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    The Scarlet Letter
    The Scarlet Letter
    The Scarlet Letter
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Scarlet Letter

    Written by Nathaniel Hawthorne

    Narrated by Annie Wauters

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not to tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers -- stern and wild ones -- and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss. -- Nathaniel Hawthorne


    As she emerges from the prison of a Puritan New England town, Hester Prynne defies the dark gloom much as the rose blooms against the prison door. With her illegitimate baby, Pearl, clutched in her arms and the letter A -- the mark of an adulteress -- embroidered in scarlet thread on her breast, Hester holds her head high as she faces the malice and scorn of the townsfolk. Her powerful, bittersweet story is an American classic that continues to touch the hearts of modern readers with its timeless themes of guilt, passion and repentance.


    Nathaniel Hawthorne was a novelist and short story writer, a central figure in the American Renaissance. Nathaniel Hawthorne's best-known works include The Scarlet Letter (1850) and The House of Seven Gables (1851). Like Edgar Allan Poe, Hawthorne took a dark view of human nature.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSpotify Audiobooks
    Release dateJan 1, 1981
    ISBN9781467610520
    Author

    Nathaniel Hawthorne

    Nathaniel Hawthorne was born is Salem, Massachusetts in 1804. His father died when he was four years old. His first novel, Fanshawe, was published anonymously at his own expense in 1828. He later disowned the novel and burned the remaining copies. For the next twenty years he made his living as a writer of tales and children's stories. He assured his reputation with the publication of The Scarlet Letter in 1850 and The House of the Seven Gables the following year. In 1853 he was appointed consul in Liverpool, England, where he lived for four years. He died in 1864.

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    Reviews for The Scarlet Letter

    3.5/5

    195 ratings119 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This is one of the best books I "had" to read in high school. I think it had something to do with teaching me how wrong it is to judge others.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 1/5
      No fan of this classic. I get why it's considered a masterpiece, but it also seems to me as if the biggest fans judge from a position where the moral of a story is more important than the story itself.Over the course of this novel, we sadly get to know nothing of the inner workings and conditions of the characters, nothing but what the few, very reduced and stilted lines of dialogue reveal of which each additionally gets commented on by the narrator. This narrator is so far detached from the events and the persons who were involved that the whole thing reads like a historical report, with the additional effect that the characters have no nuances or real personalities. Everyone, men and women alike (though apart from Hester, women don't play any important part anyway) are Puritans and nothing else - only concerned with their soul's salvation, their morals and most of all the morals of others, with nothing distinguishing them from each other or giving them individuality. Hester herself is obviously different, but even with her we get to know nothing about her motivations and development, the reasons why she acts like she acts. The only character who breaks the mould is Pearl, and only because she's consistently described as different and weird.These shortcomings are actually a real pity, because I really liked the story itself, as a thought experiment and insight into a society that is . The theme of shame, stigma and the way how a society is held together by common morals give the frame for a tale that is, with the view of a modern reader, unbelievably full of bigotry, mercilessness, sexism, self-pity and factitiousness. Unfortunately, the way Hawthorne handles it, it's more like a sermon to be preached from a pulpit than a story to be told at a campfire. Cautionary and lecturing instead of entertaining, and no effort was made to combine both.On the topic of style, I guess Hawthorne really loved to hear himself talk. The introductory "Custom House" sketch took 1,5 hours in the audio version and nearly caused a dnf tag. There was no substance, nothing with any tangible insight, just rambling and digressing and going off on tangents that ultimately went nowhere, preferrably in run-on sentences that put half a dozen ideas into a single paragraph.Yes, I know, it's the style of the time and I can't expect modern efficiency in storytelling in a novel from 1850. Actually, I don't even want to. And still, it's so far over the top that it becomes tedious very fast. Pride and Prejudice is from 1813, and stylistically it's so much more varied and interesting, with real dialogue where not every line gets a comment and real characters the reader can understand and relate to.
    • 5/5
      Loved this book even as I agonized over the fate of our protagonist.
    • 4/5
      While I enjoyed reading Hawthorne's commentary on the corrupt and illogical behavior of Puritan Americans, I thoroughly disliked his syntax. It was a laborious task to read a page. Once again, I agree with all his themes. I just wish he had written it better.
    • 2/5
      I somehow managed to avoid being assigned The Scarlet Letter in high school, but since it is such a well-known text (and frequently cited as one of the most important works of early American literature) I decided that I should give it a read.

      My problems with the book started early with the unnecessarily long establishment of a frame narrative. Hawthorne uses the first forty pages of the book largely to discuss life as an employee in a Customs house, something which has no discernible connection to the main story (if there had been such a connection, I'm sure Hawthorne would have pointed it out). There's nothing wrong with a frame narrative, but the same effect could have been accomplished in a tenth the number of pages. This problem reoccurs throughout the text.

      The next issue I had manifested immediately after the main story proper starts, when it is revealed that Hawthorne has decided to begin the narrative after the most interesting events have already occurred. Hawthorne paints as best he can a picture of a Puritanical society where religion comes first, and a main character who is supposed to be no pushover. Depicting how a woman like Hester deals with the feelings that she develops for her minister in such a world is potentially fascinating, and provides a way of showing the conflict between personal and societal values, but instead whatever occurred in Hester's mind that led her to the most central (albeit undepicted) event of the narrative is never disclosed.

      Instead of an interesting character study we get an opening that offers a quick glimpse of the scorn the people of Boston heap onto sinners, which would also have been an interesting path for the narrative to take- the suffering inflicted upon a woman by others in service of a faith that emphasizes love and forgiveness- but the story quickly jumps forward in Hester's life to a point where the village has largely grown to accept her because of her pious actions (and it is even stated that her ostensible ignominy has led to her skills with a needle being more highly sought after).

      The story's opening also introduces Hester's husband, a character who paradoxically is perfectly forgiving of Hester for cheating on him but who then devolves into a mustache-twirling villain for the rest of the text. His evil plan mainly seems to center around giving his target, the minister, very effective medical care mixed with subtle suggestions that the minister isn't a great person- bwa ha ha ha! The husband also represents a wasted narrative opportunity, as instead of exploring the way the husband uncovers who has cuckolded him, the story just chalks it up to the husband being insightful.

      There are other problems with the story telling- Pearl is not in any way a realistic or interesting child character, the minister suddenly turns evil for a few pages for no sufficiently good reason, etc.- but the most central flaw of The Scarlet Letter is that Hester, who should be a dynamic female character, is instead relegated to a largely passive figure who goes about suffering her punishment with a stiff upper lip and swallowing the pain caused by everyone, including her child. One wonders how Hester ever had the nerve to engage in a relationship with her minister when it takes her seven years to even tell said minister that the man living with him and feeding him mysterious mixtures is her husband out for revenge. In a story ostensibly about her, Hester is flat and boring, occasionally blaming herself for her lot and otherwise not doing much besides serving as a quiet, suffering martyr, though there is an incongruous line about her feeling jealousy.

      All of this is exacerbated by Hawthorne's prose, which is overwritten without painting much imagery or communicating anything with subtlety. I found little beauty in the language, even when the subject was rosebushes, a dell in the woods where a young girl plays in a stream, or the various costumes of the sailors and soldiers assembled in the town square. The latter example highlights how Hawthorne's book would have been better with some serious cuts: he describes at length the various groups attending the Election Day gathering despite the fact that he doesn't do it in an interesting manner and it is of no import for the story. At times my eyes glazed over reading this book, and it quickly became a struggle to force myself to go back and actually read the words, as the odds that I had missed anything important seemed slim.

      In sum The Scarlet Letter squanders the parts of its narrative that were potentially interesting, contains characters that are either boring, unrealistic, or nonsensical, and all this is communicated through some truly sub-par writing. My heart goes out to all the high school students who are being forced to read this, and to those who have to teach it as well.
    • 3/5
      It's a great historical reconstruction of the Puritan world in early New England, apart from its literary qualities which are also plenty. However, its fame owes a lot to the strong cultural lobby the ever powerful America carries over the world - for the same period there are hundreds of far more important and interesting authors in Europe.
      If high schoolers and obviously, American literature graduates, will be forcefed it, nineteenth century literature is maybe the quintessential era of writing.
    • 5/5
      This was a re-read for me as I read this when I was in high school. I think I enjoyed it even more the second time around. Although a little outdated for today's teenagers, the book is a good look at what it was like living in the 1600's and having to adhere to their moral codes. It is a deeply emotional book with lots of symbolism and does show that bad decisions do have consequences. I do highly recommend the book as it is one story that is very hard to forget.
    • 5/5
      I read this book in high school. I should probably read more of N.H.'s books. This is a captivating read and rings so true even today.
      Great book!
    • 3/5
      THE SCARLET LETTER is a classic tale about Hester Prynne, a woman sentenced to wear a red letter A on her clothes for committing the sin of adultery. The novel opens with Hester, standing upon the scaffold with her infant daughter in hand, receiving her sentence in front of the entire town. The crowd is full of town gossips who believe Hester should be met with punishment far more severe, such as torture and even death. Hester refuses to lay the blame for her adulterous actions on anyone aside from herself, as she denies the town an answer of who is the father of her child. Immediately Hester is in turmoil, not just from the never-ending stares at her marking, but because of an evil man who knows her secret. As this man is a stranger to her town, Hester is ordered to keep his true identity a secret for fear that he will reveal the identity of her lover to the town, bringing more shame upon her. Hester vows to live a life of solitude, keeping her garment and outward appearance bland and serving the town as a seamstress. Little Pearl, the child created by this adultery, is an odd being who keeps her month on her toes and remains the one ray of sunshine in her life through this dark time. Slowly, as the years flash by, Hester begins to take claim of her situation and move past the feelings of embarrassment associated with her scarlet brand, only to have her world brought back down to reality in one final dramatic sequence of events. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s writing style in one of poetry throughout THE SCARLET LETTER, with long flowing paragraphs describing scenes, people, and situations. While some may be drawn to this style of writing, I was left feeling bored and as if the book drew on too long. As a reader of largely thrillers and crime fiction, which are known for typically being fast paced, I struggled with holding my attention to reading this book. In addition, the overarching Christian and religious themes were something I am not interested in. I understand that at the time these ideas were of a main focus for audience that Hawthorne intended this book to reach. While I struggled a bit with the theme, I did find myself cheering for Hawthorne’s more liberal take, indicating throughout that while he did find Hester’s act of adultery to be a sin, he did not agree with the extreme measures the town cheered for or even the wearing of the scarlet letter A. Despite my own personal issues and stylistic preferences, I found Hawthorne’s novel to be engaging and a plot that provided both romance and despair. It is clear why THE SCARLET LETTER remains a classic throughout this time period.
    • 4/5
      A compelling story of Puritanistic values, a judgmental community, and a heroine who gains the reader's sympathy and respect as an outcast in a society where she shines in the face of adversity.
    • 3/5
      I feel like the best way to understand another time and place, one that may be so foreign to us now, is through storytelling, through novels. Instantly I am transported somewhere else to observe a world so far removed from my own. It can be frustrating - a lot of the time I wanted to shake various characters for their small mindedness, but then I had to remind myself that this world is all that they know, like mine is all I know. What is acceptable, or maybe frowned upon but not punished in the same way, today was a crime back then. The Scarlet Letter is a fascinating look into a world where God's word was Law, but what happens when you go against it?  
    • 4/5
      It is always a bit disturbing reading books like this one that remind one of just how easy it could be for our modern, somewhat enlightened society to devolve into the brutish, closed-minded world our ancestors knew.
    • 4/5
      Frustrating story, but worth the read. Frustrating from a "why don't you just tell them!" standpoint.
    • 3/5
      I am glad I was not forced to read this book in HS! I liked the book, but I don't think I would have liked it in HS.
    • 4/5
      Although the book is dated of course, I found it quite impressive. It certainly is worth reading, to get to know a world of which one hardly can believe it ever existed.
    • 2/5
      Summary: The harsh puritan world of the 17th century introduces us to Hester Prynne a woman who commits adultery and must wear the scarlet letter A to set her apart while her cowardly lover and her vengeful husband are the ones who truly are marked.
    • 2/5
      This book, for me, is the perfect example of why teenagers may feel let down with reading habits in high-school. For a mandatory book, this is probably one of the most boring books I have ever read. It seemed to have every single characteristic of the grammar that the teacher always told me to AVOID. And yet, they make us read it in school. So... besides having to bear the annoying writing style, I am expected to actually understand what is the big lesson behind this tedious story? Then what, am I supposed to juggle eleven rubber balls while singing "O Sole Mio" meanwhile?
      Anything can be deduced from this book, from a deep, angst story of a forbidden love to a critique of the society as it labels its sinful denizens (like what happens in many other books, by the way), so I don't understand why The Scarlet Letter in special is in the list of the "1001 Books to Read Before You Die". With so many books that are good in giving moral lessons and entertaining at the same time, I don't see anything special in this one.

      I may look a bit revolted in this "review", but all these words of despise do have a reason: the book's writing style. The way the narrative flows (or does not flow, in this case) drags you back the whole time. Hawthorne changes the focus of his sentences so many times that by the time you get to the point, you already forgot what he was talking about. It's like being hungry, being about to take a bite on a sandwich and being interrupted in every single attempt to do it. By the time you actually manage to eat the goddamned sandwich, you're no longer hungry because it is cold and the mayonnaise became icky and liquid and the lettuce is dry.

      I gave it two stars rather than one because, somewhere in the book, there actually is a beautiful story of a forbidden love and the child that comes from it is, in a way, the material representation of the resentment of both parties. Still, at a certain part of the book, I didn't even know what the hell I was reading.
    • 3/5
      I'll admit that this book was too hard for me in 11th grade. I used it mostly to learn about 50 vocabulary words, but after reading the Cliff's Notes, I actually loved the story and wish I could have comprehended it on my own.
    • 2/5
      I always wondered why I didn't read this school in high school because it is a classic, but I am so thankful that we didn't. I had the hardest time getting interested in The Scarlet Letter. I was bored with it from the start and was rushing through it. The few parts I did end up liking were good while they lasted but there wasn't many of them. The overall plot is pretty good but the writing and the details about things that hold zero significance in the story ruined the plot. I was really confused with the characters in the beginning so I do believe that the drama between the reverend and the doctor seemed random when it wasn't but I didn't realize it until later. I am glad to be done with this book, I sort of liked the plot but I will never reread this.
    • 5/5
      A classic tale. Hester Prynne, accused by her community for adultery. Bearing a child, is a pariah of her community.

      I really don't know if there is much I can add to this story that hasn't already been said about it. It is a must read. It should be on everyone's bookshelf. What amazes me most about this book is that even back then Nathaniel Hawthorne showed the injustic of the double standard. Where women are treated as the chattel they were and men literary got away with murder when it comes to women. I also love the fact how the author points out that some men are just scum above and beyond how they treat women.

      This book is and will always be a classic for me. It is one of my favorites. I highly recommend it to be on everyone's bookshelf!
    • 4/5
      After a very slow beginning, I really enjoyed this novel. There is a lot to it beyond the surface, but I can see why so many teens don't care for it.
    • 3/5
      Most people of todays time don't seem to be able to really get this book. It is written for the time of old when women were homemakers and men ruled all. If things were a sin it was likely a womans fault and everything that happened that wasn't typical was considered either a sign from God or the devils work. So, here we have a story of a very naughty girl who got pregnant out of wedlock. So, by custom she was inprisoned and judged because of her sin. This is where the story begins. She keeps her mouth shut about who helped create this heathen child with her, which shows her own character. Then the story goes through the details of what becomes of her life. The town gossips have their hayday and later in the book people from out of town come to town just to see the girl with the scarlet letter. You see how many people treat her because she chose to not move away but to stay and face her persecutors head on. The whole time she also has to keep seeing her thought to be dead husband who is imitating someone else. All the while she faces many more trials and triumphs them all. She almost gets to run away with her love who fathered her child but circumstances keep that from happening. However slightly sad the ending is, it also ties up many loose ends. Overall, even with some rather drawn out details it is written amazingly well and a great read for anyone.
    • 3/5
      I felt the need to rate this at least 3 stars simply because the writing was so good. In fact, the only reason I finished it was because I loved the use of creative language. But I just don't have the attention span for these classic books! Please never make me read another one! Except maybe I'll re-read Pride and Prejudice again sometime. And maybe Jane Eyre. Maybe.
    • 3/5
      The language was a little bit difficult to me. The story is interesting and I enjoyed some descriptions but, I found the reflexions about sin, guilt, remorse... and puritan moral in general, too long and sometimes boring.
    • 4/5
      Fascination story of punishment and the different ways that people can deal with it.
    • 1/5
      The characters in The Scarlet Letter raise as much sympathy in me as do characters in a badly- filmed and overdramatic soap opera. Dimmesdale, the "hero" of the piece, is a spineless worm that deserves to be squashed. It is impossible to imagine this cringing, crawling invertebrate ever playing the part of a passionate lover. Chillingworth, the villain of the piece, has about as much depth and creativity as his name. He could have been an interestingly twisted character, but is instead reduced to a plot device to keep the action going. He has about as much depth as a villain in a silent movie who laughs maniacally and twirls his mustache as he ties the heroine to a railroad track--not that he would need to actually tie down Hester, the heroine. If told to stand on the racetrack, she would probably do it. The "humble narrator" (yes, he calls himself this) idolizes Hester for her return to domesticity, self-flagelation, and protection of the man who should at least share her punishment. Yet she then flips implausibly back and forth from meek and apologetic to fiery and passionate. Hawthorne has no excuse for such poor writing. Other authors of the time, such as Jane Austen, write with sparkle and interest, with tangibly lifelike characters. Hawthorne’s book is at the same level of flamboyantly unreal drama as Alcott’s The Inheritance or The Long, Fatal Love Chase.
    • 3/5
      I know it's a "classic", but I thought it was only average.
    • 3/5
      Somehow I'd never read this book in school, and recently picked it up. I was surprised at the sophistication of the characters' psychology.
    • 4/5
      The story is slow and, honestly, nothing too exciting happens. The development is minimal. But I suppose I'm the odd man out, because I like The Scarlet Letter very much. It is wordy, chapters are sometimes long and uninvolving, there is a lot of symbolism, many details of emotions and thoughts are explored and sometimes you have to really concentrate to understand the full meaning. Through all this, a fascinating story is told. FYI In other books, Hawthorne was a very boring and wordy author who spent an entire chapter obsessing over a rose bush, for instance. An author too flowery and purple for me to truly enjoy.
    • 4/5
      A really good story. Of course reading a classic is also like reading a different language. I struggled at times but got the gist of what they were saying (or Hawthorne's passages). It was helpful to read the introduction section by Nancy Stade.