Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter was first published March 16, 1850.
His story of a seventeenth-century Boston community is as relevant and compelling today as when it was then. Through the alienated but self-actualizing young Hester Prynne, and her idolized but tortured lover Arthur Dimmesdale, Hawthorne contrasts the competing forces of society and self-determination.
Clearly, Hawthorne understood the nature of conflict between society and the individuals who comprise it. When the interests of the individual oppose the interests of the community, to whom is the individual bound? To the Self or to Society?
What happens to Society if everyone serves the Self?
Can the Self evolve authentically in servitude to Society?
Which is the greater moral imperative, and how is it best resolved?
The Scarlet Letter is a masterful presentation of the inevitability of this conflict. Hawthorne writes with characteristic surgical precision of the impossibility of enlightenment by preservation. Ultimately, one must be sacrificed for the other.
Sally - Freelance Writer
His story of a seventeenth-century Boston community is as relevant and compelling today as when it was then. Through the alienated but self-actualizing young Hester Prynne, and her idolized but tortured lover Arthur Dimmesdale, Hawthorne contrasts the competing forces of society and self-determination.
Clearly, Hawthorne understood the nature of conflict between society and the individuals who comprise it. When the interests of the individual oppose the interests of the community, to whom is the individual bound? To the Self or to Society?
What happens to Society if everyone serves the Self?
Can the Self evolve authentically in servitude to Society?
Which is the greater moral imperative, and how is it best resolved?
The Scarlet Letter is a masterful presentation of the inevitability of this conflict. Hawthorne writes with characteristic surgical precision of the impossibility of enlightenment by preservation. Ultimately, one must be sacrificed for the other.
Sally - Freelance Writer
posted by Sally Bacchetta at
12:23 PM
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