General literature question

[srowley75]

Did anyone make it through high school without having been assigned to read The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne for English class?

-Stephen

EDIT: Please pardon my momentary lapse of insularity - I keep forgetting that this list is open to our friends around the globe and not just those in English-speaking countries. If you are from a non-English-speaking country and read the novel, however, I would like to hear from you.

[ChiO]

Did anyone make it through high school without having been assigned to read The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne for English class?

Yes. Unfortunately, it was forced upon me -- along with Billy Budd -- in a college Early American Literature class. To quote the Professor: They were called Puritans. P-u-r-i-t-a-n-s. Because they thought they were pure. So they called themselves Puritans. P-u-r-i-t-a-n-s. But they weren't really pure. So they weren't really Puritans. P-u-r-i-t-a-n-s.

Thanks for dredging up that 38-year-old memory.

[Hollis]

Good evening,

I guess that Northeast Philly in the late 60's was just too avant-garde to foist Nathaniel Hawthorne on us. I do remember having to read Animal Farm and 1984 by one Mr George Orwell. Had John Grisham been writing during those years, I might have taken HS English a little more seriously! We did have to suffer through several interminable months of assorted Shakespeare works as I recall. I'm of the opinion that I'm no better off for having read them. However, I may be no worse off either. Gadzooks!

As always,

Hollis

[bryce]

They wanted us to read it in my freshman year English class. However, after our awful, terrible, really downright pretty not good teacher viciously misinterpreted Great Expectations with what I can only call vengeance, I completely wrote off her entire syllabus and decided to read my own books, hand in assignments on them and give reports on them. For the first semester I earned a 63. For the second, a perfect zero. (Yes, a gadfly and a rebel I have been for many years.)

I believe I wrote off Hawthorne completely after the first two dozen pages and substituted him with Samuel Clemens, which our school banned out-right because the administrators that chose our reading list were a bunch of politically correct hacks out there that slept their way through the sheets of college and came out yuppies that didn't understand what satire was. Or Hemingway because he was Hunter Thompson's idol and he really pissed off my completely sexist religious nutjob of an English teacher (she would frequently go off on how she had "divorced her awful womanizing husband" and that she wasn't allowed another divorce so she'd just have to stick with this crazy jerk she married this time).

1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 and many others aren't required reading in school anymore. That is a travesty.

My wife was in school as of just a handful of years ago. Her English teacher gave the class an assignment - pick a nonfiction book, read it, then write a report on it. She picked "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" and the rest of the heathens that will soon make their way out of college and into mid-management chose "In Cold Blood" because it is such an original and wholly unique idea to pick a book because a movie based on it just came out. So, instead of reading one of the most amazing examinations on the American political system ever written they read a horrifically boring thriller by the most overrated American writer this side of Kurt Vonnegut. Great.

One kid did pick 1984, however. The teacher pointed out, "Well, that isn't nonfiction." His response was a cool "Now it is."

[srowley75]

I guess I could have just as easily filed this question under Judith's "are we regressing?" segue in one of the other threads.

I've been told of situations here locally where the parents have objected to their teens reading The Scarlet Letter on the grounds of content. The person who told me that had to tell me twice. And then my knees almost buckled under me. My 80-year-old grandmother, in whose day the phrase "keeping company" would have elicited a blush, remembers having read The Scarlet Letter in high school. It's an important American novel that's not too dense for high school yet perfect for both studying literary elements and raising discussions about timeless issues (religion, discrimination, true love, superficiality, etc.). I mean, if students can be expected to read Shakespeare (assuming they still do in high school these days), they can manage The Scarlet Letter in 10th or 11th grade American Lit.

I'm left to wonder if those who protested even read the novel, or just remembered the fact that Demi Moore starred in an awful movie version years ago.

[srowley75]

I believe I wrote off Hawthorne completely after the first two dozen pages and substituted him with Samuel Clemens, which our school banned out-right because the administrators that chose our reading list were a bunch of politically correct hacks out there that slept their way through the sheets of college and came out yuppies that didn't understand what satire was.

And then there are those who err on the flip side.

My mother reads aloud for 4th graders (10-11 year olds) in a local elementary school back in my small hometown in West Virginia. She often reads contemporary young adult fiction, but occasionally she'll read an older book such as Treasure Island for the kids. Normally she chooses her reading selections from a standard reading list provided by the school, but occasionally the teacher will intervene and ask her to read a certain book.

Last year the teacher asked Mom to read Huckleberry Finn. I told Mom to very gently ask the teacher if he was positive about this, but Mom was nervous about questioning the teacher's decision (where I would've simply asked "Are you mad?") I think perhaps he may have confused it with Tom Sawyer, which even though it also contains a potentially offensive ethnic stereotype ("Injun Joe") would've still been more accessible to kids of this age. I warned Mom that if she was going to go along with this to be sure to read the novel herself first (thereby preventing potential embarrassment) and make notes about how she was going to read certain portions aloud to the kids (e.g., the dialect, which she eliminated rather than trying to imitate - and I can't say I blame her, especially since there were black students in the class). She finished the novel, but it took a long, long time because she was constantly having to backtrack to explain portions of the story she'd just read so it would be clear to the 10-year-olds.

[CharlieT]

Nope, didn't have to read The Scarlet Letter. Did have to read Lord of the Flies, 1984, Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy and To Kill A Mockingbird. Hardy's book turned out much better than I anticipated, and Lord of the Flies was fun to read, but I was lost on the symbolism I was supposed to notice. Everyone should know how I felt about To Kill A Mockingbird. I'm currently reading it for the umpteenth time.

We also had Great Expectations and Julius Caesar in our textbooks that were covered mostly in class. The place where I might as well have stayed home is when we starting studying poetry. Very few interested me beyond The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere and The Raven.

Some of the other classes in my school did read Animal Farm and may have read The Scarlet Letter. I know my daughter did in the same school system thirty years later.

[Professional Tourist]

Did anyone make it through high school without having been assigned to read The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne for English class?

Yes, I made it through high school without such assignment. That was in the mid-to-late 1970s. But I also made it through high school without taking an american literature class at all, due to moving and changing schools halfway through. I'm not a very well-read person, and am not sure if I've read any Hawthorne at all.

[mrsl]

Srowley:

I really feel for your Mom and the probable discomfort she must have felt. My grandson, who is now a sophomore in H.S. has been given a reading list for the past three years, since 8th grade, of which he was to read 3 or 4 of books off of each list then hand in a written report. This is not teaching and causes me great anger. First off, he and his friends discovered the 'classics comics' at the library where they get the gist of the story without the deep meanings, yet enough to write a report. Secondly, rather than a lengthy list, they should receive one title, with a final date to complete reading and a following date for an open discussion. I do believe the teacher should be compelled to do some teaching occasionally. Please don't come down on me those of you who are true teachers, you know yourselves, and I'm sure you also know those in your schools who are not. Most kids don't realize there is so much more in To Kill a Mockingbird than just the trial, in fact, many kids don't realize they, themselves, have had summers much like Scout and the boys where some major occurrence happened but as children it was just another day to them.

Okay, off my soapbox, and NO, The Scarlet Letter would not be considered correct reading material for the proper and pure young ladies at my girls catholic high school.

Anne

[charliechaplinfan]

The Scarlett Letter wasn't forced on me in high school but I did read it years later. It didn't really make an impression until I saw the film with Lillian Gish and Lars Hanson.