The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter is the next unit I’ll be teaching and it has been a while since I did a thorough read through. It also seemed fitting given the time of year in relation to the setting of the book.

I tend to feel the same way about The Scarlet Letter as I do about Thanksgiving and that is that while I love the overall message of each, neither is by any means my favorite in their respective categories.  With The Scarlet Letter the symbolism and character development is genius, but the writing itself is a cure for insomina.  And Thanksgiving is a great time to reflect on all we have, but too often it feels more like a dress rehersal for Christmas.  Thanksgiving has never been my favorite holiday.  In fact I’d probably like it even less if I wasn’t a teacher, seeing that I currently get more days off then the average person.

My biggest qualm with Thanksgiving is the meal. Overall, I’m not a fan. However, I do like the separate dishes that typically make up the meal. I enjoy turkey, love stuffing, and can do nasty things to a pumpkin pie, but throw all those things together and the whole meal seems tired and overdone. It’s too 1950’s June Cleaver.

But the meal is a tradition and when something is part of a tradition it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s great but rather there is a meaning far beyond the actual ritual. Another thing about traditions is that over time they are often taken for granted. And to some degree we’re all guilty of seeing Thanksgiving as just a day of food, football, & family. We take the day for granted which is sort of ironic since the purpose of Thanksgiving is to pause and remember all the things in our lives we’ve been taking for granted like our health, family, etc.

So while I won’t enjoy eating green bean casserole I guess I need to remind myself to be thankful for the luxury of never being without it, even if it is as uncreative as the Puritans’ color palette.