'Ah, but let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart.'A tale of sin, punishment and atonement, The Scarlet Letter exposes the moral rigidity of a 17th-Century Puritan New England community when faced with the illegitimate child of a young mother. Regarded as the first real heroine of American fiction, it is Hester Prynne's strength of character that resonates with the reader when her harsh sentence is cast. It is in her refusal to reveal the identity of the father in the face of her accusers that Hawthorne champions his heroine and berates the weakness of Society for attacking the innocent.Set in the Puritanical society of Boston in the middle years of the seventeenth century, 'The Scarlet Letter' is the story of Hester Prynne, a married woman who has an affair and gives birth to a daughter. Condemned by society for her adultery, she is forced to wear a scarlet A (for Adulteress) on her dress for the rest of her life. Hester refuses to name her lover; but when her estranged husband appears unexpectedly, after having been captive by Indians, he determines to discover the man's identity. Hester bears her shame with dignity, and attitudes towards her soften as time passes; but her lover is steadily consumed by his guilt, and her husband is destroyed by his determination to discover the lover's identity.Originally published in 1850, 'The Scarlet Letter' is a powerful study of bigotry, persecution, obsession and hypocrisy.Requires internet connection for purchase, plus iPod or other Audible-compatible player or iTunes software on Mac OS X or Windows
Publicat de: HarperCollins Publishers