What is it about these American Romantics...no one ever tells you how funny they are. I laughed my way through pages of Moby Dick, and here I am now, howling, tears running down my face, as I read Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. Maybe I've gone bananas, but I think his descriptions of Puritan children are hilarious. The kids won't play with Pearl, Hester Prynne's child, because of her illegitimacy, but Pearl is looking pretty good compared to these "sombre little urchins" (Hawthorne's words, not mine):
"[Pearl] saw the children of the settlement, on the grassy margin of the street, or at the domestic thresholds, disporting themselves in such grim fashion as the Puritanic nurture would permit; playing at going to church, perchance; or at scourging Quakers; or taking scalps in a sham-fight with the Indians; or scaring one another with freaks of imitative witchcraft."
Later, when Hester and Pearl pass the urchins, the urchins take note:
"Behold, verily, there is the woman of the scarlet letter; and, of a truth, moreover, there is the likeness of the scarlet letter running along by her side! Come, therefore, and let us fling mud at them!"
Comic genius, that Hawthorne. My days of complaining about teaching this novel are over.
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3 comments:
he totally was a comic genius. and oh all the American romantics ARE the weirdest, most awesome ever. I can't get enough.
so glad that you've come around to it. the ladies of the period (and a bit earlier) are really funny too. check out tabitha tenney: http://books.google.com/books?id=HzxAAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=female+quixotism&source=bl&ots=clXeaqoVn8&sig=n2xn29YL8z441EqGv7Fd2UhEWZQ&hl=en&ei=VljcTJXrBIq6sQOnj6HlAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
I laugh out loud reading that part about "let us throw mud at them" to my class...every year. I love teaching that book. Some of our best discussions all year.
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