The Scarlet Letter is a work so suffused with moral intensity that even the commas seem to blush. Hawthorne’s Puritan New England is a place where daylight feels like cross-examination, and every whisper sounds like scripture. Sin, here, isn't merely an act — it’s a neighbourhood watch. The story begins, quite literally, with a symbol … Continue reading The Scarlet Letter – Sin, Society, and the Theatre of Virtue
Tag: reading
The Naked Civil Servant: A Gospel According to Outrage
This book didn’t slip quietly into the world like a well-behaved parishioner. The Naked Civil Servant — Quentin Crisp’s scandalous act of cultural streaking, his autobiographical confession written with the dignity of a saint and the insolence of a man determined to rattle the tea trays of middle England. It’s a work so defiantly honest, … Continue reading The Naked Civil Servant: A Gospel According to Outrage
ROSEMARY’S BABY — A Psychological Reflection
What book are you reading right now? There are some novels that pretend to be about the devil but are, in truth, about the far more distressing creatures that live under our own ribs. Rosemary’s Baby is one of them. On the surface it’s a story about covens, conspiracies, ancient rituals, and a baby with … Continue reading ROSEMARY’S BABY — A Psychological Reflection
The To-Be-Forgotten — Thomas Hardy
I heard a small sad sound, And stood awhile among the tombs around: “Wherefore, old friends,” said I, “are you distrest, Now, screened from life’s unrest?” But that our future second death is near; When, with the living, memory of us numbs, And blank oblivion comes! “These, our sped ancestry, Lie here embraced by deeper … Continue reading The To-Be-Forgotten — Thomas Hardy
A Reflection on Dante’s Warning Against False Charity
‘If a thief helps a poor man out of the spoils of his thieving, we must not call that charity.’— Dante There are lines in Dante that feel less like poetry and more like a divine diagnosis — a sudden flash of God’s own X-ray slicing through human pretence. This is one of them. It’s … Continue reading A Reflection on Dante’s Warning Against False Charity
Wording 