The Scarlet Letter
Chapter One
Entry Two
In the first chapter, Nathaniel Hawthorne mentiones prison of Boston, symbolized with a ‘black flower of civilizated society’. On the one side of the prison there is a grass-plot with weeds on it. This side of the jailhouse stands for the bad and ugly things of the former society.
But on the other side, ‘rooted almost at the threshold’ (ll 28), Hawthore placed a wild rose-bush covered with ‘delicate gems’.
Again, Hawthorne uses a color. Rose-bushes are normally red, and red is the color of passion, love but also the color of sins.
The author himself gives us the explanation for the reason of the rose-bush: ‘imagined to offer their (the germs’) fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him’ (ll 30 – 1).
That means that tough these people come from a bad society and did evil things in their life, there is still the chance to be ‘cured’, like a ray of hope through all the darkness.
Helen - very good entry. The idea of red being the color of passion and sin is important in this novel. Also the idea that the rosebush offers hope of salvation is a nice insight.
ReplyDelete