The Scarlet Letter - Entry #1 - Chapters 1-3

I have read chapters one through three, which starts on page forth five and ends on page sixty seven. I found the details about the rosebush in the end of the first chapter interesting. the whole first chapter only talks about the prison in the town where the story is set, and the prison is described as an ugly place which "seemed never to have known a youthful era" (Hawthorne 46). The idea of the rosebush in front of the prison occurred to me as a symbol of hope in a place where hope may have been lost or absent, and an object of beauty in an ugly place. I like the contrast that is created in these ideas.

In chapter two, all of the town's people are gathered outside the prison door to see Hester Prynne. In the beginning of this chapter, Hawthorne describes the women in the crowd in detail both physically and behaviorally. I found their described behavior interesting: "...a boldness and rotundity of speech among these matrons...that would startle us at the present day, whether in respect to its purport or its volume of tone," (49). The author portrays the women in the crowd with a mentality that they are better than Hester due to her sins. It is apparent that the women think very low of Hester, possibly more than the men do.

When Hester emerges from the prison, she seems embarrassed by her marks of punishment, which are the scarlet letter "A" sewn to the bust of her dress and the child that she holds in her arms. Despite her embarrassment, she puts on a smile and walks on toward the crowd, trying to hide her real emotions and appear strong. She even embroidered the red "A" to her gown with gold thread, creating "fantastic flourishes" (51), making it clear to her prosecutors that she wasn't going to let her punishment bring her down. Hester is then led to the scaffold in the middle of the market place, so all of the town's people can see her and her proclaimed symbols of shame. While she stands there with everyone watching her, her life flashes before her eyes in every type of major and minor memory that could possibly be imagined. She even has a moment where she needed to make sure that everything that was happening was actually real, "...she turned her eyes downward at the scarlet letter, and even touched it with her finger, to assure herself that the infant and the shame were real" (57).

In chapter three, background is given about Hester's crime to a white man in Indian garb from a man in the crowd. Hester sees this white man among the other people in the crowd and she recognizes him with shock, which I think will be an important detail later in the story. According to the man telling the story of Hester's crime, Hester had an affair with an unknown man after her husband disappears, and she has an illegitimate child, and now bears the red "A" on her breast. Hester also refuses to reveal the identity of the father of her child, which reveals how much she loves this man. She probably does not want him to endure the punishment with her, and wants him to remain a free man.