Difficulty Paper #1

One aspect of The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, that I found difficult was the language. This seems to be a very common problem students have with this book.  The language is so difficult for me because the sentences are very detailed and long. Also, I am not accustomed to reading or hearing certain words or phrases. For example, one page seventy nine of the text, Hester says “make my excuse to him, so please you!” In today’s language, we would just say “Tell him my excuse please!” Also, I have run into many words that I just do not know. On page thirty seven, in chapter two, I am not familiar with the words physiognomies and augured. Not knowing many of the words in the text makes reading the language even harder because not only am I unfamiliar with the sentence structures, but I also have to keep looking words up in the dictionary so that I can understand what is going on.  Then after I know what the word means I have to go back and reread the sentence.

One device that helps me to better understand the language is the footnotes. The footnotes better explain certain pieces of the text that are specific to the time period of the text, or that are uncommon history. One example of this is the reference to Ann Hutchinson, also on page thirty seven. The text briefly mentions her, and as a 21^st century reader, one might be unsure of who she was or why she is mentioned, but then the footnote gives information to explain why Ann Hutchinson might be important, and why she is mentioned, or who she is so that one can understand why she was mentioned.

Another helpful technique for understanding the text is to simply reread over parts that are confusing. By rereading I can understand the meaning because I get a clearer idea of what is going on from re-enforcing the parts that I do understand and then working through the more difficult pieces of the sentence.  I used this technique on a particular passage in the book where Mr. Dimmesdale is speaking to Roger Chillingworth about confession and sins. Mr. Dimmesdale says, “Nor have I so read or interpreted Holy Writ, as to understand that the disclosure of human thought and deeds, then to be made, is intended as a part of the retribution… the hearts holding such miserable secrets as you speak of will yield them up, at that last day, not with reluctance but with a joy unutterable (88).” First of all, I had to look up the definition of writ, which I found to be “a formal document” (according to dictionary.com), so I inferred a “Holy Writ” is something the bible says. Then I reread each sentence and thought about them individually then in accordance with each other until I could understand what Mr. Dimmesdale was saying. Re-reading difficult language makes the meaning easier to understand because you are making yourself familiar with the language, which helps to decode the meaning.