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| Hester upon the Podium |
The Scarlet Letter has many romanticized moments. Here are a few examples I found:
As the minster held hands with Pearl and Hester on the podium he felt, "...what seemed a tumultuous rush of new life, other life than his own, pouring like a torrent into his heart, and hurrying through all his veins, as if the mother and child were communicating their vital warmth to his half-torpid system. The three formed an electric chain" (138).
"...that the minister, looking upward to the zenith, beheld there the appearance of an immense letter, --the letter A-- marked out in lines of dull red light" (140)
When speaking of the scarlet letter, Hawthorne writes, "It imparted to the wearer a kind of sacredness, which enabled her to walk securely amid all peril. Had she fallen among thieves, it would have kept her safe" (147).
"Ever and anon, too, there came a glare of red light out of his eyes; as if the old man's soul were on fire, and kept on smouldering duskily within his breast, until, by some casual puff of passion, it was blown into a momentary flame" (153).
I think these romanticized moments add a lot to what we already know about the scarlet letter. Through Hawthorne's writing we can interpret the letter as something quite magical. Its affect on people is immense.
What are some other romantic elements you have found in the Scarlet Letter?
Although we have almost reached the end of the book, I still remember the description of the rose bush in chapter 1 as my favorite example of romanticism. It is described as, "... a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in..." (43).
ReplyDeleteHaha you just love finding quotes Luisa! Those are all great examples. I think the fact that Hawthorne called the novel "The Scarlet Letter" instead of "The Red Letter" or "The Crimson Letter" is yet another example of his romantic stylistic tendancies. Crimson would have been nearly as effective as scarlet, but scarlet sounds much more dramatic and, well, romantic, so maybe that's why Hawthorne chose it.
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