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Reader discussion: The Scarlet Letter
Public reader discussion about The Scarlet Letter in the WeRead Catalog by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Question about Dimmesdale's fate in the Scarlet Letter/
By LatteSun
Okay, but if his death is supposed to be “punishment,” wouldn’t it line up better if he died while trying to run—like he’s getting away from having to actually own up to what he did? That’s how I kept reading his whole situation: he’s meant to come clean, but he drags it out, and that’s why he keeps suffering. And if he just told the truth, he’d at least have his health back, right?
This ending just feels… weirdly convenient? Like he knows he’s basically at the end, so at the last second he finally confesses. But then he doesn’t have to deal with all the social fallout or the real consequences. So what are we supposed to think Hawthorne wanted—does Dimmesdale come off as weak and proud and only “atoning” when it’s easy? And is he basically supposed to burn in hell anyway because he only finally does the right thing at the last possible moment? I honestly don’t get it. Was that really the point?
Part of me also wonders if all the misery over the years was basically his penance for getting Hester pregnant, and then dying is just the “reward” because he gets spared the humiliation and shame everyone else would’ve given him. But I can’t tell if that’s what I’m supposed to believe or if I’m just reading too much into it.
I’m kind of frustrated because I don’t see what he’s supposed to learn here. Like, it would’ve made more sense to me if he came clean earlier—maybe even instead of going on that boat with Hester—and then he gets punished publicly, even something awful, but at least he’s finally not hiding anymore and he can face it. At that point it would feel like he actually accepts the consequences, and not like he just slips out of them by dying first.
So yeah, I’m stuck. Is Hawthorne saying he would’ve lived longer if he’d confessed right away? What’s the moral supposed to be? Because right now it just feels like a huge tragedy with no clear takeaway, and I’m pretty sure that can’t be all he intended.
The Scarlet Letter, Chapters 9-12 [SPOILERS if you haven't read thee chapters]
By WhiteSong63
Chillingworth feels *wrong* from the start—like he’s got some dark agenda going on, and it’s pretty hard not to read him as devil-ish, especially once Pearl clocks who he really is. But he’s also the “best doctor in town,” and of course he worms his way into Dimmesdale’s life under the guise of treating that wasting illness. Pretty quickly they’re even sharing a space in the same house, which is unsettling on its own.
And yeah, Pearl’s basically right about him. He somehow figures out Dimmesdale is the father (seriously, how did he know?) and then acts all casual while showing him these creepy plants, like they were taken from some grave with some terrible secret buried in it. Dimmesdale buys the whole thing, and then it turns into this long, slow mental torture where he’s basically being “treated” while getting worse.
The part that really kills me is that Dimmesdale never seems to realize the person he’s relying on is the problem. He’s just miserable, constantly pressing his chest where the scarlet letter is later supposed to match, and he keeps confessing in front of everyone—except everyone writes it off as him being a super pious guy who just doesn’t believe his own goodness. Then the whole thing blows up on that night with all the gothic spooky stuff, and he ends up on the platform where Hester had to stand, yelling something he can’t even make sense of.
Everyone around him acts like it’s a dream or witchy noise, and the scariest part is that Pearl and everyone who matters keeps running into the same people in the same moments—Mr. Wilson, Hester with Pearl, and Chillingworth hovering like he owns the place. Pearl is convinced there’s something witchcraft-y in her eyes (and she keeps noticing how Dimmesdale grabs himself), and in some meteor-shower light she straight-up points at Chillingworth like, “that’s the guy,” but Dimmesdale just brushes her off like she’s talking nonsense. Of course he does.
Then Pearl goes for the real pressure: she wants him to promise to stand on the scaffold with her and her mother the next day. She’s basically his conscience made into a person at that point, and the “A” stuff is just… nonstop. Even the sky feels like it’s spelling it out. And right after all those horrors, he gives this amazing sermon, like refusing to confess is actually the thing that helps people most. So now I’m just sitting here going, did the book really pull a bait-and-switch on the whole “confession fixes everything” idea? I don’t know.
The 30 Harshest Author-on-Author Insults in History
By lunar-trail12
That was pretty fun.
What’s the best/worst book you’ve ever been assigned in class?
By FogOtter1980
I’m not really counting textbooks, since they’re probably all pretty bad, lol.
If I had to pick my favorites, I’d say *Faust* (part 1) by Goethe or *Crime and Punishment*. I remember absolutely hating *Crime and Punishment* in high school, but when I reread it a few years later in a totally different setting it clicked way more, and I could actually follow all the characters.
Worst one was some kind of super casual pop science book on heart disease and dieting. I can’t even remember the title. The content itself was fine, but the author’s tone was so flippant that it kept bothering me the whole time. I kept thinking, like… what happened in his career that made him stop being a doctor and start writing this?
Stop Teaching The Scarlet Letter
By Lucky_Shadow1977
The Scarlet Letter is definitely a big deal for American lit history, and Hawthorne kind of matters a lot when you’re talking about how people dealt with the whole Puritan past.
But honestly, nobody should have to read it. It just doesn’t work for me. The writing is painfully dry (those long, run-on sentences), the characters are pretty much impossible to like, and the “moral lessons” the girl keeps giving off feel way too heavy-handed and not even in a good way.
People might say, “Well, it’s a product of its time.” Sure, it was published in 1850—so not like it’s ancient. It’s still got no excuse to be this dull and mediocre. And it doesn’t even feel especially groundbreaking. Like the whole hypocrisy around adultery was already a thing way before, including in Ancient Greek theater. Plus the book’s way closer to the actual changes in late 1800s America than to the period it’s criticizing. It came out just a couple years after the Seneca Falls Convention, and that just makes it feel even more outdated somehow.
I do get why the story idea is interesting and how it’s been reused in lots of other ways. I just don’t think what’s actually on the page earns it the label “classic.”
Has anyone gotten anything from reading the Scarlet Letter?
By CoralMouse16
I’ve been trying to get more comfortable with older books/classics since I’m usually more into stuff from the 2000s and up (it just clicks with me faster). I end up reading more of the older stuff in class too, mostly instead of more recent novels, aside from educational biographies.
I just heard about this one recently and it sounded kinda interesting, but then a bunch of people were saying it was boring.
So has anyone actually liked it or gotten anything out of it? I’m trying to pick something up right now—I read slowly, so I’m aiming to finish at least two more before summer ends. If it’s not worth the time, tell me, but I’m open to being convinced.
🟡 The scarlet letter / Nathaniel Hawthorne / Chapter 01/Read Aloud Books
By Superuser
So the RPAN channel for reading/writing and chatting about books is ending on Nov 15. They said there’ll be until Dec 3 to try and request your older streams before everything disappears.
Also, reminder to keep things civil, I guess.
I was just reading a few summaries of "The Scarlet Letter" after having read it years ago, and, I gotta say, the morality seems a bit iffy
By lazy_planet
Honestly, from what I can tell, Chillingworth comes off way better than most of the other people in the book. Like, he learns medicine even though it could get him hurt, he still forgives Hester for what she did (and he mostly blames himself), and he lets her go even though he clearly still loves her. He also helps Hester and Pearl for free, and he even ends up saving the life of the man he assumes—correctly—was with his wife and then just disappeared. On top of that, he’s trying to get the guy to admit what he did without messing him up worse than necessary. And when he finally dies, he leaves his stuff to his wife’s “illegitimate” daughter. The only thing I can think he might be “wrong” about is being a little petty, but even that feels kind of understandable.
Still, it’s like everyone—Hester, the other guy, the townspeople, and even the narrator and Chillingworth himself—acts like he’s the villain. Meanwhile Dimmesdale (the one who actually had the affair) dodges responsibility, shames Hester for stuff he was part of too, denies his own daughter, and doesn’t confess until the very end… but somehow everyone’s more sympathetic to him.
To me, Chillingworth’s not just “right,” he’s almost… more forgiving than most people would be in that situation. Imagine coming back from an actual war-zone and finding out your wife cheated, got pregnant, and had another man’s kid. And the guy is the loud, moralistic politician everyone worships, who’s also publicly going after the woman he slept with, acting like it didn’t happen, refusing to own the child, and then getting mad at the man helping for free—who also happens to be your wife’s husband. I can’t be the only one who thinks most people would be a bit petty there.
The only “case” I’ve seen for why Chillingworth is wrong is basically that he’s petty and driven by hate, even though he isn’t really hurting anyone directly. But somehow Hester and Dimmesdale supposedly get the pass because their betrayal was “love,” which just feels like messed-up logic to me.
BOOK REVIEW / ANALYSIS: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
By turnswindow18
The Scarlet Letter
CWs/TWs: Puritan Christianity
Genre: Romance, Literary/Historical Fiction
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Goodreads link
It’s basically a major story about adultery and what happens after it, especially in a Puritan setting. I’d put it somewhere between pretty good and just okay.
The big thing here is how Puritan Christianity affects people who break its rules. I’m sure this has been written about a ton already. A closed-off 1642 Massachusetts can cause a ridiculous amount of mental suffering for people who get pushed out by shame. I don’t mean that in a dismissive way or like it’s not still relevant, but it also feels like the obvious angle. Hawthorne does seem to be doing more than just making Puritans into a generic Christian villain, though. It feels like he’s getting at sin, society, pride, and ignorance in a more general human way too.
There are better character breakdowns out there. The main group here is basically Hester, Dimmesdale, and Roger, with Pearl too if you count her. Hester is the one who’s openly shamed for the affair. She has to stand in the pillory and wear the scarlet letter all the time as punishment, and everyone knows what she did. But later the town sort of calms down about it, and she ends up being respected and pitied more than hated. Even with all the public punishment, she seems to find a kind of inner peace.
Dimmesdale is kind of the reverse. Because he’s too afraid to own up to it, he suffers horribly for a long time. On the outside he still has status and admiration, but inside he’s wrecked by guilt until it starts ruining his health. It just eats him alive until he finally confesses and dies. Or maybe that guilt was the only thing keeping him going that whole time.
Roger Chillingworth is also living a lie, with the fake name and the fake friendship with Dimmesdale, all so he can slowly mess with him over the affair with his wife. Honestly, he was probably the most interesting one for me to read about. Like Dimmesdale’s guilt, hatred is what keeps him moving, and it twists him at the same time. His revenge has this cold, controlled quality that I wouldn’t ever endorse, but I did sort of respect how committed he was to it. And the fact that he doesn’t seem to hate Hester or Pearl much also makes him feel a little more layered.
The people in Massachusetts are pretty easy to read as self-righteous and kind of clueless. The punishment and social exile might seem over the top now, but even in the book they hurt more than just the two adulterers. Chillingworth’s shame as a cuckold helps push him into disowning his wife and going down this destructive revenge path. Hester seems like a decent person, but she still gets cut off from everyone who could’ve actually benefited from knowing her, just because of the stain on her name. Ostracism always costs something, and that feels pretty relevant here. Self-righteousness is tricky because people don’t think of it as self-righteousness. Ignorance is worse in a way because it doesn’t even announce itself. People just rename self-righteousness as morality, and ignorance gets left in the blind spot. Anytime a moral code turns shunning into the price of sin, it seems worth asking who it hurts and whether that lines up with the nice self-image people want to keep.
At the same time, that same setup—the sin, the punishment, the long public shame—also creates a kind of serious personal growth. Once Hester and Dimmesdale fully accept what they’ve done, they sort of move beyond the rigid Puritan mindset. They end up with a kind of mental openness the rest of the town doesn’t really have, and Hester keeps that until the end. But that only happens because they genuinely feel guilty too. They know what they did was wrong by the town’s standards, but they also start to see the town’s vanity and cruelty. They gain this double vision where they can see both the moral victim and the moral aggressor.
Dimmesdale gets there much later than Hester. It’s only right before he dies that he starts dropping the churchy image, and even then only a little. Chillingworth, as far as I can tell, never really gets there at all. If he did have any realization, it had to have happened before the story started, and probably only because he wasn’t upset about the revenge itself, just that he couldn’t finish it the way he wanted.
So yeah, those are the main ideas Hawthorne is working with. The prose is very of its time and pretty overdone by modern standards, and even though the book is short, I kept feeling like it could’ve been trimmed down more. Some padding matters, sure. If a story were only themes and symbols, it would be a lot less affecting, and that emotional part is what makes stories stick. Unfortunately, this one didn’t really hit me that hard in that way, so it felt more slow-moving than it needed to. I doubt Hawthorne meant for Pearl’s childish stuff to make the reader just sit there bored waiting for something important again.
Honestly, I’d call it kind of timeless but also not especially enjoyable. It’s not bad at all, and there’s a lot of solid thematic stuff here, but I wouldn’t say I loved reading it. Maybe I just need more experience with books from that era for the language to feel easier. For now, 3/5.
[NB4A] [F4A] the scarlet letter by nathaniel hawthorne: chapter 1 the prison-door [rough ROUGH] [rambly in the beginning] [sick-ish voice???] [classical literature] [reading series]
By Superuser
Hey everyone! This is my first audio and the first time I’m actually posting here, so I hope it’s okay. Please let me know what you think—any suggestions or feedback would be really appreciated. I’m honestly excited to see this hobby getting bigger.
https://soundgasm.net/u/centerofpluto/NB4A-F4A-the-scarlet-letter-by-nathaniel-hawthorne-chapter-1-rough-ROUGH-rambly-in-beginning-sick-voice-eek-classical-literature-reading-series
The Scarlet Letter
By NeedleRusty5
Just wrapped up The Scarlet Letter. I grabbed it on a whim at Barnes & Noble after looking at the back cover and figured it would be one of those heavy, thoughtful, philosophical reads, but it ended up feeling more like a romance and kind of like Shakespeare at times. Not really my thing, honestly. I still finished it since it’s short and I hate quitting halfway through. Still, a lot of it was tough to get through and not super memorable—like, for a 250-page book, it feels like the main stuff could’ve been squeezed into way fewer pages, maybe like 80.
The Modern Day Scarlet Letter: Hawthorne is as relevant as ever
By rain_towan286
Really enjoyed this article. If someone’s using *The Scarlet Letter* for a class, I think it’d be helpful to read *So You’ve been Publicly Shamed* alongside it too.
Anybody else really love The Scarlet Letter??
By Stamp
There’s a ton of hate for The Scarlet Letter, even though it’s such a great classic. I first read it in high school and honestly I didn’t really get it, so it felt kind of slow. I wouldn’t even call it bad, just a little boring at the time.
But then I reread it a couple years later after I understood more, and I ended up loving it. It’s genuinely one of my favorite books ever.
A lot of the complaints I see are “it’s boring” and “it’s hard to read.” It’s not even that long, so how boring can it be? I feel like people get stuck on it because they have to go through it super slowly and they miss what’s actually happening. The sentences do use a lot of commas, but once you get used to the rhythm, the writing isn’t nearly as choppy. Sure, not a ton of stuff “happens” in a traditional plot way—there’s more observation and commentary. But mentally it’s really interesting, like watching the characters and ideas shift over time. The characters feel so real, especially Pearl—there hasn’t been another one like her.
Also, I’m not trying to say you can’t read well if you don’t like it. I’m just saying if you’re going to dislike it, don’t use “it was hard to read” as your only reason. That’s not the best justification. Plenty of people understood it and still didn’t like it, and that’s totally fair. If you didn’t like it the first time you read it, try giving it another shot!
Best map of literary movements?
By stone-coral57
Is there a good place to look for the big literary movements/genres? I’m trying to find something that lays out how they’re connected in some kind of order—like how Romanticism leads into things like Gothic Romanticism, and then over to Southern Gothic. A lot of the lists I find either just group everything under “literary fiction” or they feel kind of random and don’t really explain the relationships in a way that makes sense.
I know the borders get messy, but I’d still love to see if anyone knows a solid, well-thought-out resource for this.
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (Full Audiobook) *Grand Audiobooks
By stilltower
I really hated this book back in high school. The story itself felt powerful, but the writing got on my nerves—like the author was piling on big words just to sound smarter, and it didn’t feel necessary.
Best Narrator for the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
By bard_bookworm5
I really want to revisit this classic, but I’d rather listen to it this time. I keep seeing a bunch of different narrators for it, and since I listen to tons of audiobooks I’m pretty picky about who’s reading. Does anyone have strong feelings about the narrator used for this one—like, really recommend or really not? I’d love to know so I can pick the right version. Thanks!
Nathaniel Hawthorne
By dawn_reads
Jumping back into The Scarlet Letter after ages (like, since high school). It’s wild—there’s a line I basically blanked on back then, but now it feels way too real. Something like how people get cruel just because they can, especially when they’re sitting in power.
It’s said in the context of one group taking political control from another. And yeah, he immediately insists his side would never do that. But honestly, a lot of this stuff still seems to hold true. Lol.
My Interpretation of The Scarlet Letter
By luckyspoon1973
I went into this book thinking I already had it figured out. Like, Salem Puritans, “Scarlet Letter” = “A” for adultery, because the woman has a baby she shouldn’t, easy stuff.
But I was honestly shocked by how much I didn’t actually know going in. I didn’t really know who Hawthorne was, I didn’t catch how supernatural some of it is, and I also didn’t realize it was written way later (in the 1800s) looking back at Puritan times. I genuinely feel like I just wasn’t paying attention in English class.
So here’s how I’m reading it, and I could be totally off, but to me it feels super symbolic—like it’s basically making some kind of theological point. You’re supposed to treat characters, places, and yeah, the letter itself like they mean more than what they’re doing on the surface.
Hester’s the center of it. She gets put on display in Puritan Salem with the mark like she’s a walking warning sign. She’s got Pearl with her and basically has to take all the town’s judgment without really giving in. It’s implied she’s being punished for having a kid out of wedlock (they keep asking about who the father is), but she never just comes out and says it, and she’s angry and unremorseful about it. She’s not acting like she’s ashamed, which I think is the point.
Dimmesdale is the other big one. He’s always acting like he’s the “pure” Christian type, super forgiving, but then you realize he’s eating himself alive with guilt. He might be the father, but he hides it. He looks holy on the outside while everything inside him is rotting.
Chillingworth shows up like this creepy old mystery guy and turns into her ex-husband. He comes off like he’s got revenge brewing, and he’s doing it in a careful, patient way—almost like he’s trying to break Dimmesdale down over time instead of making it some big dramatic scene.
Pearl is… strange. People around town call her like the daughter of Satan, and she doesn’t exactly behave like a sweet little angel. She scares Hester, and it feels like she’s this wild problem that keeps growing and making everyone uncomfortable.
And then Dimmesdale keeps unraveling. He has these freakouts at night, he tries to connect with Pearl and with Hester, but Pearl rejects him. It feels like he wants to have everything—his faith, his family, his clean image—but it’s not enough, and the tension finally explodes at the end.
By the end, the “resolution” is basically that Dimmesdale finally has this huge moment where it’s like he’s done pretending. Then we learn there’s been a Scarlet Letter on his chest the whole time.
So yeah, the Scarlet Letter definitely reads as “sin.” I don’t think it ever spells out exactly what kind, but because Pearl exists and it’s strongly implied what happened, I’d say it’s some kind of sexual sin—not just “adultery” in a super simple way, but something deeper where repentance doesn’t seem to be enough.
Also, the book keeps bringing up the idea that certain sins don’t get forgiven the same way. Like in John 8 with the whole “whoever’s without sin” thing, and Luke 12 about blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. So my rough guess is it’s a mix of adultery and blasphemy, like they’re crossing some line that can’t be “fixed” the normal way.
What I took from it overall: Hester doesn’t act sorry and even kind of leans into her sin like she owns it. She’s still human and helps other people, but she’s basically refusing to be broken by the town’s rules. Dimmesdale is the opposite—he represents morality and suppression, and he’s ashamed all the time. Even if he *could* repent, he’s more scared of being exposed as a fraud than anything else, and that denial eats him alive. Hawthorne seems to be implying that locking your passions away can turn into something almost crazy/madness-ish if you don’t deal with it honestly.
Then there’s all the “darkness” stuff—Satan/Black Man/Mistress Hibbins—like it represents rejecting Christianity. But I don’t think this is just random evil imagery. To me, the bigger picture is more like society has built itself around Abrahamic morality for so long that anyone who doesn’t fit gets shoved into the “underworld” socially. Colonial Salem feels like civilization/real life, and the Wilderness is where the rejected stuff goes—this opposite place where names get written in blood and where Chillingworth is out doing his weird herb stuff.
And I liked (or at least was intrigued by) the way the story kind of moves toward balance: the Brookside as the middle ground, pretty and calm, where Hester ends up finally living without being crushed.
Then at the climax, the speech basically flips things. Dimmesdale, who’s been representing Christian morality and shame, kind of throws that off. He doesn’t stay trapped in guilt anymore and can “show” the letter openly, and Pearl accepts him. So to me it’s like the old spell breaks—Pearl goes from this feral nightmare kid vibe to something more “normal.” Chillingworth also dies off, which feels like the other side of the whole equation ending too. Like Hawthorne’s pushing a mix of dark and light, instead of one side pretending it’s the only truth.
The Transcendentalist Club stuff is why I even started thinking bigger-than-Christian-theology about the whole thing. There are a lot of nature/man-vs-nature themes that kind of match that vibe, and Hawthorne’s wife being connected to that movement seems like it matters.
Also there’s that part where Hawthorne almost romanticizes older pagan festivals in England—sketching out the idea of freer living, not this rigid moral rulebook. That part stuck with me.
As for what the “A” could mean, I’m not fully sure, but my best guesses are “Anathema” or “Apostasy.” Either one would fit with the idea of being cast out/turned away.
If you care about the really specific details, I could probably back all of this up with quotes, but I didn’t want to blow up the page with it. I’m just still processing it because it definitely wasn’t what I expected.
EDIT: I looked it up more—Elizabeth Peabody was in the Transcendentalist Club, and she and Hawthorne were friends. There were rumors they might’ve married, but he ended up marrying her sister Sophia. The link still feels important to me; I just wanted to correct that one detail.
Just like many of you before me, I now have to read The Scarlet Letter in high school. I also have to read The Great Gatsby.
By margin_horse4
I’m not sure—what would you recommend I start with? Any advice?
What does “scarlet letter” mean???
By heronhappy1988
For years I’ve listened to “Love Story” and “New Romantics,” and when that “scarlet letter” line pops up I always just kinda pause like… wait, what does that even mean? Then I move on. But ever since 1989 (TV) came out, I can’t stop thinking about it.
At first I assumed it was some Romeo and Juliet thing, like the whole scarlet letter / punishment vibe. Then I started spiraling and thought it might be more like “she’s a red flag,” especially with the whole crying on the stairs and acting kinda helpless… you know what I mean. After that I even wondered if it was literally just “she’s wearing red” (like, an actual outfit). Please don’t judge me.
Then I heard the “we show off our different scarlet letters” part in “New Romantics,” and none of those ideas really work anymore. So now I’m stuck. Is this like an American reference? Something from pop culture? Or is it just a Taylor Swift inside thing? I have no clue—can someone explain it?