I love American Literature and this novel is why.

 

Difficult to read, painful, continual and when it is over both grateful and sad.

 

So often when I read a book over I come away feeling a different way about it.  Not so with The Scarlet Letter.  I still feel remorse for Roger Chillingworth.  I still feel just a small amount of disdain for Dimmesdale and regret for Hester.

 

Women are hardest on women.  So often we disdain what we consider another woman's weakness.  Adultry, fornication and we use those ugly words.  We use them out of fear.  And fear in its ugliest mode is what makes this novel so American.

 

The hypocrisy of Dimmesdale, the fear he continually lives with rather than with what he loves.  The puritanical fear of God's retribution was the man's retribution.  The bending over to accommodate what man deems worthy rather than what God would consider worthy - yes even holy.  And mix that up with the passion of ownership rather than husbandry and we have an American novel.

 

What would have happened if Roger Chillingworth stepped up to the scaffold that day with Hester?  What would have happened if he had begged her forgiveness for deserting her and asked to be a father to her child?

 

What would have happened if Dimmesdale would have stepped upon that scaffold with Hester that day?  As Roger Chillingworth looked on, seeking the one who did not shelter Hester - what would have happened?

 

But alas, it is all fiction and all too human.

 

The Scarlet Letter