Fri, Jun 5 · 7:30 PM CEST
Dear fellow readers,The Last Wednesday Book Club to Just Another Book Club , and to restart the adultery series, since we have only had one meeting in the series so far.The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne —a classic novel about adultery, social punishment, and moral hypocrisy.One. Did Hester’s silence feel noble, frustrating, protective, self-destructive, or proud to you?Two. Which felt more cruel to you: the community’s punishment of Hester, Dimmesdale’s silence, or Chillingworth’s revenge?Three. By the end, did you feel that Hester had been defeated, transformed, liberated, or absorbed back into the society that punished her?Four. Did you find Pearl moving, annoying, symbolic, frightening, too unreal—or something else entirely?Five. What if Hester had had a son instead of a daughter? What would change?Six. If you had to live inside this novel’s society, would you fear public shame more, or private guilt more?Seven. The novel tells us almost nothing about the affair itself. Did the omission frustrate you, intrigue you, or make the novel stronger? Did you find yourself imagining how the affair happened?
