Read this excerpt from chapter 1 of The Scarlet Letter.Before this ugly edifice, and between it and the wheel-track of the street, was a grass-plot, much overgrown with burdock, pig-weed, apple-peru, and such unsightly vegetation, which evidently found something congenial in the soil that had so early borne the black flower of civilized society, a prison.Which best describes the effect of the words “ugly,” “overgrown,” “pig-weed,” and “unsightly vegetation”?
Read this excerpt from chapter 2 of The Scarlet Letter.Meagre, indeed, and cold, was the sympathy that a transgressor might look for, from such bystanders at the scaffold. On the other hand, a penalty which, in our days, would infer a degree of mocking infamy and ridicule, might then be invested with almost as stern a dignity as the punishment of death itself.Which best describes the purpose of the words “meagre,” “scaffold,” “stern,” and “punishment of death”?
Which event described in chapter 2 of The Scarlet Letter occurs after Hester appears in front of the crowd?
Read this excerpt from chapter 1 of The Scarlet Letter.Certain it is, that, some fifteen or twenty years after the settlement of the town, the wooden jail was already marked with weather-stains and other indications of age, which gave a yet darker aspect to its beetle-browed and gloomy front. The rust on the ponderous iron-work of its oaken door looked more antique than any thing else in the new world.The author most likely includes the words “darker aspect,” “beetle-browed,” “gloomy,” and “ponderous” in order to
Read this excerpt from chapter 1 of The Scarlet Letter using comprehension strategies.But, on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their 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.What is the meaning of this excerpt?
Which event described in chapter 2 of The Scarlet Letter occurs after the women of the crowd are introduced?
Read this excerpt from chapter 2 of The Scarlet Letter.“This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die. Is there not law for it? Truly there is, both in the Scripture and the statute-book. Then let the magistrates, who have made it of no effect, thank themselves if their own wives and daughters go astray!”What part of the plot does this excerpt reveal?
Read this excerpt from chapter 2 of The Scarlet Letter.The door of the jail being flung open from within, there appeared, in the first place, like a black shadow emerging into sunshine, the grim and grisly presence of the town-beadle, with a sword by his side and his staff of office in his hand.Which best describes the purpose of the words “black shadow,” “grim,” “grisly,” and “sword”?
Read this excerpt from chapter 2 of The Scarlet Letter.Lastly, in lieu of these shifting scenes, came back the rude market-place of the Puritan settlement, with all the townspeople assembled and levelling their stern regards at Hester Prynne,—yes, at herself,—who stood on the scaffold of the pillory, an infant on her arm, and the letter A, in scarlet, fantastically embroidered with gold thread, upon her bosom!What is the effect of the underlined words in this excerpt?
Read this excerpt from chapter 1 of The Scarlet Letter using comprehension strategies.In accordance with this rule, it may safely be assumed that the forefathers of Boston had built the first prison-house, somewhere in the vicinity of Cornhill, almost as seasonably as they marked out the first burial-ground, on Isaac Johnson's lot, and round about his grave, which subsequently became the nucleus of all the congregated sepulchres in the old church-yard of King's Chapel.What is the meaning of this excerpt?
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