Scarlet Letter
Chapter One: The Prison Door
Summary
A large crowd of Puritans stands outside of the prison, waiting for the door to open. The prison is described as a, “wooden jail…already marked with weather-stains and other indications of age which gave a yet darker aspect to its beetle-browed and gloomy front.” The iron on the prison is rusting and creates an overall appearance of decay.
Outside of the building, next to the door, a rosebush stands in full bloom. Hawthorne remarks that it is possible, “this rosebush…had sprung up under the footsteps of the sainted Ann Hutchinson, as she entered the prison door.” He then plucks one of the roses and offers it to the reader as a “moral blossom” to be found later in the story.
Chapter Two: The Market Place
Summary
The crowd in front of the jail is a mixture of men and women, all maintaining severe looks of disapproval. Several of the women begin to discuss Hester Prynne, and soon vow that Hester would not have received such a light sentence for her crime if they had been the judges. One woman, the ugliest of the group, goes so far as to advocate death for Hester.
Hester emerges from the
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