Scarlet letter chapter summari
Scarlet letter chapter summariChapter 1: Hester Prynne has committed adultery. Two years ago her husband in Europe sent her on ahead to America while he settled some business affairs. Alone in the small town of Boston, Hester has shocked and angered her neighbors by secretly taking a lover and bringing forth a girl child. The Puritans of Boston are shocked that she has done this thing. They are angry because she will not reveal the name of the father of the child. Although the usual penalty for adultery is death, the Puritan judges (called magistrates) have decided to be merciful to her, declaring that Hester's punishment will be to stand for several hours on the scaffold (a high platform near the market-place) in full view of everyone. She will hold her infant in her arms and will be wearing on the breast of her dress a piece of scarlet cloth formed into the letter "A." Part of her punishment is that she will continue to wear this letter on her breast for the rest of her life.
As the story opens in the month of June, in 1642, a group of Puritan men and women gather in front of the door of the prison waiting for Hester to make her appearance. The early settlers felt it necessary to build a prison and to set aside a cemetery as stern reminders of life and death. The gloomy building looks out on a grass plot covered with "unsightly vegetation" except for one, wild rose-bush which blossoms near the threshold of the prison. The "fragrance and fragile beauty" of this one simple flower is a "token" (a symbol) that Nature may pity man, even though men may be inhuman to other men. The author wonders about the origin of the rose-bush - as to whether it has perhaps survived the wilderness in which it originally grew, or whether it had "sprung up" in the footsteps of another rebellious woman, who, a few years before, had entered the same prison-door. At the "Threshold" of the story the author picks one of the roses and presents it to the reader "to symbolize" the "moral blossom" (in other words - the happy ending) of this tale of human weakness and sorrow.
Comment
The first sentence of the romance introduces a major character, that is, the community. The predominant mood of the tale is established by the words "sad-colored" and "grey." The word "hoods" suggests the secrecy and hyprocrisy of a leading male character, Arthur Dimmesdale; in contrast, "bareheaded" represents the open repentance of Hester, the main female character who wears the scarlet letter. The setting is Puritan Boston, near the present site of King's Chapel on Tremont Street. Following the literary principle of "associational psychology" (which connects certain places and historic scenes with current problems and tensions of characters), the introduction of the words "Boston," "Cornhill," "King's...
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