Custom House: The story takes place in Massachusetts during the late seventeenth century.
Chapter 1: The setting of the story takes place in a colony of the New World called Boston. It appears that a lot of description is put into the jail as well. The legend that accounts for the existence of the rose bush is that it sprung up from the footsteps of Ann Hutchinson as she entered the prison. Hawthorne begins the story with a reflection about the need for a cemetery and a prison because he likely wanted to illustrate the amount of deaths caused by the harsh environment of the New World while also emphasizing the fact that the Puritans had very strict rules in order to create a “Utopia of human virtue and happiness” (33). Hawthorne may also be setting the mood for the story as the idea of imprisonment and death are both very somber
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By laying his fingers on his lips, the stranger motioned Hester to stay quiet and to not reveal any connections between the two. The possible punishment for the crime of adultery is death. Hester’s sentence was to face public humiliation on the scaffold of the pillory for three hours and wear the letter “A” for the remainder of her life. She may have been given a less harsh punishment due to her young age and also because of the belief that Hester’s husband had perished “at the bottom of the sea” (43). The three reasons that are given as to why Hester commits adultery are that she was “left to her own misguidance” or her own temptation, that she had already lost her husband so was more inclined to find someone else, and that she did not love her previous husband as much, which is proven when she says to her husband that “I felt no love, or feigned any” (51). The reason given is that he was a clergyman, or priest. Hence, he was speaking to Hester in order to make her confess the truth. Dimmesdale was responsible for her because it was of “spiritual matters” in a way, which was his