Tuesday, November 5, 2013

The Scarlet Letter Chapter 1

“But on one side of the portal… was a wild rose-bush… which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in…” (Page 45)

In this, Hawthorne is speaking of a rosebush growing by the entrance of a prison. It is a symbol of how, in this strict Puritan society, the only wild and free thing is this rosebush. Its beauty brings comfort to those entering the prison, and is rumored to have been created by Ann Hutchinson as she walked into the Boston Prison.

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