Hey! What's up, you guys?

It's Connor, and today I'm gonna be doing a book review for The

Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. If you guys somehow don't know, The Scarlet

Letter is a vastly popular classic that's pretty much read in almost every

high school. For some reason I escaped having to read it, and then I had to read

it in law school. So now I have a more legal frame of mind going into this

novel, so that may change how I analyzed it versus how you will analyze it. It

follows this woman named Hester Prynne. She lives in a very Puritan society, a

very religious-based society, and at the beginning of the book you find out that

she has committed adultery. Instead of killing her because she's with child,

they make her wear a scarlet "A" on her breast for the rest of her life as

punishment. Then it follows Hester Prynne as she's living in this society still

with this Scarlet Letter having to deal with the repercussions of everyone being

able to see her sins physically on her body all the time, and just living her

day-to-day life, and just trying to make a living - everything like that. There are a

couple of other characters that you kind of focus in around. There's Reverend

Dimmesdale who is kind of the lead of the Church in the society. Everyone loves

him, and he kind of takes pity on Hester Prynne at the beginning of the book. You

know, he's just one of the main players in the book. At the beginning of the book

a new person comes to town named Roger Chillingworth, and he's got his own

scheming going on in the background. That's the bare bones of this novel. It

explores concepts like pride, and shaming, and punishment. What makes a good

punishment? Everything like that... guilt is another huge concept that's addressed in

this book. But as usual with my book reviews, I'm going to go through my pros,

go through my cons, giving my rating, and be done. My first pro for this book is

just exploring the society. It's definitely a theocracy, and the church
rules everything in the society. They don't really have a separation of church

and state. This is set early on in the United States at a time where the church

held a lot more power and kind of could make people's lives miserable

outside of the church as well as in it. So when going through this novel, we were

looking at how this society has set up their legal system, where they decide

what's right, what's wrong, the morality of everything,

and then how people are gonna be punished. At the beginning of the book, if

she were not pregnant and she was find out to have committed adultery, she would

have been killed as well as the person that she committed adultery with. They

have a type of punishment system where "They deserve to be punished." It doesn't

matter if the punishment actually would prevent future adulterers from

committing adultery, and it doesn't matter if it would prevent Hester Prynne

from committing adultery in the future. She deserves to be punished and that's

why she's being punished, and the type of punishment is all given through the

church officials and everything like that. At the beginning of the book she's

put up on this pedestal. Everyone is kind of staring at her, and shaming her, and

everything like that for her crimes, and then that's when she gets sentenced to

wearing the scarlet letter. So this whole town is really centered

around the concept of shaming people, and her punishment is to have this "A" as a

symbol of shame. It's not really a system where they're trying to rehabilitate as

much as it is to shame the person into doing the right thing. At the beginning

of the book they're trying to figure out who is the person that she committed

adultery with. Hester Prynne is married at the beginning of the book, and her

husband is not in the town. So the fact that she's pregnant basically means she

would have had to commit adultery to be pregnant currently. So they're trying to

figure out who the guy is that got her pregnant, and she won't give it up

because he would be killed because he obviously is not with child. I just

thought that the whole system, the theocracy of it all, was pretty

interesting to read and analyze, and that's kind of what my class focused in

on. I'm in a class called Law & Literature, and we've dived into all

these texts to figure out crime, punishment, morality, stuff like that, and

how they all interrelate with each other, and then reflected back on to our

current day legal system. So those were the most interesting parts that we were

discussing the most. Another thing that I really liked was the exploration of

guilt and illness. When people are feeling guilty, they're more likely to

show some type of physical illness which isn't always the case, but it definitely

was in this. When someone is feeling guilty, they start to ail, and they start

to get sick, and everything like that. So you follow one character specifically

that starts to degrade over the course of the novel. He feels so guilty over

things that he's done that he starts to degrade, and get really sick,

and you know basically withering away. Although it is very common in classics

to represent some type of moral wrong as a physical ailment which I know is very

controversial nowadays, but for some reason in classics they did it all the time.

So when someone is doing something morally wrong back then, they would end

up with some type of physical ailment. They showed that guilt can have a

physical effect on your body which I think can happen... It doesn't happen all

the time, but it is there. One of the things that we talked about in class is

how adultery is viewed in this novel. Because Hester Prynne is the protagonist

of the novel, it kind of gives this weird message of

maybe adultery is okay, but it's definitely portrayed as not being a good
thing. The author definitely pushes that adultery is still bad and doesn't

really excuse Hester Prynne's actions which was whatever, but regardless of the

adultery in this book, this is really a commentary on different types of

punishment and what punishments are fair. It also addresses who should be the ones

that have the power to give punishment. In this book it was the theocracy, the

church, and the author's opinion definitely is not that that is the right

thing. So basically it's adultery is wrong, but who should be the one that

punishes that? It's more just like a discussion starter than it is a

hard-line on what should happen and what shouldn't happen. Another pro for this

book is that I really loved the character Mrs. Hibbins... Mistress Hibbins.*

She is the, like, personification of a horrible, evil person in this book.

She's viewed as a witch, but it also kind of shows the double standard in

societies. If a lower-class woman in this society were viewed as a witch, they

would be punished immediately and killed, but because she is the sister of one of

the, like, government officials that are in the town, she gets away with a ton

more things until after the books already over because you find out that

she does eventually get in trouble for it. But she is the personification of

everything that's bad in this book. She goes to this forest and she meets with

the "black man" or whatever who is kind of like the devil. She tries to get other

people to commit sins and tries to get other people to go with

her to the forest and everything like that. She always comments on when one of

the characters goes out into the forest, so she is just like this weird, evil

being that I was loving being in the book because she always pops up at the

like perfect time to throw just a little shade and to kind of point out when the

characters are feeling guilty or when the characters are thinking about doing
something wrong. So I really enjoyed Mistress Hibbins in this. She was a

pretty fun character. My other favorite character in this book

is Hester Prynne's daughter, Pearl. Pearl is described as a physical manifestation of,

like, a living Scarlet Letter for Hester Prynne. Every time she looks at Pearl, she

has love for her daughter, but she also sees the fact that she's committed

adultery. It's interesting how she is this common reminder of how Hester

Prynne has done wrong, and the only reason why Hester Prynne is in charge of

Pearl and everything like that is because the town sees the effect that

Pearl has on Hester Prynne. The people of the town feel validated by shaming other

people, so they like seeing that Hester Prynne's constantly shamed by the fact

that her daughter exists which is kind of this weird toxic message. But I

thought it was very interesting - their bond because Hester Prynne really wants

Pearl to do well and [because] it's one of those things that also throws it back in the

face of this society because Pearl is this like very beautiful child. She's

always described as being very, like, ethereal, and people really find her as

like a really cute kid. So [with] the fact[s] that she has committed this sin, and the

kid is beautiful, and she always dresses up the kid in these beautiful outfits,

Hester is growing it in their faces how great they've done. For some reason in

classics as well at least the ones that I've read when a woman is ostracized

from society, they always take up sewing and embroidery, so Hester Prynne becomes

amazing at embroidery. She makes all the dresses for Pearl, and I just

really like that Pearl was this demon child that was uncontrollable, but had a

really good sense of other people, and could tell

when someone was doing something wrong or when someone was sketchy, she

didn't want to be with them. [She] also served as, like, a double Scarlet Letter.
[She's] also a Scarlet Letter for the town because they've treated Hester so

terribly [with] the fact that Pearl is doing so well.

Pearl serves as a lot of discussion topics, so if you want to talk about Pearl more

in the comments, go ahead and do that. My last pro that I'm going to talk about... I

don't know if I've spoiled too many things. I don't think I have. The last pro

that I'm going to talk about is that I really liked the women, like chorus-style

group, in this book. At the beginning of the book

these women are judging Hester Prynne and saying how terrible she is, and the

youngest of those women tries to see Hester Prynne in a different sort of light. So

you can tell that that group of women have had things in their past that

they're not proud of, and to make themselves feel better, they jump on the

opportunity and start shaming Hester Prynne. So I thought that those women

were really interesting [as well as] the, kind of, course that they take during the novel

because they start off as shaming Hester Prynne and then they get a little bit

better as the novel goes along. So I really liked them as well. Now I'm going to talk

about a couple of cons that I had. One was the custom-house introductory thing

at the beginning of the novel. I don't think that it's necessary to read that

to get into the story and understand what's going on because it's a

completely different story. It follows this guy who's the descendant of someone

that was from this fictional town and found the Scarlet Letter in the custom

house. Fun fact: Nathaniel Hawthorne worked in a custom house, and it seemed

like he was just very bitter about it. And so he wrote this introduction to The

Scarlet Letter and just basically throws down on every one that worked with him.

The way that he writes it is very just dense and hard to get through, and I

didn't really enjoy it at all. So I don't really suggest actually reading that. I
would say look up a summary about what it's about or read the foreword, and

just skip it, and jump right into The Scarlet Letter because it doesn't have

anything to do with it and I didn't enjoy reading it. It was interesting

because added another layer, added another character to the story, but

totally not necessary. Another con that I had was that I found that the writing

was a little bit denser. This is my first classic that I've read in quite some

time, so it could just be that I wasn't used to the style of language.

It took me a little while to get into it. The writing, I found to be more difficult

to get through. I ended up switching back and forth between this and the audiobook

version which really helped me get it done because I had to read it in a

couple of days for class. Yeah, the audiobook was actually really good and

helped a lot. So if you're having trouble getting through the language and

digesting the novel, the audiobook definitely helps with that. Some people in

my class were complaining how hard it was to get through. And my last con that

I had is that I don't know how much I would have enjoyed this novel without

the discussion that we had in class, so I think that if you're reading this book

for school, I think that's awesome because you'll be able to have

discussions with other people that have read it and you can talk about morality,

and punishment, and shame, and guilt, and pride because everyone in this book is

very prideful even Hester Prynne. This was a pro for me but this whole society

is very prideful, and it's all about shaming people which I've said multiple

times in this. But Hester Prynne doesn't escape that either. She is very prideful.

She takes a lot of pride in Pearl, and she shames the town. So I thought it was

really interesting that they were shaming her, and she was kind of subtly

shaming them back especially at the end of the novel. The ending definitely shows
that she has some kind of, like, throwing it back in their face. But yeah

without that discussion I don't know how much I would have really enjoyed this

novel, but as it is I did really enjoy it because of that discussion. Dimmesdale is

the worst. I really did not like that character. I just... I was originally gonna

do a spoiler section, but I don't think I'm going to. But he is the worst. Both

him and Chillingworth are terrible. I don't like them. Big fan of Hester. Live on,

Hester Prynne. I guess one last thing that I'll talk about before I give you

my rating and be done is that I'm not gonna go too in depth into symbolism or

anything like that just because I'm getting back into classics and [because] I feel

like I'm not equipped enough to tackle those topics yet. So if you want to

continue that conversation and talk about the different symbols, and stuff

like that, and spoilers if you want to go into spoilers, let's do it down in the

comments. Just tag your comment as "Spoilers," and then go ahead. I'd actually

love to talk about the ending of this book with you guys and talk

about the different characters and how they grow throughout the course of the

novel, and change, and [how] some don't grow at all and just kind of like wither. I did

end up enjoying this one, and I gave it four stars. So that's gonna be my review of

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. If you like this video, please

give it a big thumbs up and comment down below if you've read this book and you

want to continue discussing it or discussing the spoilers. I would

especially like to talk about Dimmesdale and Chillingworth more down in the

comments because I don't feel like I can talk about it in this video without

going into spoilers, so let's do that down in the comments. Also let me know

down in the comments if you would have done what Hester did and keep the

identity of her baby daddy a secret because I don't think that I would have.
Anything else you want me to know, leave it down below, and I will talk to you

guys next time. Bye!

♪ upbeat music ♪

Whassup baby? This week on Thug Notes we gettin loose with The Scarlet Letter

by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Up in Salem, Massachusets where errybody got real tight assh*les, homies gather

to peep the public humuliation of some thick hunny named Hester Prynne. See the One- time

found Hester guilty of sleepin round like a skank and gettin knocked up. Now she gotta

sport a red “A” on her threads to signify “Adultery.”

The people be all like, “Yo slut, you best fess up the name of yo baby daddy.”

But Hester keeps it street and don’t snitch.

While she bein all hated on by the hood, she peeps her ol' hubby in the crowd,

who til now she thought got ganked at sea.

This fool get all crunk and say that the man she hoin it up with gotta get his too.

So he go by the fake name of Doc Chillingworth and hit the streets

to find the fool who banged his woman.

After Hester get released from the slammer, she shacks up in some dingy-ass digs

with her baby girl Pearl.

The local preacher man Dimmsdale gets all sick and Doc Chill start nursing him

when he starts thinking, “Maybe this fool ill cuz he got some fessin to do.”

So one night Chilly scope him out while he sleepin and see a big red A on his chest.

Now Chilly know who been raw-doggin Hester.

Then Hester gets tired of Chilly bustin her baby daddy’s balls, and asks him to stop hatin.
But Chilly be all like, “Can’t stop, won’t stop”! So Hester tell Dimmsdale

that Chillingworth her old hubby.

Later while Dimmsdale sermonizing, he sees Hester and Pearl in the crowd,

loses his sh*t, and starts tellin errybody that he’s Pearl’s daddy. Then he shrivels up

and dies like a bitch. Since Chilly ain’t got nobody to f**k wit no more,

he up and dies too.

Years later, Hester goes back to her cottage in da boonies where she builds

a rep for givin advice to other women. When she dies, she gets buried next to Dimmsdale

with a big-ass “A” on their gravestone.

Even the scrappiest hoods know that Hester’s A standin for Adultery, but listen

good, blood. That ain’t all it means.

Like when Hester start doin righteous deeds for the community, homies

start thinkin the A stands for “able.” And when peeps see a big “A” in the sky

after Winthrop buys the farm, they thinkin it means “angel.”

But no matter how legit Hester play, dat “A” isolating her from all the

other playas in town who frontin saying they all pure n' uppity.

Ever since Adam took a bite out of dat apple and got his ass booted out of Eden,

sin has isolated man from society, himself and even God. And since dem Puritains ain’t

down with Hester’s bad self, she gotta live in a cottage in bum-f**k nowhere.

Chilly’s sin of vengeance gets so real, that he loses himself entirely. The

narrator even say dat that with his vengeance all cashed out, he ain’t got nothin to do

but go chill with Satan.

But the truth up in here is that all these self-righteous posers ain’t being

real and admitting that they just as human as Hester. Cuz no matter how hard you try

to stick to the straight and narrow, acting out is part of human nature. Anybody that
say they never trip in the face of temptation is the real lying trick.

So what Hawthorne might be sayin is: If errybody is a sinner, shouldn’t we

stop hating so much whenever someone f**ks up?

Cuz if you gonna say life is based on love and compassion, you gotta know how

to forgive, playa.

Stay in school, say no to drugs, and tell all your friends about Thug Notes.

Catch yo ass next week! Peace.

Scarlet Letter is an unforgettable

powerful controversial tale of morality

truth virtue and sin that plays out

against the backdrop of a judgmental

17th century Puritan colony the novel

became the first and greatest success

for author Nathaniel Hawthorne Hawthorne

was intrigued by his own genealogy that

included Puritan settlers and was

influenced not just by their repressive

nature of puritanical theocracy but in

the transcendentalist movement and his

studying of pre American colonial life

Hawthorne worked in a nineteenth-century

custom house in Salem Massachusetts and

after being fired wrote The Scarlet

Letter it was an immediate success after

its first publication in 1850 and was a

best-seller with its print run of 2,500

books selling out in less than two weeks

while being recognized by many as a

masterpiece that thrust Hawthorne into

the spotlight of literary Fame the

popularity of The Scarlet Letter did not

make Hawthorne rich he remained

economically sustained by working

government jobs early reviews praised

the scarlet letter for its tragic power

and subtle knowledge of character but

some critics complained about

Hawthorne's biting personal criticism of

work at the Custom House and many

religious leaders linked the books

content shocking at the time two

assumptions about an author who must

have lacked a moral compass completely

however the scandalous reputation of The

Scarlet Letter did not deter readers one

bit and it remains influential and

beloved to this day practically two

centuries after its publication

at the onset of The Scarlet Letter an

unnamed author assumed to be Hawthorne

himself finds an embroidered Scarlet

Letter a and an old manuscript

documenting its story while he's working

in a New England custom house after

changes in political regimes see

Hawthorne being terminated from his

position he commits to writing the story

of The Scarlet Letter a representation

of the romance genre now Hawthorne

marked the distinction between romance

and the novel as being about taking

creative liberties with tales of the

human heart versus just telling the

truth as clearly and plainly as can be

in order to document the human

experience Hester Prynne is in jail for

adultery and while she's imprisoned she

births the child pearl she's forced to

stand on a scaffold with her baby

publicly shamed but she refuses to name

her lover who turns out to be Arthur

Dimmesdale a charismatic young minister

she has been spared the death penalty

because her husband a doctor who had

remained in England while Hester

established life in the colony planned

to meet up with his wife after she had

moved to America but he disappeared and

was presumed dead instead he had been

captured by Native Americans learning

the ways of their medicine however this

husband arrives at the Massachusetts

colony as Hester is on the scaffold but

he hides his identity later taking the

surname Chillingworth becoming the local

doctor and pursuing Dimmesdale who he

suspects is the father of Hester's child

Hester keeps custody of pearl and gains

the town's respect over the course of

seven years ironically Dimmesdale

becomes more revered and respected as a

minister as he is eaten away by guilt

over committing adultery Dimmesdale

sickens from this guilt clutching

periodically in his heart and becoming

weaker and weaker

Chillingworth moves in with Dimmesdale

under the auspices of hell

as his doctor but in fact is there to

torture him with guilt and shame

Dimmesdale creeps out one night and sees

Hester and pearl beckoning them to join

him on the town scaffold a symbol of

both guilt and shame but also a platform

for characters to stand tall upon a

meteor leaves an a streaked in the sky

for all to see

Hester confronts Chillingworth who won't

repent she tells him she never truly

loved him his relentless tormenting of

Dimmesdale has corrupted him with evil

and he admits he has become a fiend

Hester tells Dimmesdale of

chillingworth's identity the two plot to

leave the colony starting a new life

together with their daughter Pearl

though this tears Dimmesdale apart

emotionally he decides ultimately to

leave imminently at the climax of The

Scarlet Letter Dimmesdale confesses that

he is pearls father publicly and his big

election day sermon the biggest and most

successful of his entire life and he

pairs open a shirt showing the symbol

that's been hinted at more and more

strongly all throughout the Scarlet

Letter then he dies there on the

scaffold now it's never exactly clear

what was on his chest a letter he carved

himself a mark brought on by kilt and

shame nothing at all shortly after this

Chillingworth dies leaving a fortune to

pearl making her America's wealthiest

heiress Hester and pearl leave Boston

but Hester later returns dies and is

buried next to Dimmesdale and an a marks

the grave for the two of them to finally

be united in death under the symbol that

publicly and privately marked their

lives The Scarlet Letter was and

continues to be a huge success but like

the content of the story itself it

remains controversial often ending up on

both essential American novelists and

banned book lists in turn Hawthorne's

most successful work while a timestamp

of life in early puritanical colonial

America remains a timeless look and

private and public

truth institutional and human morality

the nature of evil itself and the powers

of redemption and revenge

[Music]