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
Which event described in chapter 2 of The Scarlet Letter occurs after the women of the crowd are introduced?
Which event described in chapter 2 of The Scarlet Letter occurs when Hester arrives at the marketplace?
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”?
Read this excerpt from chapter 1 of The Scarlet Letter.A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.Which best describes the effect of the words “sad-colored,” “steeple-crowned,” and “iron spikes”?
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”?
Which event described in chapter 1 of The Scarlet Letter takes place as the story begins?
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?
Which event described in chapter 2 of The Scarlet Letter occurs after Hester leaves the jail?
Read this excerpt from chapter 1 of The Scarlet Letter.Finding it so directly on the threshold of our narrative, which is now about to issue from that inauspicious portal, we could hardly do otherwise than pluck one of its flowers and present it to the reader.What is the meaning of the word “inauspicious”?
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