After reading O’Gorman’s essay on Suzan-Lori Parks’ play In the Blood, I found myself in alignment with many of her arguments. In my own reading of the play, In the Blood stands as a strong example of forwarding Nathaniel Hawthorn’s The Scarlet Letter in a contemporary and modern setting. From my view, Parks’ took the skeleton of Hawthorn’s work which aims to shine a spot light on issues of what it means to be just and moral. The Hawthorn’s novel shows us through the lens of the mid 1850s, what it was like to be judged by the puritan society in 1642. Through the characters of Hester, Chillingworth, and Dimmesdale I as the reader was able to see the different ramifications when conformity with society is both upheld and also broken. To me this exactly what Parks did with her own work, however she placed the same issues and dilemmas in modern day New York.

Parks used the authority of Hawthorn’s work to her advantage. By forwarding his ideas she legitimized and authenticated her own play about a women who has fallen from society today, a story that has been told and heard countless times. Without the backing of The Scarlet Letter, it is my opinion that the play would be far less interesting and prominent in modern culture. This is something that O’Gorman states in However, I found that there are discrepancies between O’Garman’s analysis and my own. She states within her essay that self-repression due to societal norms is a major theme that Parks brings to light in her play to mirror The Scarlet Letter, however I beg to differ that in truth neither Hester is truly self-repressing. In fact it is society itself that confines each of these women. Moreover, it is in fact characters like Dimmesdale and Welfare who are surprising themselves. Parks’ version of Hester has been cast aside by society with no home or education to speak of. According to O’Gorman, Parks insinuates that Hester “chooses to continue reproducing rather than developing her skills” (O’Gorman, 50), when in fact it is societies refusal to accept and assist Hester that holders to her position out society.

O’Gorman does address the issue of education in her work saying that it was Hester’s education in both works that caused her to break from a self-repressive state. It is stated within the essay that it is Hester’s homelessness and illiteracy that “allows her some liberation from the way in which her community has branded her” (O’Gorman 52), though I would argue that it precisely Hester’s lack of an education and lack of a home that has cast her from society in the first place. Today the status of a women depends on her level of education and her ability to live in a domestic home, neither of which Hester is able to do. It is my opinion that Parks created this Hester in this way to emphasize the fact that it was not Hester’s choice to be thrown aside by society. This is also true in Hawthorn’s version, however with the 1642 backdrop it may appear less apparent to the modern reader.