The Affliction of an Adulterer by Charis

The Affliction of an Adulterer by Charis - August 2014 Scholarship Essay

The Affliction of an Adulterer

It was an eager Wednesday afternoon the day I began my Junior year. The sun was radiating it’s glorious smiles of sunshine upon my face and the bird’s were chirping along to the songs of this new season in my life. Everything was going great until I stumbled upon my Honors English 11 class. The moment I opened that heavy and depressing door I should have realized that for nine months my life would be made into a living hell, but those were the days of ignorance and I had no idea that this class would be the beginning of the end. The first few weeks I continued to cling to my naivety, forcing myself to believe that maybe, just maybe my teacher’s dark presence would clear away and she would actually smile, but this childish hope met no avail and just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did.

The day I met my worst fears, the day my nightmares became a horrifying reality, the day the word failure was imbedded into my brain, was the day my lovely English teacher handed us The Scarlet Letter. My grade was in the hands of an overly metaphorical, symbolic filled adulterer; and Hester Prynne did not favor my life in the slightest way. There was not one quiz or test that I received a B on, and I certainly was not ever rewarded with an A. Every page seemed to drag me deeper and deeper into the grave of my English career, and each chapter left me even more confused than the last. My self confidence was being diminished by the proficient diction of a fictional character and my passion for English began to fail me. However, one glorious day I came to the conclusion that I would never be able to truly comprehend the depth of The Scarlet Letter, but I determined in my heart to find at least one message from the novel that I could apply to my life and treasure in my mind. As I began to take time to dwell on a few symbolic events at a time, pushing the limits of my brain to unearth the hidden wisdom I was being taught, I began to better appreciate the writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne and the amount of passion he had worked into his beloved book. Fixating and devoting my energy on one small section a day allowed me to stay positive and excel in my understanding of the major themes and symbolic references found in The Scarlet Letter.

Looking back on my Junior year, I have determined that I was faced with an immeasurable amount of academic challenges, but those challenges and failed quizzes all assisted in preparing me for what some may call, ‘the real world.’ I will not always be able to see clearly and not every subject in life is going to come naturally to me, but with every failure, there is a success; with every defeat, there is a victor; to every negative, there is a positive; and with every tumultuous storm, there is an incomprehensible peace ready to flood the ocean’s shore.