The Scarlet Letter
A woman branded for adultery in Puritan Boston refuses to name her lover, and outlasts her accusers.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 novel of Puritan Boston. Hester Prynne is forced to wear a scarlet letter A after bearing a child out of wedlock, and she refuses to name the father. As she raises her daughter Pearl on the edge of the community, her husband returns in disguise to take revenge on the guilty minister. This is a Wordsworth Classics edition.
Recommended by 1 Person
Carol Gilligan
When I reread The Scarlet Letter in the midst of my research with girls and women, I discovered a far more radical book. I hadn’t noticed that the word “patriarchy” runs through the novel – “patriarchal personage”, “patriarchal privilege”, “patriarchal deacon”, along with a scathing depiction of patriarchs in the opening chapter.
Interview · November 2012
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