What does Hester refuse to do while on the scaffold in front of the entire town?

What does Hester refuse to do while on the scaffold in front of the entire town?

Inquiring, the man learns of Hester’s history, her crime (adultery), and her sentence: to stand on the scaffold for three hours and to wear the symbolic letter A for the rest of her life. The stranger also learns that Hester refuses to name the man with whom she had the sexual affair.

What causes Hester’s infant to cry out while she’s standing on the scaffold?

What causes Hester’s infant to cry out while she’s standing on the scaffold? She is frightened by the shouting of the angry crowd. A piece of rotten fruit thrown at Hester accidentally hits her.

What happens in the first scaffold scene in The Scarlet Letter?

The first scaffold scene, which occurs in Chapters 1-3, focuses on Hester and the scarlet letter. She stands on the scaffold with quiet defiance, holding her baby in her arms. The townspeople are present to pass judgement, just as they will be in the final scaffold scene.

Who does she recognize in the crowd as she is standing on the scaffold?

Looking into the crowd from her place on the scaffold, Hester recognizes her husband, who she has not seen for some two years now, because “one of [his] shoulders rose higher than the other.” He was believed to have been lost at sea, but it appears that he was shipwrecked and then abducted by natives of the continent.

Why did Hester have to stand on the scaffold?

Hester Prynne, a woman who has committed adultery and will not name the father of her child, is forced to stand upon the scaffold in shame for three hours in front of a crowd of people.

How does Hester handle her punishment on the scaffold?

Their beliefs reflect the strict adherence to religious values and morals in their society. What is Hester’s punishment? Hester has to stand on the scaffold for three hours to be mocked, and is required to wear an embroidered scarlet letter “A” on her chest for the rest of her life.

What does Hester reflect on while standing?

What does Hester reflect on while standing before the crowd? Her childhood home in England. He wants to seek revenge on Hester’s lover.

What do you think is the narrator’s intention in telling Hester’s story?

Which statement best characterizes the narrator’s intention in telling Hester’s story? He wants to set the record straight with a definitive account of the events. He wants to compose a work that, while not factually accurate, preserves the spirit of her story.

What happens on the scaffold in The Scarlet Letter?

When Dimmesdale sees Hester and Pearl being tormented in the town square at the novel’s climax, he mounts the scaffold and calls them to his side. Then, he reveals a scarlet ‘A’ carved into the flesh on his own chest.

What does the scaffold represent?

The scaffold represents truth and is an important symbol of the difference between Hester and Dimmesdale’s situations. It shows the contrast between public shame and inner struggle. The scaffold supports Hawthorne’s point that true repentence cannot occur until sin becomes public.

How is Hester described in the first scaffold scene?

She is, in the end, a survivor. Hester is physically described in the first scaffold scene as a tall young woman with a “figure of perfect elegance on a large scale.”. Her most impressive feature is her “dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam.”.

How does the reader meet Hester Prynne in Scarlet Letter?

The reader first meets the incredibly strong Hester on the scaffold with Pearl in her arms, beginning her punishment. On the scaffold, she displays a sense of irony and contempt. The irony is present in the elaborate needlework of the scarlet letter.

What happens to Hester when she takes off her cap?

When she removes the letter and takes off her cap in Chapter 13, she once again becomes the radiant beauty of seven years earlier. Symbolically, when Hester removes the letter and takes off the cap, she is, in effect, removing the harsh, stark, unbending Puritan social and moral structure.

Why was Hester made a living sermon in the Scarlet Letter?

The town has made Hester into a “living sermon,” as Chillingworth puts it, because she is stripped of her humanity and made to serve the needs of the community. Her punishment is expressed in violent terms.