“The Scarlet Letter". An Aporetics of Reading and Judgment

Abstract

Divided between the identification with Hester Prynne and the dramatization of his role as juror forced to be inscribed in the interpretive community inside the text, the reader of The Scarlet Letter finds himself in a position that undermines both reading and judgment. By making the reader assume a point of view that contrasts with his own sympathy for Hester, the rhetorical strategy of this novel carries him to recognize, at the end of the reading, how his judgment relies on unconscious prejudices. Bound to judge, the reader is also bound to judge himself in judging and to reconsider the intrinsic blindness that allows him his own insight. Reading (read: judgment) turns into a reflexive activity that deconstructs reader’s rights to read (to judge, of course).