Difficulty Paper

It is tough of me to decide what part of The Scarlet Letter, by Nathanial Hawthorne was difficult for me to understand. I would have to say the language in certain parts was a little challenging but I was able to decipher the meaning. While reading The Scarlet Letter, I did notice that anywhere there was a footnote, I read it to get a better unerstanding of the story. Reading the footnotes gave the story more of a background and was able to understand the story better. When I heard we had to do a difficulty paper on The Scarlet Letter, I thought this book was going to impossible to read, but really it wasn't that bad. I really didn't have a hard time reading it, I had a hard time coming to terms of why these people would do this to this poor woman.
This woman Hester Prynne marries Roger Chillingworth although she did not love him, but I don't know why. Perhaps it was Roger Chillingworth himself. I think the name says it all Roger Chillingworth. The name sounds like this person is cold or cruel. A line from the book suggest this is true, "His twisted, stoop, deformed shoulders mirror his distorted soul". From what I gathered in Roger Chillingworth's earlier years with Hester he was a difficult husband. He ignored her for most of the time, but he expected Hester to shower him with affection when he did finally pay attention to her. Hester has a husband who ignores her for long periods of time, he is away on business trips, Hester is probably lonley and as stated earlier in the book she doesn't love Roger. I would say this is the perfect recipe for an affair. This doesn't surprise me that Hester did have an affair considering the era, but as stated in the book, Hester is a strong-willed and impetuous woman whose parents had to restrain her incautious behavior.
This story takes palce in the 17th century and I can understand why the Puritans would want to punish Hester, she had an affair and she had given birth to a child as a result of the affair and refuses to name her lover's identity. Now that I think about it her punishment of wearing the scarlet A along with the public shaming, it wasn't that bad. It could've been worse such as death and being burned at the steak. I think what really bothered me was the involvment of the baby. Not only was Hester publicly shamed but so was her baby Pearl. Pearl is innocent despite how she came into the world. Pearl is a direct result of her mother's affair, a constant reminder. Pearl is a living replica of her mother's scarlet letter.