A huge red "A" is usually a good thing in the life of a high schooler, unless it means you're reading The Scarlet Letter, in which case, we're sorry.
So sorry, in fact, that we've got SparkNotes writer Ramsey to blog the book for you. This is the second installment of of our Scarlet Letter series. Here's a link to the first, in case you missed it!
Previously on Blogging the Scarlet Letter: Nathaniel Hawthorne finds some papers. A prison door is described in great detail. The entire town stares at Hester Prynne on a platform (she's an adulterer and Puritans hate stuff like that).
Tonight. In an all-new chapter of The Scarlet Letter:
Chapter Three - The Recognition
Hawthorne doesn't tell us how much time has passed since Chapter Two ended, but as we start Three, Hester is still standing on the platform in front of the town of Salem. The most likely answer is that this chapter picks up immediately, but I like to pretend that a few hours have gone by of the townspeople waiting for something to happen as Hester continues being embarrassed and occasionally asking for a chair.
Suddenly Hester's attention shifts to a man in the back of the crowd and his Native American guide. It's clear that they recognize each other, but the man puts a finger to his lips as if to say "don't you dare reveal that I am your husband, Roger Chillingworth. I'm not even going to reveal that to the reader for another chapter." Trying to play it cool, Roger asks a man in the crowd who the woman on the platform is. This random townsperson, it turns out, is exactly the right person to ask, because he knows everything about the main characters in this book!
Here's what we learn:
Hester used to live in Amsterdam with her husband, a "learned Englishman" who sent her to America. The plan was for her husband to come over once he had settled everything overseas, but he never showed up. Chillingworth, who obviously already knows all this, says that if her husband was such a learned man he should've known that his wife would get lonely. So at least he has a sense of humor about the whole "wife having a baby in a foreign country thing."
Chillingworth then asks the know-it-all who the father of the baby is and why he isn't up there with her. It turns out that Hester refuses to say whom the father is despite the fact that it's probably killing the whole town to know. The people of Salem work so hard to keep everybody from sinning and now they have this awesome soap opera in front of them and this Hester Prynne lady refuses to give them an ending. Oh, well. Let's make her wear the letter A on her chest forever.
Suddenly, a voice calls out and we are introduced to the town fathers who have picked the punishment for Hester: Governor Bellingham, Reverend Wilson, and Reverend Dimmesdale (they just don't make last names like they used to). Dimmesdale, a shy young minister, steps forward and asks Hester one last time to reveal who the father of her child is. She refuses. Hawthorne then says that to the crowd it seems the scarlet letter A on her chest starts to glow and burn.
Hang on, Hawthorne. You're waiting until Chapter Three to tell us that this is a magic Scarlet Letter. If I had known that Hester was going to get super powers from this, don't you think you should have called the book The Magic Scarlet Letter or The Super Adulterer? I mean, seriously, I would have...hang on, I'm getting an email from my eleventh grade English teacher...
Oh. The burning is symbolic. Nevermind.
Chapter Four - The Interview
Hester and her baby are sitting in jail, and neither one of them are responding to their placement very well, so a doctor is called in. Would you like to guess what doctor they call in? I'll give you a hint: it is someone that Hester Prynne was once married to and was introduced in the last chapter.
Before I go forward, I want to touch briefly on one thing. We've already seen that this town has some unusual last names: Dimmesdale, Prynne, Bellingham. However, if there's more than one doctor in Salem, I think I'm going to pick the one that's not named "Chillingworth." He's either going to be the most humorless, insensitive doctor you've ever met or he's famous for having the coldest medical instruments this side of Boston. Maybe the other doctor in Salem is named Dr. Killallmypatients.
So Dr. ScaryHusband shows up, and suddenly Hester is feeling a lot better. He gives her some medicine for her and her baby, and she's hesitant because she's afraid he's going to try and kill her child for revenge. Chillingworth tells her that he's going to get his revenge by letting her live in her own embarrassment.
The husband and wife talk about their relationship and what went wrong, and it basically ends with Chillingworth blaming himself for thinking that a deformed nerd like himself could keep a young woman like Hester happy. Dr. Phil would tell him that he's giving in to self-pity and he needs to start trying to fix what's inside, not those around him. Then the audience would applaud and I would change the channel.
Chillingworth makes Hester promise that she won't reveal who he really is, and she agrees to keep his secret. He then gives her a very creepy smile that makes her say that she thinks he's the devil who has come to steal her soul. The charming man tells her that he's not interested in her soul; he's going to find out who her baby's father is and get his revenge that way. Then he kills a puppy just so we're absolutely certain that he's a bad guy.
Is Chillingsworth a big, dumb jerk, or do you kinda get where he's coming from?
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