Reading Response #1

This is my first reading response to The Scarlet Letter. The first important point that I thought I'd talk about in this book is when Hester Prynne is first released from prison to society. This is a big part of the book because when she is paraded around town with the letter on her chest this is the first time the people of the city have seen her since she was locked up. With the child in her arms she walked through the town and saw how everyone looked at her for the first time. The whole town saw her as no more than dirt, and a lot of them were disgusted by her "What do we talk of marks and brands, whether on the bodice of her gown, or the flesh of her forehead?…This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die." (Hawthorne, 79) said a woman in the marketplace when Hester was put on display. I think that this part of the book is very influential on the story. It lets you see how the whole town sees Hester and shows you what she has to deal with. Whether this creates sympathy towards Hester or not is your opinion, but showing this lets you understand the hostility that she has to deal with. It also introduces the scarlet letter and shows you what it means to the people and Hester herself. The letter to them is more than just a piece of red fabric sewn onto the bosom of Hester's gowns, it has a deeper purpose than to just let everyone know what she's done. Nowadays something like that may not have as much affect on one of us, yes, we would have to show everyone what we've done every day and have to live with that, but things like that would get around and everyone would know anyways. For Hester the letter was like a hot brand that burnt into her every day. It was a mark of the devil that she had to live with, not just a piece of fabric. The letter meant she was an outcast of society for the rest of her life. The people of the town are all very religious and even though they themselves have committed sins Hester's is just more prominent "Could it be true? She clutched the child so fiercely to her breast, that it sent forth a cry; she turned her eyes downward at the scarlet letter, and even touched it with her finger, to assure herself that the infant and the shame were real. Yes!-these were her realities,-all else had vanished!" (Hawthorne, 86). Her world came crumbling down with her pregnancy. Even though Hester's husband hadn't came for two years and she was left alone it was still terribly looked down upon, and she wasn't even sure if her husband was still even alive. The idea of this huge sin and the scarlet letter burning into her and all of this having to do with the devil actually comes up later on in the book when the child, Pearl, is actually looked at as being evil "I saw her, the other day, bespatter the Governor himself with water, at the cattle-trough in Spring Lane. What, in heaven's name, is she? Is the imp altogether evil? Hath she affections? Hath she any discoverable principle of being?" (Hawthorne, 155) and Hester herself even questions her own daughter's being. She is scared of her own child and it's all because of this sin she committed and now she has to deal with the paranoia of her child possibly being evil and she has to deal with the pain and neglect of being an outcast completely alone.