CHAPTER 1- The Prison-Door-
I found this one page introductory chapter to be very dramatic as it explained the history
of the colony by telling the history of the prison-door. From the looks of this chapter, this story
will probably be dragged out as much as possible.
At first I thought the way Nathaniel Hawthorne approached the latter half of the last
paragraph was annoying, but when I read the chapter the second time, it appealed to me. The
relationship that Hawthorne is attempting to establish with the reader in this paragraph is very
interesting. That pink highlighted section in my book convinced me that even though having
students read a book over a very short summer vacation is a bad, misguided idea, the book
you're making us read isn't as bad.
CHAPTER 2- The Market Place-
This chapter tells of Hester Prynne being led through the city and in to the market place
with the finely stitched Scarlet Letter. She walks protecting her young child against her bosom
as she is scorned by the crowd. Her punishment is quote "as effectual an agent, in the
promotion of good citizenship as ever was the guillotine among the terrorists of France," (Page
52, pink highlight). Instead of using the pillory, which would lock a person's head and hands
together where they could not move and be forced to not be able to show their humiliation. "No
outrage more flagrant to forbid the culprit to hide his face from shame," is in Hawthorne's
commentary on page 53.
Hawthorne's commentary appears twice on this page (about more than one topic) and
you can see them in my highlighted sections. What really got to me was the second highlighted
section on that page where Hawthorne is comparing/contrasting the nurturing image of a mother...