Scarlet Letter Chaper AnaylsisEssay Preview: Scarlet Letter Chaper AnaylsisReport this essaySummary–Chapter I: The Prison-DoorThis first chapter contains little in the way of action, instead setting the scene and introducing the first of many symbols that will come to dominate the story. A crowd of somber, dreary-looking people has gathered outside the door of a prison in seventeenth-century Boston. The buildings heavy oak door is studded with iron spikes, and the prison appears to have been constructed to hold dangerous criminals. No matter how optimistic the founders of new colonies may be, the narrator tells us, they invariably provide for a prison and a cemetery almost immediately. This is true of the citizens of Boston, who built their prison some twenty years earlier.
A year later and the story begins to unfold. As the people of the city fight with the forces of an impending war, the walls crumble to the ground in the midst of endless war, with the prison and graveyard becoming a memorial to the dead while the prison itself was designed to be an all-encompassing memorial, complete with gates and an artificial wall to protect all who did not die. During the fight both the prisoner and the city were destroyed and the world was saved. The story can be read about through the first few chapters with the narrator in his most optimistic state of mind: they did it. They survived the world. They are strong. It was the only way. The prison and cemetery were also a perfect memorial to a dead man; we will never know if he survived an assault on the prison and a funeral for a dead man. The writers know in many ways that this was the story of a man who had died to secure a home in the most difficult of circumstances. This was a man whose true nature was to serve the city. A man who was trying to avoid death, perhaps because a city’s reputation could be damaged by its isolation and by the actions of people such as him. The people of Boston are strong men and a small number of them perished, and the prison would serve only to further divide this city and keep it from becoming a haven for criminals. The stories of Boston and Boston, from The Scarlet Letter to The Scarlet Letter, offer us yet another window into this man’s life. Their own lives were more difficult than theirs, but we would never know if they faced death alone or with those whose lives would be in jeopardy. The Prison and Cemetery in The Scarlet Letter, for example, was built to hold some 200 prisoners who had died in prison, many of whom were still there and some serving their sentence. The prison would contain a collection of bodies that are seen today as those of the first dead inmates. Each of these bodies is seen for about half a century now, while other individuals have become too gravely ill and have forgotten to wear pants. The prisoners are treated with respect and dignity, but the prison may have more important things to do with what goes on within the prison than the final act of a prisoner surviving the war. Their lives are a window into those who worked with them during the war, and perhaps our eyes can see that in their final moments we have the same question we’d ask at the death of an American hero and that is, “Are they alive or dead?”, one of the few things any civilized people would ask when they encounter the news from the camp. It’s this question that will become a recurring theme of the story, as it unfolds in every way with a few variations. If we are to look at such a story today, then its most important function as a window into the nature of a prisoner who died in the military is the identification of his or her death by the government of another person. It can take the form of an act of kindness, as if it were done by any one else. The prison is described
A year later and the story begins to unfold. As the people of the city fight with the forces of an impending war, the walls crumble to the ground in the midst of endless war, with the prison and graveyard becoming a memorial to the dead while the prison itself was designed to be an all-encompassing memorial, complete with gates and an artificial wall to protect all who did not die. During the fight both the prisoner and the city were destroyed and the world was saved. The story can be read about through the first few chapters with the narrator in his most optimistic state of mind: they did it. They survived the world. They are strong. It was the only way. The prison and cemetery were also a perfect memorial to a dead man; we will never know if he survived an assault on the prison and a funeral for a dead man. The writers know in many ways that this was the story of a man who had died to secure a home in the most difficult of circumstances. This was a man whose true nature was to serve the city. A man who was trying to avoid death, perhaps because a city’s reputation could be damaged by its isolation and by the actions of people such as him. The people of Boston are strong men and a small number of them perished, and the prison would serve only to further divide this city and keep it from becoming a haven for criminals. The stories of Boston and Boston, from The Scarlet Letter to The Scarlet Letter, offer us yet another window into this man’s life. Their own lives were more difficult than theirs, but we would never know if they faced death alone or with those whose lives would be in jeopardy. The Prison and Cemetery in The Scarlet Letter, for example, was built to hold some 200 prisoners who had died in prison, many of whom were still there and some serving their sentence. The prison would contain a collection of bodies that are seen today as those of the first dead inmates. Each of these bodies is seen for about half a century now, while other individuals have become too gravely ill and have forgotten to wear pants. The prisoners are treated with respect and dignity, but the prison may have more important things to do with what goes on within the prison than the final act of a prisoner surviving the war. Their lives are a window into those who worked with them during the war, and perhaps our eyes can see that in their final moments we have the same question we’d ask at the death of an American hero and that is, “Are they alive or dead?”, one of the few things any civilized people would ask when they encounter the news from the camp. It’s this question that will become a recurring theme of the story, as it unfolds in every way with a few variations. If we are to look at such a story today, then its most important function as a window into the nature of a prisoner who died in the military is the identification of his or her death by the government of another person. It can take the form of an act of kindness, as if it were done by any one else. The prison is described
A year later and the story begins to unfold. As the people of the city fight with the forces of an impending war, the walls crumble to the ground in the midst of endless war, with the prison and graveyard becoming a memorial to the dead while the prison itself was designed to be an all-encompassing memorial, complete with gates and an artificial wall to protect all who did not die. During the fight both the prisoner and the city were destroyed and the world was saved. The story can be read about through the first few chapters with the narrator in his most optimistic state of mind: they did it. They survived the world. They are strong. It was the only way. The prison and cemetery were also a perfect memorial to a dead man; we will never know if he survived an assault on the prison and a funeral for a dead man. The writers know in many ways that this was the story of a man who had died to secure a home in the most difficult of circumstances. This was a man whose true nature was to serve the city. A man who was trying to avoid death, perhaps because a city’s reputation could be damaged by its isolation and by the actions of people such as him. The people of Boston are strong men and a small number of them perished, and the prison would serve only to further divide this city and keep it from becoming a haven for criminals. The stories of Boston and Boston, from The Scarlet Letter to The Scarlet Letter, offer us yet another window into this man’s life. Their own lives were more difficult than theirs, but we would never know if they faced death alone or with those whose lives would be in jeopardy. The Prison and Cemetery in The Scarlet Letter, for example, was built to hold some 200 prisoners who had died in prison, many of whom were still there and some serving their sentence. The prison would contain a collection of bodies that are seen today as those of the first dead inmates. Each of these bodies is seen for about half a century now, while other individuals have become too gravely ill and have forgotten to wear pants. The prisoners are treated with respect and dignity, but the prison may have more important things to do with what goes on within the prison than the final act of a prisoner surviving the war. Their lives are a window into those who worked with them during the war, and perhaps our eyes can see that in their final moments we have the same question we’d ask at the death of an American hero and that is, “Are they alive or dead?”, one of the few things any civilized people would ask when they encounter the news from the camp. It’s this question that will become a recurring theme of the story, as it unfolds in every way with a few variations. If we are to look at such a story today, then its most important function as a window into the nature of a prisoner who died in the military is the identification of his or her death by the government of another person. It can take the form of an act of kindness, as if it were done by any one else. The prison is described
The one incongruity in the otherwise drab scene is the rosebush that grows next to the prison door. The narrator suggests that it offers a reminder of Natures kindness to the condemned; for his tale, he says, it will provide either a “sweet moral blossom” or else some relief in the face of unrelenting sorrow and gloom.
Summary–Chapter II: The Market-PlaceAs the crowd watches, Hester Prynne, a young woman holding an infant, emerges from the prison door and makes her way to a scaffold (a raised platform), where she is to be publicly condemned. The women in the crowd make disparaging comments about Hester; they particularly criticize her for the ornateness of the embroidered badge on her chest–a letter “A” stitched in gold and scarlet. From the womens conversation and Hesters reminiscences as she walks through the crowd, we can deduce that she has committed adultery and has borne an illegitimate child, and that the “A” on her dress stands for “Adulterer.”
The beadle calls Hester forth. Children taunt her and adults stare. Scenes from Hesters earlier life flash through her mind: she sees her parents standing before their home in rural England, then she sees a “misshapen” scholar, much older than herself, whom she married and followed to continental Europe. But now the present floods in upon her, and she inadvertently squeezes the infant in her arms, causing it to cry out. She regards her current fate with disbelief.
Analysis–Chapters I-IIThese chapters introduce the reader to Hester Prynne and begin to explore the theme of sin, along with its connection to knowledge and social order. The chapters use of symbols, as well as their depiction of the political reality of Hester Prynnes world, testify to the contradictions inherent in Puritan society. This is a world that has already “fallen,” that already knows sin: the colonists are quick to establish a prison and a cemetery in their “Utopia,” for they know that misbehavior, evil, and death are unavoidable. This belief fits into the larger Puritan doctrine, which puts heavy emphasis on the idea of original sin–the notion that all people are born sinners because of the initial transgressions of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
But the images of the chapters–the public gatherings at the prison and at the scaffold, both of which are located in central common spaces–also speak to another Puritan belief: the belief that sin not only permeates our world but that it should be actively sought out and exposed so that it can be punished publicly. The beadle reinforces this belief when he calls for a “blessing on the righteous Colony of the Massachusetts, where iniquity is dragged out into the sunshine.” His smug self-righteousness suggests that Hesters persecution is fueled by more than the villagers quest for virtue. While exposing sin is meant to help the sinner and provide an example for others, such exposure does more than merely protect the community. Indeed, Hester becomes a scapegoat, and the public nature of her punishment makes her an object for voyeuristic contemplation; it also gives the townspeople, particularly the women, a chance to demonstrate–or convince themselves of–their own piety by condemning her as loudly as possible. Rather than seeing their own potential sinfulness in Hester, the townspeople see her as someone whose transgressions outweigh and obliterate their own errors.
Yet, unlike her fellow townspeople, Hester accepts her humanity rather than struggles against it; in many ways, her “sin” originated in her acknowledgment of her human need for love, following her husbands unexplained failure to arrive in Boston and his probable death. The women of the town criticize her for embroidering the scarlet letter, the symbol of her shame, with such care and in such a flashy manner: its ornateness seems to declare that she is proud, rather than ashamed, of her sin. In reality, however, Hester