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she wants everyone to see it try and purge her soul of this awful thing she's

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done how religious is this town well when Hester has spoken to it's not by

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any policeman or judges or politicians it's by the clergy it's God who runs

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this town and all these people feel as if they're just there to do his bidding [People sitting in a church]

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and see that his justice is carried out well we've already touched on shame

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guilt and blame... Hester and the Reverend both feel all three but they

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take it entirely on themselves Hester isn't blaming Dimmesdale & Dimmesdale isn't

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blaming Hester because they're both so devoted to their religion they've

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accepted the fact that it was on them not to break God's rules nobody forced

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them to bump uglies and because they can't come right out and get stuff off [Hester with x-ray image of chest appears and image turns to letter A]

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their chests all that shame and guilt is bubbling and boiling right behind the

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surface wreaking more havoc on their souls than it might if you know they'd

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have freedom to clear the air well how are women portrayed in these first

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chapters now there clearly doesn't appear to be a raging wave of feminism

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here people it's clear that the women of the Massachusetts Bay Colony are given

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some strict rules of conduct and when they break those rules they pay a heavy [Hester locked into stocks]

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price like yeah adultery is a big one but we get the sense that even if Hester

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had just shoplifted a honey baked ham she might be undergoing a similar ordeal

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or worse, but at the same time we see Hawthornes portrayal of

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women's strength and power first of all the other women in the town [Women with torches walking through town]

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aren't just keeping quiet and letting the men do the taunting they seem to be

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giving Hester more abuse than anyone else these are some strong-minded gals and

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their passions about their beliefs in their letting her have it and there's Hester

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strength this whole situation is clearly eating her up inside but on the surface

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she's a model of fortitude the way she holds and conducts herself she could [Hester wearing a tiara]

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almost be a queen strolling through town collecting adulation rather than a

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prisoner being put on display for her crime...Well, finally what connections do we

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see between the characters in the novel and Puritans pretty easy one here the

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characters in the novel are Puritans the first Puritans came to America in the

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early 1600s but it was in the second wave of the Puritans that came over in the 1630s

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who settled in the present-day Boston and named their little patch of land the [Boston appears on olden map]

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Massachusetts Bay Colony so if it feels like these folks are uber religious if

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the culture seems a little oppressive and unrelenting if everyone seems stern

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and serious all the time well there's good reason for that

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the Puritans were basically an entire group of people every one of whom is

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that strict hard-nosed parent who doesn't let you get away with anything [Boy bouncing in a bedroom and mother appears]

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why did Hawthorne decide to make his characters Puritans well for one thing

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it's what he knew his ancestors were Puritans and he felt a definite bond [Puritan ancestors by the ocean]

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with them, even if he didn't agree with everything they stood for but second it

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upped the emotional ante in the story adultery isn't something that's

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applauded in any society but in a society where even the slightest moral [Man stood beside a no loitering sign]

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misstep is treated very harshly and it's mighty powerful to see how the towns

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people react when someone messes up big time well not to mention how much harder

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the guilt strikes those directly involved so yeah that was just first

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three chapters it's one thing to analyze the set up of the story but all the

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juice and meat, all that delicious stuff comes later try reading chapters

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23-24 the last two chapters and see how things have evolved over the course of

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the characters respective journeys like we did for the early chapters analyze

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for characters and their development hypocrisy, sin [Checklist appears]

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and religious beliefs, shame guilt and blame, women's issues and connections

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between characters in the novel and Puritans you need help just you know

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give me a shout remember the S stands for sinful or samurai or a mini Scarface

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let's just say it stands for someone special [Person photographs letter S in a field]

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