Adultery, betrayal, promiscuity, subterfuge, and intrigue, all of which would make an excellent coming attraction on the Hollywood scene and probably a pretty good book. Add Puritan ideals and writing styles, making it long, drawn out, tedious, wearisome, sleep inducing, insipidly asinine, and the end result is The Scarlet Letter. Despite all these things it is considered a classic and was a statement of the era. The Scarlet Letter is a wonderful and not so traditional example of the good versus evil theme. What makes this a unique instance of good versus evil is that either side could be considered...
had all the elements of a superb book. Unfortunately, Hawthorne found himself a rather large thesaurus and added a bunch of mindless prattle that mellowed out the high points of the book and expanded on the low points. In many chapters all he manages to accomplish is to update the lives of characters, mostly with irrelevant drivel. Also by expanding on the symbolism of the scarlet letter umpteenth times he wears it out so that the reader wants nothing more to do with a dumb "A" on some woman"s chest hundreds of years ago. Other than that, great book.