Every author has an intended group in mind when they write, and every reader has a unique individual response to what an author has written. Now, I’m sure David Leverenz was not intending to write to a group of sixteen and seventeen-year-old students when he wrote, “Mrs. Hawthorne’s Headache: Reading The Scarlet Letter” However, I am also sure that my response to what he has written would not be what he expected. This reader, writer relationship is one of the first ideas he touches on in his literary criticism, and it is one I understood easily. As I read, I was taken back by how many ideas and concepts I had seemingly missed during my initial reading of The Scarlet Letter. Though I attempted to soak in everything Leverenz discussed, at the
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One thing I didn’t comprehend during my initial reading of The Scarlet Letter was the importance and manipulation of the narrator. “The narrator of The Scarlet Letter skillfully intermingles earnest appeals for sympathy with mocking exposure of rage, distanced as cruelty. His tolerance for human frailty, his addiction to multiple interpretations, and his veiled hints at self disgust deflect his fear that anger destroys a loveable self. In claiming that art should veil self-exposure, he invites both sympathy and self-accusation. He is a Dimmesdale who doesn’t quite know he is a Chillingworth. (Leverenz 465). Leverenz examines the narrator’s ramifications on every piece of the story. He goes back and forth and up and down, every which way of how the narrator's role has an affect on the story. I mentioned earlier that reading this gave me a minor headache as a witticism, but I was being partially serious because this part was so confusing to me. However after reflecting, I realize that the narrator is a mere reflection of Hawthorne, and this idea is presented several other times in the excerpt. “Ostensibly he voices Hawthorne’s controlling moral surface, where oscillations of concern both induce and evade interpretive judgments” (Leverenz 464) Though I didn’t understand this as I read, I am glad that Leverenz brought it to my attention because it led me to a new
One thing I didn’t comprehend during my initial reading of The Scarlet Letter was the importance and manipulation of the narrator. “The narrator of The Scarlet Letter skillfully intermingles earnest appeals for sympathy with mocking exposure of rage, distanced as cruelty. His tolerance for human frailty, his addiction to multiple interpretations, and his veiled hints at self disgust deflect his fear that anger destroys a loveable self. In claiming that art should veil self-exposure, he invites both sympathy and self-accusation. He is a Dimmesdale who doesn’t quite know he is a Chillingworth. (Leverenz 465). Leverenz examines the narrator’s ramifications on every piece of the story. He goes back and forth and up and down, every which way of how the narrator's role has an affect on the story. I mentioned earlier that reading this gave me a minor headache as a witticism, but I was being partially serious because this part was so confusing to me. However after reflecting, I realize that the narrator is a mere reflection of Hawthorne, and this idea is presented several other times in the excerpt. “Ostensibly he voices Hawthorne’s controlling moral surface, where oscillations of concern both induce and evade interpretive judgments” (Leverenz 464) Though I didn’t understand this as I read, I am glad that Leverenz brought it to my attention because it led me to a new