My take on The Scarlet Letter (IR)

So, for my Independent reading book, I have decided to take a look at a classic written way back when about an adulteress in a religious town. I am of course talking about The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The story is about a woman, Hester Prynne, who is an adulteress and bore an illegitimate child. Because she lives in a Puritan Community, she is shunned and is made as an outcast by the whole town.

Now, I have some mixed feelings about the novel. So far the story is somewhat easy to follow as we explore how Hester deals with her life now that she is shunned by everyone, even her husband. You really sympathize with her as she is trying to make amends with the people in the town with her embroideries, but everyone pushes her away because of her actions. However, one thing that has got me on the side of disliking it is the first chapter. It is over thirty pages long and is completely pointless. Everyone in my book group even told me that it was completely pointless and that I should skip it. Any book that can drone on for thirty pages and not have a point is definitely pushing the boundaries for decent material. I even looked online to see what it was about and it said that was mainly about a door and the prison. Regardless of what kind of symbolism or message was trying to shown, thirty pages is a bit much.

But other than that the story is actually quite interesting as well as the characters. Pearl seems to be a driving force for Hester, causing her to go threw scorn and punishment in order to support her. Also, I completely hate her husband Chillingworth. He is willing to let his wife and half child suffer just so his reputation isn't hurt at all. I realize that back then this was acceptable as a reputation was everything but still, what a complete jerk.

Overall, all my complaints on the book are minor (at least so far) and its an interesting read. I don't think that I would recommend it to anyone, but if you read it, you might enjoy yourself.

Jazzy Poetry (PR)

As someone who was never super interested in poetry, it was very hard to try and find a poem to analyze that I would like. Luckily however, I found this very interesting and somewhat musical poem while searching. The poem is called "Funeral Blues" by W.H. Auden.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. 

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message “He is Dead”.

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. 

He was my North, my South, my East and West, 

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong. 

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, 

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;

For nothing now can ever come to any good. 

The first thing that grabbed by attention when reading this poem was the flow. I normally read poems as they are with a slight beat in mind. However, when I was reading this, it felt like it was almost a song. It has a weird vibe to it that made me think of a dark song or even a poetry session at a coffee shop, with a bongo playing with some smooth jazz.

The vibe aside, the poem is also wonderfully written. As many of you can tell from the first stanza, this is not a happy poem. However, what I really like about it is all of the depression and anger. Rather than read it as someone who is solely in mourning for a guy but rather with someone who is just angry at the world. I personally like the final stanza, where you can almost feel the anger from the woman and hear her yelling at you to give up all hope. She is clearly angry and believes that there is no happiness left in the world, as many people do after the death of a loved one. The imagery ignited in this poem is also nice and fits the mood. I can almost see the planes circling overhead and the policemen wearing  black gloves as a way of mourning.

Overall, this poem is very interesting and it incites some great emotions. While I am still not super excited for poetry, I do enjoy when I find very unique poems that just sound and feel amazing and this one is no exception. I highly recommend that you "poetry buffs" take a hard look at this poem because of all the emotion it pours out and the nice, jazzy feeling you get when you read it.