Decrypting Descriptions in The Scarlet Letter

Currently Reading: A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess 

Before I dive into this long overdue post, I’d like to apologize once again for how long it’s been. I never really imaged that I’d have a procrastination problem with a hobby, but I guess I underestimated my extensive procrastination skills. However, in this case, I believe a large part of the problem stemmed from a lack of inspiration. I wasn’t really moved one way or the other to write about The Scarlet Letter yet I felt obligated to write a post about it before moving on to anything else. But I’ve decided to bite the bullet and just write it!

Secondly, for those who don’t know (i.e. those who don’t write or have writer-friends), November is National Novel Writing Month. In case it isn’t obvious from the title, NaNoWiMo is, according to the all-mighty Wikipedia, “an annual internet-based creative writing project which challenges participants to write 50,000 words of a new novel between November 1 and 30.” Apparently, I’m not the only writer who needs a fire lit under her butt to get work done.

The reason I bring this up is not because I intend to write a novel – if I could come up with a remotely original idea, maybe I would – but because I’d like to use it as an opportunity to similarly motivate myself. Thus do I embark on my own personal project for the month:

Nine New November Novel ‘Ntries 2012.

Believe me, I hate myself for the “ ‘ntries,” but I really wanted to keep up the alliteration. But that’s right! I have been bad and lazy enough! And now I’m setting a very modest goal for myself of completing nine new posts (including this one) by the end of the month beginning today!

Don’t be surprised if I post eight more entries on November 30th…

Anyways, ambition and apologies aside, time to finally share my thoughts about The Scarlet Letter. Here’s hoping they aren’t a let down given the wait.

First, I have to say that this is one of the top novels that I was always stunned I didn’t read in secondary school. It seems like such classic high school reading. After all, pregnancy out of wedlock and forbidden love that’s punished; social groups ostracizing one or two individuals; and an intense message of abstinence all seem like exactly the kind of book high school officials would want in the hands of hormone-crazed teenagers. But apparently not.

Initially, I was relieved I didn’t have to read this book because man! Does Nathaniel Hawthorne enjoy his descriptions! I mean, was it really necessary to describe the “ghosts of bygone meals” (pg. 19) of the patriarch of the Custom-House in such crazy details? Did I need to know about the “tenderloin of beef, hind-quarter of veal, a spare-rib of pork, a particular chicken or a remarkably praiseworthy turkey” (pg. 19)? Or about how “the chief tragic event of [his] life… was his mishap with a certain goose… which, at the table, proved so inveterately tough that the carving-knife would make no impression on its carcass” (pg. 19)? This isn’t even that prominent a character and he gets three solid pages of description, one of which is just about the feasts he has enjoyed! Seriously Hawthorne?? Why??

Don’t get me wrong! I’m all for a well-crafted descriptive paragraph! Sometimes I find they are the best part of the novel – like in Their Eyes Were Watching God. In fact, when people tell me they often skip over the descriptions in books, it bugs me quite a bit. After all, the author deliberately put in those descriptions and I like to believe they serve some purpose beyond allowing the author to self-indulge. The only exception I can come up with for this is Steinbeck. Read The Pearl and try to argue with me that all those descriptions serve a purpose other than putting the reader into a comatose state.

But I massively digress! My point is that the more I read The Scarlet Letter, the more I realized just how telling Hawthorne’s descriptions often are – extensive/excessive as they may be. In particular, I found the passages about Hester Prynne’s daughter, Pearl, the most fascinating. Perhaps this is because Hawthorne seems to develop a theme that has Nature and civilization somewhat at odds with each other and Pearl is the embodiment of the cross-over: a child naturally born from love, but born into a strict society that instantly makes her an outcast. 

Nature is free and untamed as “that wild, heathen… never subjugated by human law, nor illumined by higher truth” (pg. 203), making it both wonderful and dangerous. Meanwhile, Hester's story shows how civilization is the opposite: it is organized and comforting, yet restrictive and miserable. Thus Hawthorne explores one of the most complicated puzzles of humanity: is it better to be dangerously wild, but free in Nature or miserably restricted, but safe in society? 

It’s a fact that humans are social beings and therefore have a biological need to be part of a group. However, humans also need structure and hierarchies once the group reaches a certain size or all will fall into chaos. The latter world of structure and rules is the one in which Hester Prynne and her lover the Reverend Dimmesdale reside, miserable out of the group and miserable within it. However, their daughter Pearl appears to reside more in the former world. Ostracized from the womb, she’s never known what it is to belong and feels “gentler [in the forest] than in the grassy-margined streets of the settlement, or in her mother’s cottage” (pg. 205); she aligns more with Nature. She is repeatedly described as “elfish” (pg. 154), “an airy sprite” (pg. 92), and a “nymph-child” (pg. 205). Yet Hawthorne also depicts her as somewhat devilish in her elfishness. She is both natural and completely unnatural since she is free from society. It makes her somewhat wild and dangerous like the forest, but it interestingly, makes her the happiest of all the characters.

It seems that Pearl embodies the human free from civilization and her mother and father are the humans completely imprisoned by civilization. While the parents seem more noble and admirable characters, the daughter appears much happier. So which is the more desirable situation?

Personally, I’d rather not live in a puritanical society, but it’s hard to say whether Hawthorne agrees.

Thur Aiyes Were Watchin’ Gawd – Dialect Writing: Impressive or Irritating?

Currently Reading: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

First, I feel the need to apologize for my long blog absence. I’m not sure how many people actually care or follow this or whatever, but I’m still sorry. If only because I never intended to have such a long break or to start a blog without writing in it for months. My main excuse involves an insane couple of months! Ordinarily, I would say this in a hyperbolic fashion, but this time, I really mean it. July, August, and September included several family hospital visits, a car accident (and post accident-accident) that caused a massive concussion – making both reading and writing rather impossible – and, happily, landing my dream job at the Folger Shakespeare Library. In all that craziness, my blog sort of got lost.

Also, a side note: I never actually finished An Invisible Man. I have every intention of finishing it, but it turns out that it was a fairly miserable metro book… or perhaps I’ve just lost my ability to read on the metro due to the crazy early hours I’ve been riding it since Jane Eyre is proving challenging as well.

Anyways, I’m back! And given my unanticipated blog sabbatical, I’m rather behind in blogging about the books I’ve read. After the fabulously funny and clever Hitchhiker’s Guide, I took on Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.

Honestly, this is one of those novels that I really wish I had read in a class because I felt I needed guidance. I’ve heard so many good reviews of this novel and I even found it in the summer reading section of the bookstore so clearly it’s widely agreed that it’s a book worth forcing mostly uninterested high school students to read during their breaks. Yet, the whole time I read this book, I found myself stumped as to why that was the popular opinion.

I believe the root of this confusion comes from a literary issue I’ve had for some time:

I don’t understand the concept of using dialect writing.

From my first encounter with the troubling writing style in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, dialect writing has baffled me. As a bit of a stickler for grammar, I find sentences like, “Lawd a’mussy! Mist’ Starks, you ain’t gointuh gimme dat lil tee-ninchy piece fuh me and all mah chillun, is yuh? Lawd, we’se so hungry” (pg. 74) somewhat horrifying. 

Why do authors choose to write grammatically incorrect sentences with misspelled words? Seriously? Every word has to be misspelled? Every word? I always thought that a solid use of grammar and spelling were the cardinal signs of whether or not someone was a good writer...

It’s especially frustrating to find sentences like this following or preceding gorgeously written passages like this one:

“She had been spending every minute that she could steal from her chores under that tree for the last three days. That was to say, ever since the first tiny bloom had opened. It had called her to come and gaze on a mystery. From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom. It stirred her tremendously. How? Why? It was like a flute song forgotten in another existence and remembered again. What? How? Why? This singing she heard that had nothing to do with her ears. The rose of the world was breathing out smell. It followed her through all her waking moments and caressed her in her sleep. It connected itself with other vaguely felt matters that had struck her outside observation and buried themselves in her flesh. Now they emerged and quested about her consciousness.” Pg. 10-11

Gorgeous! Just beautiful imagery! Rich symbolism and a smooth way of turning a phrase! This is the kind of writing I read and want to cry because I know I will never manage to capture such an illusive, complicated feeling so beautifully. So, for me, having this drool-worthy passage abruptly broken by the following piece of dialogue:

“Janie, youse uh ‘oman, now, so – ” (pg. 12)

… is tear provoking in a different way. It’s just so jarring. And it happened again and again throughout the whole novel.

To make matters worse, I found that I would FINALLY get adjusted to the dialogue, which would often go on for pages and pages, and then Hurston would launch into another lovely narrative passage. Without fail, I would lose the knack for reading the dialogue and have to start readjusting all over again. It’s like switching in and out of different languages and the second language is one you haven’t studied in years so you really have to focus when translating.

I want to understand dialect writing, I really do! As an anthropology major, I understand that dialect is closely tied to one’s culture and thus becomes part of one’s identity. So I guess I understand that it’s admirable for authors to make the effort to write true-to-life dialogue. But it doesn't seem like quality writing to me. Does this mean I’m just limited because it’s not my language or culture so I feel no connection to it? Or is it possible that maybe I wouldn’t be so bothered if it weren’t so thorough? Maybe if the syntax was accurate to the dialect, but the spelling wasn’t so constantly misspelled I wouldn’t be as bothered?

Maybe I just need more practice with this foreign language.

What do you think? Do you like dialect writing? Do you find it irritating?