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Mistress Hibbins In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

656 Words3 Pages

Title “ The Market-place” and “The Recognition” BEFORE READING I inferred that it’s not actually about a market-place, or it doesn’t takes place in market or anything but it is too crowded therefore the author might call it a marketplace. AFTER READING -Hester is publicly ashamed in the marketplace for committing adultery. -Someone recognizes Hester while she is on the platform. Vocabulary - “Amongst any other population, or at a later period in the history of New England, the grim rigidity that petrified the bearded physiognomies of these good people would have augured some awful business in hand.” (Hawthorne 75) - “This personage prefigured and represented in his aspect the whole dismal severity of the Puritanic code of law, which it was his business to administer …show more content…

Supernatural - “It might be, too, that a witch, like old Mistress Hibbins, the bitter tempered widow of the magistrate, was to die upon the gallows.” (Hawthorne 76) - “It had the affect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.” (Hawthorne 82) - Mistress Hibbins is called a witch, which absolutely shows an example of supernatural. But we are not sure if Hawthorne believes she is a witch; it’s more likely that he is talking with the tongue of Puritan community. - The Scarlet Letter had an affect of a spell, which means that the spell took her out of the ordinary life and turned it into a supernatural life. Character The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam; and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes. Hester is physically described by Hawthorne as a rusty gold, to show actually how beautiful she is but what has Puritan turned her

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