as the crowd watches, hester prynne, a young woman holding an infant, emerges from the prison door and makes her way to a scaffold (a raised platform), where she is to be publicly condemned. the women in the crowd make disparaging comments about hester; they particularly criticize her for the ornateness of the embroidered badge on her chest—a letter “a” stitched in gold and scarlet. from the women’s conversation and hester’s reminiscences as she walks through the crowd, we can deduce that she has committed adultery and has borne an illegitimate child, and that the “a” on her dress stands for “adulterer.”
the beadle calls hester forth. children taunt her and adults stare. scenes from hester’s earlier life flash through her mind: she sees her parents standing before their home in rural england, then she sees a “misshapen” scholar, much older than herself, whom she married and followed to continental europe. but now the present floods in upon her, and she inadvertently squeezes the infant in her arms, causing it to cry out. she regards her current fate with disbelief.
explanation:
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