The Scarlet Letter

Summary chapters 1&2 These two chapters set the inception scene: 17th-century America, one and only(a) June morning, Boston, a city in the mummy Bay Colony where religion is the foundation for both integrity and society. The setoff chapter ends on the image of a rosebush, and the writer suggests one of its blooms can symbolize some sweet moral rosiness that may be found along the track, or pardon the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow. On this stage, Hester Prynne emerges from the dark prison door to make her trend to the scaffold where she will be publicly condemned. Holding a baby, she makes her way proudly through a crowd of imperious onlookers who are surprised at the brilliant letter A embroidered in gold thread on her chest. As she walks, she recalls her departed: she was natural to a house of antique gentility in Europe, married to a physically misshapen scholar, taken first by her husband to Amsterdam and then sent to America. She cannot opine that she is really suffering such shame. She never imagined that she would be the be relieve oneself of an illegitimate child, made to wear a public nominal of her sin, and subject to the towns humiliation.

Commentary The narrator opens his novel not by praising the idealism of the Puritan colonys founding fathers, but by pointing step up its weaknesses: the necessity of cemeteries and prisons, the necessity of punishing sin.



When the author points out the rose bloom, it is bittersweet--not only does the roses beauty come with a outlay (the thorns), but it is also, after all, next to a prison door. As Christians believe human history on earth begins with the bechance of Adam and Eve, the Boston that the narrator introduces to us is already fallen. This theory is therefore in harmony with the Puritan idea of passe-partout sin (the idea that all people are born sinners because of Adam and Eve).

Note the tone of these chapters. As the Puritans are condemning Hester Prynne for sin, the narrator is condemning the Puritans for their severity.

Hester, by comparison, is positively likened to...

If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Ordercustompaper.com



If you want to get a full essay, wisit our page: write my paper