THE SCARLET LETTER (UNABRIDGED CLASSICS)

Description

“She had not known the
weight until she felt the freedom. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s masterpiece, The
Scarlet Letter, set in 17th-century Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony, is the
tale of Hester Prynne’s ‘shame’ following the birth of a child whose father
remains unidentified for the larger part of the narrative. Hester’s defiance
in the face of expulsion and repudiation makes her a heroine ahead of her
time. Pearl, the illegitimate daughter, Arthur Dimmesdale, the ‘cheating’
Minister of Church, Reverend John Wilson, and the malicious Roger
Chillingworth are Hawthorne’s characters whose lives, premised on guilt and
pride, take a tumultuous turn as the cataclysmic outcome of an act of
passion. The embroidered scarlet ‘A’—that she is required to wear on her
dress on the day of her punishment— becomes a manifestation of Hester’s
‘adultery’, her erratic past and ignominious present. Will she break her vow
of silence?”