Anna

It was interesting to see the relationship between Chillingworth and Dimmesdale. They seem to even each other out with their offerings. Dimmesdale is able to offer spirituality, while Chillingworth can offer knowledge; they both have so much to give but neither of them are able to help one another. Chillingworth continuously chooses to play mind games with Dimmesdale. I can tell that Dimmesdale is becoming quiet suspicious of Chillingworth, and has a feeling that both
Pearl and Hester know something about Chillingworth that he does not. Even though Hester has sworn to secrecy I feel that she will tell Dimmesdale out of sympathy.

I knew that Pearls constant questioning of what the letter meant was going to be thrown into Hesters face for not telling her. Although I do understand that Pearl was too young to understand, she should have been given some sort of explanation so she would not be forced to assume things, and believe what she heardSince my last entry I have found that Hester has changed a large amount in the book. She was now just a part of society, no longer her own individual. She is no longer tender, affectionate, and passionate woman. And now she is more critical of Pearl, and how she has to be a woman in her society. She’s also become more critical of herself with what she is doing to Dimmesdale by not telling him. This led to Hester telling Chillingworth that they must tell Dimmesdale, because it was unfair to him. Hester didn’t realize that she was just hurting Dimmesdale, because now Chillingworth knows that Dimmesdale is the man in Hester’s affair. This causes Chillingworth to realize the horrible person that he has now become, but that his revenge is fate. “Let the black flower blossom as it may!” So far the book is becoming more interesting as I continue to read, and I’m excited to read the rest of the book and see how everything turns out.

The beginning of the book went pretty slowly, and contained very little action. This was necessary to set the scene and introduce the scarlet letter “A,” which qualified Hester as and adulterer. Within the first couple of chapters I was able to recognize that the puritans saw sin, evil, and death as something that couldn’t be avoided. “it were wronging the very nature of woman to force her to lay open her heart’s secrets in such broad daylight, and in presence of so great a multitude.” Dimmesdale argued this when referring to rape. The way Hester had been abused and stripped of her humanity to serve the community truly upsets me. I can not believe that it was allowed for women to be treated in such a way. I was later surprised that Chillingworth was able to take part of the blame for what his wife was going through. I thought he had been disgraced with Hester for her betrayal. This made me think more highly of Hester, because I felt that he was somewhat arrogant and single-minded.

I’ve really enjoyed getting to know the main character of this book Hester. I feel as if I know her, and can understand what she is feeling. For example, I was able to interpret why Hester has chosen to stay in Boston even though she has the freedom to leave.
New England was the scene of the crime; so it should also be the scene of her punishment. The author allows me to understand that the things Hester had gone through meant to much for her to just walk away. Along with feeling stuck in Boston, because that is where Pearl’s father, Dimmesdale, is bound to. Dimmesdale saved Pearl,  when he said that Pearl was god’s gift to Hester, and her presence should be interpreted because no one has the knowledge of god’s intentions.  Without Dimmesdale Hester would have been forced to reconsider her life, or her own daughter’s life. She would have had to answer the question, which life was more shameful? So far I have really enjoyed reading about the characters in this book, and cannot wait to read more!

My group and I have made a fair amount of Progress. The first thing my group and I did was choose our roles for the Act, I’m Murderer #3, we than read through the play in our parts to become familiar with what we were going to be acting as. We than accomplished who was going to do what parts in our final product of our Presentation of the Act. Such as I’m doing the music, picking out atleast 3 songs and why there are signifigant to our Act. We than began staging out the Act. We all read through our parts while Julia and Anthony, who are in charge of stage directions etc., told us where to stand or how our face expressions should be, as well as our voice tones etc. After we finished about a scene of the staging class ended, and next class we plan to be able to run through each scene with all of the staging included after we finish teh rest of teh staging with the other two scenes.

I decided to read The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I chose this book becuase the topic stood out to me. I like that it is about a Puritan woman becuase, being a girl, I am able to relate. I also thought it would be interesting to learn about the unfair punishments that woman puritans had to go through during this time for committing an act, rather than what male puritans would have to go through if they were to committ the same act. I’ve never read another book about this topic, except for what we have learned about it in American History. What we have learned in American History about the Puritans was very interesting to me, and some things were very strange in my opinion. And i am interested to learn more about the Puritans through this book.