LIGHTENING UP
SCARLET LETTER
VIKKI NGUYEN & CHRISTINE LYTRANG
PERIOD 2A
CHAPTER 1
“This rose-bush, by a strange
chance, has been kept alive in
history; but whether it had
merely survived out of the stern
old wilderness, so long after the
fall of the gigantic pines and
oaks that originally
overshadowed it,--or whether,
as there is fair authority for
believing, it had sprung up
under the footsteps of the
sainted Ann Hutchinson, as she
entered the prison-door,--we
shall not take upon us to
determine. “
CHAPTER 2
• “When the young
woman--the mother
of this child--stood
fully revealed before
the crowd, it seemed
to be her first impulse
to clasp the infant
closely to her bosom;
not so much by an
impulse of motherly
affection, as that she
might thereby
conceal a certain
token, which was
wrought or fastened
into her dress.”
CHAPTER 3
• “From this intense
consciousness of being
the object of severe
and universal
observation, the
wearer of the scarlet
letter was at length
relieved by discerning,
on the outskirts of the
crowd, a figure which
irresistibly took
possession of her
thoughts.”
CHAPTER 4
• “He presented the
cup to Hester, who
received it with
a slow, earnest look
into his face; not
precisely a look of
fear, yet full of doubt
and questioning, as to
what his purposes
might be. She looked
also at her slumbering
child.”
CHAPTER 5
“Hester Prynne, therefore,
did not flee. On the outskirts
of the town, within the
verge of the peninsula, but
not in close vicinity to any
other habitation, there was
a small thatched cottage.”
CHAPTER 6
• “We have as yet
hardly spoken of the
infant; that little
creature, whose
innocent life had
sprung, by the
inscrutable decree of
Providence, a lovely
and immortal flower,
out of the rank
luxuriance of a guilty
passion.”
CHAPTER 7
• “Hester Prynne went, one
day, to the mansion of
Governor Bellingham, with a
pair of gloves which she had
fringed and embroidered to
his order, and which were to
be worn on some great
occasion of state; for,
though the chances of a
popular election had
caused this former ruler to
descend a step or two from
the highest rank, he still held
an honorable and influential
place among the colonial
magistracy.”
CHAPTER 8
• “Hester caught hold of
Pearl, and drew her
forcibly into her arms,
confronting the old
Puritan magistrate with
almost a fierce
expression. Alone in the
world, cast off by it, and
with this sole treasure to
keep her heart alive, she
felt that she possessed
indefeasible rights
against the world, and
was ready to defend
them to the death.”
CHAPTER 9
• It has been related, how, in
the crowd that witnessed
Hester Prynne's ignominious
exposure, stood a man,
elderly, travel-worn, who, just
emerging from the perilous
wilderness, beheld the
woman, in whom he hoped
to find embodied the
warmth and cheerfulness of
home, set up as a type of sin
before the people. Her
matronly fame was trodden
under all men's feet.
CHAPTER 10
• “They are new to me. I
found them growing
on a grave, which
bore no tombstone, no
other memorial of the
dead man, save these
ugly weeds that have
taken upon themselves
to keep him in
remembrance. “
CHAPTER 11
• “A new thought had
struck him. There might
be a moment's peace
in it.”
CHAPTER 12
• “If the same multitude
which had stood as
eyewitnesses while
Hester Prynne sustained
her punishment could
now have been
summoned forth, they
would have discerned
no face above the
platform, nor hardly the
outline of a human
shape, in the dark gray
of the midnight.”