The Scarlet Letter--Erica's Review

Upon picking up The Scarlet Letter, I was thrown into a new world. One very different from the beliefs and customs of the world I live in today, which is expected considering the book was first published in 1850, and the story set in the 1600s. The story takes place in the Puritan town of Boston. In this strict puritan town, any sin, petty or significant, is not tolerated. In this town, everyone is scrutinized and it seems like everyone is forced to live a pious life style. The views of this town play a very important role in the actions and attitudes of each town member including the main characters. For instance, in order to keep his honor and respect of the town’s people, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale hides his sins, which would be shamed by all if he were to expose them. 

The book focuses on the lives of four people living in the town. The first being Hester Prynne, who is being punished for committing adultery with an unknown person, which as a result, gets her pregnant. As her punishment, she is forced to serve jail time, is displayed on the town scaffold with her child for all to ridicule, and must wear a scarlet A upon her bosom as a symbol of her infidelity. She bears a child named Pearl who becomes her one true treasure and a beauty. Another character is Reverend Dimmesdale, who is one of the town’s most respected clergymen but who withholds a sin from the knowledge of the public. The last main character is Roger Chillingworth. He is a physician and Hester’s estranged husband, who came into town just in time to witness his wife stand on the scaffold in all her shame.

The story takes place over the next seven years, in which Hester Prynne loses her natural beauty and continues to bear her penance for all to see, Pearl grows up to become a mischievous and perceptive child, Reverend Dimmesdale finds himself struggling with the guilt of the sin he has performed and has been put under the care of Roger Chillingworth, and Chillingworth becomes so obsessed with revenge, that it’s all he cares for making him seem truly evil. You soon learn that Reverend Dimmesdale is the other adulterer and once Chillingworth learns this, he tortures and toys with the Reverend. Dimmesdale decides to run away with Hester and Pearl to become a family, but their plan of escape falls short when Dimmesdale decides to declare his sin to the town and dies soon after on the scaffold in Hester’s arms with Pearl and Chillingworth around him. Chillingworth dies just a year later and leaves Pearl all his property, allowing her and her mother to finally leave the town. Prynne returns a few years later, still wearing the scarlet A and spent the rest of her life in the town.

Sin, love, revenge, social organization, and human nature are all major attributes found in Nathanial Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Each one of these parts plays a key role in making the book effective and worth reading. Through Hawthorne’s somewhat complex writing, which becomes easier to understand as you continue reading, the reader explores the dreadful effects of sin especially when living in such a devout town. Each character has their own unique traits, giving the story a more realistic feel and allowing the reader to identify with the characters. Hawthorne was able to intertwine the aforesaid attributes well and allowed me as a reader to become engaged with the text. As the story progressed, I was able to formulate my own opinions about the actions of the characters as well as the attitudes of the town’s people. It is easy to see why this book is timeless, because although the story was set four hundred years ago and our society different from their generally pious nature, many people can recognize the want to fit into society unscathed, protecting the ones you love, and ultimately the struggle of trying to do the right thing.

  

Huxley's Brave New World--Prose Analysis 1 of 2 by Kazzandra

Text from the Novel—Page 103

         Leaning forward, the Warden tapped the table with his forefinger. “You ask me how many people live in the Reservation. And I reply” –triumphantly- “I reply that we do not know. We can only guess.”

         “You don’t say so.”

         “My dear young lady, I do say so.”

          Six times twenty-four—no, it would be nearer six times thirty-six. Bernard was pale and trembling with impatience. But inexorably the booming continued.

         “. . . about sixty thousand Indians and half-breeds . . .absolute savages. . . our inspectors visit. . . otherwise, no communication whatever with the civilized world. . . still preserve their repulsive habits and customs. . . marriage, if you know what that is, my dear young lady; families. . . no conditioning. . . monstrous superstitions. . . Christianity and totemism and ancestor worship . . . extinct languages, such as Zuñi and Spanish and Athapascan . . . pumas, porcupines and other ferocious animals . . . infectious diseases . . . priests. . . venomous lizards. . .”

         “You don’t say so?”

Analysis:

          This passage contains quite a long description of a world, identified here as the Reservation, so similar if not exactly like the world I live in today. Explaining the customs and beliefs of this outside world, it seems like a scene from the movie Pocahontas when the British soldiers explain to their king of another world with Indian savages and a peculiar way of life. The Reservation is a complete mystery of which the   people of the civilized world have nearly no comprehension for why the savages live the way they do. Meant to be a serious and frightening subject for Lenina and Bernard, I find the Warden’s explanation humorous. Picturing an astonished man telling me, “Oh my, your people get married,” is almost like a punch line after which I’d respond by saying sarcastically, “No way. I think these couples have families too.” It’s amazing how the world I live in now is perceived to be so wrong in this almost too real of a future.

            Aldous Huxley’s wise use of tone is what creates the chaotic depictions of the Reservation. His simple word choices have a strong effect in showing the whole direction of the Warden’s outlook upon the outside world. It puts the world Bernard and Lenina are from on a pedestal as though it were the only perfect world in the universe. Absolute savages, repulsive habits, and ferocious animals are the examples in this passage which speak negatively of the Reservation. Said with scorn and a bit of hatred, the Warden definitely implies that their brave new world has control over this uncivilized world especially seen when he triumphantly says that he does not know the population of the Reservation as though greatly intrigued like scientists nowadays are fascinated by aliens.

           The interest and curiosity they have makes me feel like I’m the alien coming from a world I know is full of cruelty and mystery but I also know is normal. The disgust they contain deep in their minds and the fear they have for the Reservation is all too artificial. Who in their right minds would think like this? Because of the scientific development, morals have changed and my world, although it seems inevitable to turn into a world somewhat like this, is still the right way of life-unique and unpredictable. Life would no longer be worth living if everything about the human being were forced, turning everyone and everything into a robotic dystopia. Because of the bizarre opinions and views on the Reservation, I find it almost as though Huxley is being mock-serious about the whole matter; however, that exactly is what turns this into a serious subject. Our world continuously changes and things that have been wrong before are okay now. Listening to Huxley’s message, we should ask ourselves, “What’s happening to the world?”

Huxley's Brave New World--Response 2 of 4 by Kazzandra

Part II: pages 57 – 122

         The introduction of the story that captivated me from the beginning fades away as the plot begins to unfold. Lenina and Bernard soon become the main characters in the story as the chapters revolve around their life in the World State and their journey into the Reservation. I quickly assume Bernard is the protagonist rebelling against the many antagonists made up of the loyal, robotic society of the World State. I side with him on his beliefs and feel pity for him being such an outcast since he is against the way of life he had no choice but to follow. Fortunately he has a bit of a confidante named Helmholtz Watson, who like Bernard, is resentful of the world they live in; however, their reasons are quite different.

         To truly enjoy this so-called perfect world, you have to be perfect right down the middle. Excessive perfection is too much to handle such as Watson’s character and being less than perfect makes you a bitter loner such as Bernard. Here is where I find a flaw of the perceived perfection. When everything has been manufactured to the minutest detail to create a perfect world where supposedly no problems are to occur, a malfunction that arises will be placed under a magnifying glass where it would be seen how much of an error it really is and how it naturally wouldn’t fit in a place of complete correctness.

         It becomes quite easy to relate one aspect of this new world and my world- sex. The only difference is how open everyone, like Lenina, is about this personal topic. Everyone knows sex sells more than a global warming video and apparently in his time already, Huxley realized the impact of sensuality in people’s lives. The Solidarity Service is almost like a public forum of what boys do with themselves in the restroom when no one’s around. Basically, it’s like removing all the barriers of personal vicinity in which I can finally understand the World State’s motto that everyone belongs to everyone.

         The Reservation is soon introduced, which is the author’s way of providing a completely opposite viewpoint that the reader can use to differentiate worlds. Also, John’s mixed breed character clashes with Bernard as they both are misfits and Lenina and Linda portray how different women of different societies are. These new characters draw me in as I wonder about their significance to the story. 

Huxley's Brave New World--Response 1 of 4 by Kazzandra

Part I: pages ­  3 – 56

          Starting off with an introduction to the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre pulls the reader in quickly with its clear descriptions of the production of human beings in an assembly line similar to that of a factory, which all comes off as bizarre; however, is actually deemed completely normal by the characters. Similar to our world’s use of “A.D”, this world uses “A.F” which means “after Ford”. Everything I find morally wrong or unorthodox has become the complete opposite in this future which has me dumbfounded at how possible this just may be. In my generation, freedom of basically whatever we believe in is found unconstitutional and is now being fought for with loyal followers whose interests or beliefs differentiate from that of our forefathers who have written the laws for us.  

          Community, stability, and identity. These three words describe the new principles of a world confused between a utopia and a dystopia. Without the restrictions of laws, religion, and so forth, people of this new world have been able to take full advantage of science and technology and take it to a whole new level that have allowed them to change how society works. Altering mankind and molding it into the closest thing to perfect can be ideal or dangerous. Eliminating individuality takes away the uniqueness and wonder of the world making for a monotonous life of existence that no longer matters as long as it contributes to the larger picture, the community. Without arguments due to strong beliefs in predestination and forced instincts into clones as done by the hatchery and conditioning centre, problems will never arise and stability will go on forever.

          Just when I think every character in this story is ridiculous, a man named Bernard finds the customary routine of sex to be wrong and calling a woman a “piece of meat” to be degrading. He gives me at least one thing I can hold on to and relate to in the book.  It gives me the slightest hope that in a world of scientific creation, robot and gray, there’s still a chance of my definition of normal.

          A perfect world it seems; however, within any perfectionist is a flaw that causes their greatest downfall.     

Currently being read, entertained, and analyzed by me, Joshua Ilustre.
From reading this book, I expect to learn a little more about Mark Twain's style of writing. I did some research about his style and found some things to look out for: dialect, use of irony, and humor. I know this book will be a fun one to read. I recall reading the prequel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, back in middle school. It was definitely one of my favorite stories we read in the sixth grade reading mastery book for D.I.

Independent Reading #1

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Happy reading!