Scarlet Letter Chapter Summaries
Scarlet Letter Chapter Summaries
Chapter 1: The Prison Door
The first chapter pretty much sets the scene for the rest of the book. It describes a door, the door to the prison in seventeenth century Boston. The door is studded with iron spikes and is surrounded with overgrown weeds and one rosebush. The narrator suggests that it’s a reminder of nature’s kindness to the prisoners. It says it will provide a “sweet moral blossom” in the face of distress.
Chapter 2:
The Market-Place
The women standing outside the prison are smugly talking about Hester Prynne’s sin. Hester emerges from the prison looking proud, and holding an infant, and made her way to the scaffold, where she is supposed to be publicly damned. Hester has a gold and scarlet letter “A” on her chest, which means she has committed adultery and has had an …show more content…
The beadle calls Hester forward, the children taunt her, and the adults stare. She starts to have flashbacks of her parents standing outside their home in rural England. Suddenly becoming aware of the crowd, she agonizingly remembers her present punishment for her shameful crime.
Chapter 3:
The Recognition
In the crowd that is surrounding Hester, she spots her husband, who promised her he’d follow her to America, but never did. Even though he is dressed in an outlandish combination of European clothes and Native American dress, she recognizes him by his slightly deformed shoulders. He gestured to her to not reveal his identity, then turns to a stranger in the crowd and asks about her crime and punishment, stating he’s been imprisoned by some Native Americans, and is just arriving in
Chapter 1: The Prison Door
The first chapter pretty much sets the scene for the rest of the book. It describes a door, the door to the prison in seventeenth century Boston. The door is studded with iron spikes and is surrounded with overgrown weeds and one rosebush. The narrator suggests that it’s a reminder of nature’s kindness to the prisoners. It says it will provide a “sweet moral blossom” in the face of distress.
Chapter 2:
The Market-Place
The women standing outside the prison are smugly talking about Hester Prynne’s sin. Hester emerges from the prison looking proud, and holding an infant, and made her way to the scaffold, where she is supposed to be publicly damned. Hester has a gold and scarlet letter “A” on her chest, which means she has committed adultery and has had an …show more content…
The beadle calls Hester forward, the children taunt her, and the adults stare. She starts to have flashbacks of her parents standing outside their home in rural England. Suddenly becoming aware of the crowd, she agonizingly remembers her present punishment for her shameful crime.
Chapter 3:
The Recognition
In the crowd that is surrounding Hester, she spots her husband, who promised her he’d follow her to America, but never did. Even though he is dressed in an outlandish combination of European clothes and Native American dress, she recognizes him by his slightly deformed shoulders. He gestured to her to not reveal his identity, then turns to a stranger in the crowd and asks about her crime and punishment, stating he’s been imprisoned by some Native Americans, and is just arriving in