Question by Rick: lMPORTANCE OF SETTING IN THE SCARLET LETTER?
This book is confusing… The descriptions are very lengthy and I am lost… I need to write 2 entries for now, concerning the first four chapters, about the Importance of Setting in this book, so I need help coming up with stuff…
Here’s an example…
Chapter 1
—The opening scene is outside Boston’s prison. Its doors are “heavily timbered” and “studded with iron spikes.” “Ugly” and “overgrown” with various weeds, the prison is “the black flower of civilized society.” However, right beside the door is a beautiful, fragrant rose bush that the narrator offers to the reader as a “sweet moral blossom.”
—Opening the novel outside a prison as he does, Hawthorne anticipates the central theme of judgement that runs throughout the book. The prison is unsightly and threatening, but apparently necessary for a civilized society. But nature, represented by the rose bush, is nearby to counter the harsh realities of civilization.
*IMPORTANCE
Best answer:
Answer by Emily
the novel is set in massachusetts during colonial (or is it even earlier? i can’t recall, i read it several years ago), anyway, the puritans were very prudish and judgmental people, so the main character gets ostracized for behaving in a manner which they felt was unbecoming of a lady. check wikipedia for info on puritan beliefs.
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