A Review of the First 12 Chapters on The Scarlet Letter

          This week was devoted to studying The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. While I realize it is a key component of any American Literature class, I also discovered that I am not that big a fan of this book. First of all, there is the Custom House chapter. My first reaction to this section was When is this going to end? because it seemed like blocks of pure description for over forty pages.
Re-reading it, I discovered that Hawthorne uses satire to mock his situation and that it is actually pretty funny. The sad part is not that the narrator loses his job, but that this is probably the best part of the whole book.  It has a light-hearted tone that of which is not seen anywhere else in the novel. The next twelve chapters have a gloomy and serious feel, which relates to the events portrayed, but also really depressed me. Not only does the mood dampen the lives of Hester and Dimmesdale, it makes me less enthusiastic to read this book.

          Moreover, the characters are too unrealistic for me. I understand the novel is supposed to be dramatic, but I feel Hester is a little too ready to dedicate her life to proving a point; Dimmesdale gets too obsessed with his sense of guilt (which remains dormant for three years and then flares up like crazy); and Chillingworth is too maniacal about his bizarre 'revenge'.

          The pacing of this book is extremely slow. This has to do with Hawthorne's tendency to tell us about his characters rather than let us infer meaning from their dialogue and actions. Therefore, because so little actually 'happens', this supposed mystery story doesn't have all that much suspense or excitement.

          Also, Hawthorne uses the phrase "the scarlet letter at her breast" at least fifty times. And after the first few repetitions, it isn't even interesting anymore. Rather than emphasize her distinctiveness and ignominy,  it only seems to trivialize the symbol by making it appear  frequent, commonplace, and hopelessly stuck to Hester's character.

          Hopefully the story will pick up a bit in the next half, but I have to say, with exception to the first few chapters, The Scarlet Letter is too dark and sluggish for my liking.