Scarlet+Letter+Chapter+5

Mrs. Ryan (#1 Scarlet Letter scholar in eastern Massachusetts) English III Accelerated //The Scarlet Letter// Notes

Chapter 5: //Hester at her Needle//
 * H can finally leave the prison; she feels both trapped and encouraged by the law that sent her to jail. It both punishes her and gives her direction for living her life.
 * She realizes she will be the symbol for young sin and the subject of many sermons because of her actions, even in death: “And over her grave, the infamy that she must carry thither would be her only monument” (82). She has become her sin, no longer a person.
 * H decides not to flee the country because here she can seek salvation and “purge her soul” (84).
 * She lives in a “small thatched cottage” located “on the outskirts of the town” (84). Many people come close enough to spy on H but not close enough to interact with her
 * H spends time on needlework to support herself. Many Puritans wore plain clothing. However those with titles and importance liked fine work and wore the clothes H embroidered especially for “public ceremonies, such as ordinations [and] the installation of magistrates” as well as at funerals and for “Baby linen” (85-86).
 * H’s works becomes fashionable and is seen “on the ruff of the Governor; military men wore it on their scarfs, and the minister on his band” (86). The only thing she is never asked to embroider is wedding garments because of her sin; brides are seen as too pure to touch her sin even indirectly.
 * H wears plain clothes but makes extravagantly embroidered clothes for Pearl; living embodiment of the SL.
 * Often people tease H, but she merely prays for them in return
 * H also dreads other children and they sense her fear/ follow and mock her